The One Tool Writers Need to Smash Through Creative Blocks

by Angela Ackerman

My co-author Becca Puglisi and I both struggled with how to show our characters’ emotions in a compelling way.

We found our characters were always frowning or shrugging and it pulled down the effectiveness of our scenes. So, to force ourselves to think beyond the first descriptions that came to mind (which typically were well-used or cliché ideas) we built brainstorming lists, tackling a single emotion at a time and writing down all the ways a person might express that emotion: body language, actions, dialogue cues, visceral sensations, and thoughts, thinking about different intensity levels for each.

The result? Our writing improved quickly.

Simply scanning these ideas helped put us into our character’s mindset so we could better imagine their specific behavior in a scene. Once our brains latched onto the perfect idea to describe their feelings, we adapted it into a fresh beat of description that showed rather than told, making it much more evocative to read.

We shared these initial lists with a few folks in our writing group and then decided to create a blog so we could share them with everyone.

Despite having no platform to speak of, these lists went viral, leading us to the realization that many struggled to write effective emotion, not just us.

We Couldn’t Afford to Wait for the Slow Engine of Traditional Publishing

Originally we’d hoped to go the traditional route [in publishing], but because we were unpublished at that time, and had no credibility to draw on as experts (such as being editors for publishing houses or well-known agents) we realized this would be an uphill battle, especially as we were introducing a new concept: a book of lists.

This was a new idea back in 2012 and in the rigid space of education, new isn’t always a good thing.

These challenges, combined with the discovery that someone had scraped The Emotion Thesaurus content from our website and was distributing it, made us see we couldn’t afford to wait for the slow engine of traditional publishing.

Self-publishing was looked down on back then, but we felt we had a strong audience and something to offer that was really needed, so we took the leap.

We Help Writers Make Every Word Count in Their Stories

We researched the best way to go about it, and outsourced editing, cover design, and formatting to ensure we had a professional book that would be indistinguishable from traditionally publishing writing guides.

Since that first volume we’ve added six others that help writers make every word count in their stories. Our method is to take an area of description that is important for writers to master such as Setting, Character Traits, Emotional Wounds, etc. and research it deeply. Then we look at the different facets of that topic (so for Settings, a facet would be a specific location) and create brainstorming lists of detail that will be very helpful to writers wanting to draw readers in deeper through show, not tell.

The guides can be used independently, or together.

Smash Through Creative Blocks and Awaken Your Imagination

Writers typically struggle with description because while a story is achingly vivid in their minds, getting it onto the page with the same strength and color can be challenging.

Powerful writing is hard work. There’s a learning curve, and many storytelling elements to juggle, and it all takes time to master. I think insecurity and anxiety plays a card, too. We all know how hard of an industry this is. Whether it’s a rejection letter or ten, poor sales, or a book we love but we ultimately drawer because we can’t find someone to take it on…this can be a heart-heavy industry. We end up questioning our skills, the freshness of our writing, and if we have the talent to call ourselves authors.

This can get into our heads and stymie creativity or lead to writer’s block.

Our thesaurus guides are made to smash through these blocks and awaken the imagination so writers do what they do best: put their creativity onto the page.

The Key to Marketing: Deliver Value to Your Readers

One area of authordom that can be a struggle is marketing; we’re creatives, not selling machines.

However, being an author these days means taking the reins and putting on the marketing hat. Personally, I struggle with the “look at me” approach, but I excel at understanding the needs of my audience and building relationships. So that’s what I focus on – I deliver value, so much value that it earns the trust of the people I help.

This means they are open-minded enough to try a book or two, and then once they understand how these guides will help them, some will plow through the entire series (thank you, dear readers—you keep my lights on!).

There is No “Easy Button” When It Comes to Book Marketing

I find a lot of authors are looking for the easy button when it comes to marketing. They want to find “that one thing” that is easy, fast, and will sell a ton of books.

The reality is, there IS no easy button. But, provided you have written a strong book, building relationships with your readers IS the route to success. Relationships take time to build and you need to put a lot of energy into helping them flourish, but genuine ones will turn readers into fans who promote for you.

It doesn’t matter if you write fiction or non-fiction. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, figure out what they need, like, or will find fun and entertaining, and then deliver it. Over-deliver it.

And open the door to your life and welcome them in. Make them insiders and they will not just stay with you for a book, they will stay with you throughout your career. (Here’s more on building a fanbase if you’d like help in this area. I also have a lot of marketing-related resources in the Marketing Section here.)

It’s Been Unreal to Help Other Writers

I have heard from writers all over the world about how our writing guides have helped them get their books published and that feels…well, I honestly struggle to find words. (I know, I know, as a description specialist, this is ironic!)

But it’s amazing to know that something I created in part has helped so many because helping people is a big part of who I am. Becca and I have heard from NYT Bestselling authors, agents, editors, university professors, actors, psychologists, teachers…and we feel so much gratitude to the writing community that helped us grow and develop so we could in turn write books to help others.

Our books have gained audiences in other languages too, which again, wow. I get a big thrill out of having to use Google Translate to read a tweet from a writer in another country.

Once I had the unique pleasure of watching a recording of a TV show where a translation of ours was featured and discussed for ten amazing minutes. One of our books hit #1 out of all books sold on Amazon in Japan. It’s been unreal, and I just feel so honored to have this chance to help other writers.

How We Started Out Writing Platform All Wrong

I mentioned building our blog as the roots of growing an audience for our books, but ironically we totally went about it all the wrong way.

When Becca and I were getting close to where we felt we could publish our fiction (we both write Middle Grade and YA) there was a lot of buzz online about creating a platform. So we thought we should do that but had no idea what to blog about, so we did what many writers do—created a blog about writing.

This is great if your audience is writers, but at the time, our readers would have been children, so we should have focused on topics that they would find interesting and cater mainly to the gatekeepers of that group – librarians, teachers (and their classrooms), home schooling parents, etc.

And while the majority of our first blog readers were other writers of children’s fiction, they aren’t our primary audience. Now in our case, we ended up publishing writing guides and so our blog audience was a fit, but that’s not where we first started out.

How We Figured Out Our Platform Niche

I think what happened is in creating our blog Becca and I recognized we were strong teachers, and seeing as we both are deeply motivated to help others, seeking out ways to apply our knowledge to be a part of the chain in the writing community was a natural fit.

We’ve embraced this wholeheartedly by also developing One Stop for Writers, which is a subscription site. We created it because while Becca and I love writing books, they can be a bit limiting (page count, format, application) for the type of list-making we do.

At One Stop for Writers we’ve been able to put all our thesauruses together (we have 7 books, but 15 thesauruses and growing!). Not only that, we’ve created smart tools that use these databases of information, drastically demystifying some of the hardest areas of storytelling.

Because we have the trust of our audience, some have dropped by One Stop for Writers to see what it is about and taken the Free Trial for a spin. Others have our books and perhaps incorrectly think that the site is nothing different from those, so this is an area we’ll have to work on as we’re bringing new tools to the storytelling table just as we brought a new concept to life so long ago called The Emotion Thesaurus.

In all honestly Becca and I have been far more focused on building innovative tools at the site to date than marketing it, but this will need to change in order for us to hire more developers so we can continue to create tools that we know will greatly help writers. It’s what we love to do.

Advice for a Young Writer: Establish Yourself as an Authority

I think it’s important to really establish yourself as an authority on the topic you wish to write about, and this means studying extensively.

Perhaps one reason why Becca and I went in the direction we did is that we took a year off writing early on to study writing craft books. As partners we would read the same book and discuss the lessons, so this meant together we absorbed so much more than alone.

I would also recommend anyone looking to write non-fiction study the market and see what is out there. Then figure out what you can add that is fresh and different, meeting a need that is being missed or tackling a niche that has been overlooked.

Chances are if you are interested in it, others will be too, and it’s just a matter of finding your audience and connecting with them once the book is out there in the world.

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Angela Ackerman is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author the popular writing guide The Emotion Thesaurus and its many sequels. Her books have sold over half a million copies and are available in multiple languages, and are used by universities, novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world.

She is also the co-founder of Writers Helping Writers as well as One Stop for Writers, a game-changing creativity portal that makes planning, writing, and revising a novel much easier. If you like, power up your keyboard and take One Stop’s Free Trial for a test drive.

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