So my general advice is going to come back to “Just Write”, but maybe you could do a few brainstorming exercises to see if a spark catches.
Do you have an ending in mind? Work backwards from there to see if you can develop the plot points you need to hit.
Look at the story from the perspective of a character that’s not the protagonist. Maybe there’s something you’re missing by looking too closely at one character.
Write 20 ideas for plot points, then eliminate until you have the best or most successful sounding. Do any of them relate to each other? Outline them into your story.
But really, Just Write! The more you write, the more you open up your brain to being creative. You might need to trash 3 chapters it takes you to get to the one good one, but that one chapter could be the inspiration for the conclusion of your story, or could completely change everything you had written before.
I recently finished the last chapter of a 96,000 word book, and the prize for that is that I get to start over from the beginning to write the real story that only developed in the last hundred pages or so. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t just sat down and written and looked for things to reveal themselves.
(And if I didn’t have amazing friends I could bounce ideas off of!)
1 year
