Word Searches as Writing Techniques

I am deep in the process of revamping my study now that my oldest has moved out of the house, and one of the things I’ve been discovering is the large number of puzzle books I have tucked in various corners. As a reward for all my hard work, I’ve been allowing myself one puzzle from each book I find before diving back in.

At this point you’re starting to wonder what cleaning my room has to do with writing in general, and “story block” in specific. No, I’m not heading to a “do cleaning to clear your mind” though that often works. What I realized was a little more complicated than that.

One of my so-called guilty pleasures is to do word searches. I never buy a book with only word searches anymore, because they’re too easy and so fail to provide the mental stimulation that keeps my brain nimble…my excuse for buying puzzle books at all. However, in my cleaning, I found a word search book that I never finished, one quite possibly from my childhood, and in doing my treat puzzle, I realized word searches have much in common with overcoming blocks when writing.

The basic process for a word search is to look for the words. Sometimes you can skim the page; sometimes you have to go row by row, column by column, and diagonal by diagonal. As someone who can read both upside down and backwards, this isn’t as hard as it should be, but at the same time, there are always a couple of words that manage to hide in plain sight.

Here’s where the analogy comes in:

The standard techniques have clear analogs in writing. The skim to find easy words is much like writing those scenes that leap out at you, grab your fingers, and practically type themselves. The methodical search is more like fleshing out the work via brainstorming, outlining, mind mapping, or other techniques to make the seemingly impossible possible.

Then there are those places where you freeze up, where the words will not form concepts no matter how many ways you try to sneak up on the point, no matter how many false starts you throw away in disgust until you are fully aware you’ve reached a “story block.” It’s similar to the often decried writers block, except that it has to do with a particular story as opposed to the writer as a whole.

Here’s where the advanced word search techniques come into play.

For those words you cannot find no matter what you try, the best way to uncover them is to deny them the status of words.

Okay, that sounds weird, but think about it for a second.

Something about that word has denied your ability to see the letter pattern as a whole, just like something about that point in your story is obscuring the path. By denying it word status, it becomes a jumble of symbols, letters, in which you can find one of those “leap out at you words.”

For example, from the word search that brought forth this revelation, I had “managers” (its theme is the minor leagues). It turned out the word was a backwards diagonal, but it could have been written out straight on a single line and my eyes wouldn’t have seen it. So, I broke the word down and chose “mana” as my leap out word. Lo and behold, I found the unfindable in seconds despite its reversed order and diagonal tilt to the right side of the page. Another one was “practice” for which I chose “act.” I could have as easily chosen “ice” or “tic,” but the point remains the same.

So how does this relate to writing?

Think of the paragraph or scene that has you in its icy grip as one of those words, the ones your eyes refuse to comprehend or identify no matter how many times you look at the letters. You can write out new starts all day and end up with nothing but (often virtual) scraps of paper balled up in the trash can.

Instead, deny the section its form. Reject the concept of coherent scene, paragraph, or whatever. Attack the problem from a completely different angle by taking a single element out of context.

Even if that element doesn’t provide the answer, odds are the very fact that it doesn’t will trick your brain into teasing you with the reason it doesn’t, thus revealing the true problem.

Maybe the first element isn’t the right one and you have to try one or two more, whether changing the POV, focusing on a plot seed, or adding or removing a character, but the technique isn’t so much about what you break it down into. When I was looking for “mana,” I was really looking for “managers,” for example. The point is that something about that spot has you stymied. What the technique offers is a way to tackle the problem sideways instead of head on. Don’t bash against the same wall. Build a ladder, dig under it, or just walk around the side.

I’ll give a concrete example of this technique in use from a NaNo novel a couple of years back. Some people once they start writing can jot down “X scene goes here” and spin along on their merry way. I had a scene I couldn’t quite visualize, and I wanted those words so badly that I gave “X scene goes here” a try. After all, any technique’s worth trying once to see if it works for you.

I got two scenes ahead and ground to a halt. I didn’t know why, and so kept pushing and pushing forward, adding words, sure, but ones I knew in my gut weren’t worth the pixels to display them. I tried everything I could think of to get past this block, pulling out every technique I’d heard mentioned in any context, but nothing worked.

It wasn’t until I took a step back, denying the block its place in the scheme of my story, and broke down what was holding me back that I learned I was not one who could put a flag in place of a scene and continue forward. I needed to hop backward and write that scene as best I could at the time, even though I still couldn’t get it to visualize the way I preferred. And suddenly, I was off again, not only adding new words, but discovering that much of what I’d written before the missing scene’s pull grew too strong, was viable.

I’ve seen too many people give up on a project, or give up on writing altogether, when faced with a story block that defies comprehension. To them I say deny it the right to make your writing decisions for you and come at the section backwards, sideways, upside down, however you need to break it up until you know what’s really going on.

So, how about you? Do you have a tale of when non-linear thinking saved the day in your writing? And because I’m extra curious, how many out there share my love of word searches?

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2 Responses to Word Searches as Writing Techniques

  1. Texanne says:

    Just dropping a note to let you know that I was here. (Now I wish I had some kind of mark to leave, like Kilroy.)

    That’s an interesting technique for finding a long word that’s got you all mustard-blind. Oh…Mustard blindness is when you can’t see what’s inches from your face. Like when you’re facing into the refrigerator and hollering, “Where’s the &)^* mustard?” and your spouse or kid swings by and grabs the mustard which was, in fact, close enough to bite you, and right out in plain sight. I am the biggest user of mustard in the family, so I’m the prime sufferer of mustard blindness. There hasn’t been a cure for it, but next time I’ll try looking just for the last syllable (which spell check will NOT allow me to type by itself. Aargh!

    • Margaret McGaffey Fisk says:

      Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for leaving a note.

      We do have the phrase, If it were a bear, it would have bit you. Hiding in plain sight. Good luck with your mustard trials.

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