What do you do with a tale, a story, a novel or a screenplay, which doesn’t develop, which got stuck?
Let it go!
At least, for a while.
I’ll put it on my “dump” (or into the archives). Possibly years later, the option will arise again to approach the missing/disruptive/unharmonious elements that require the “letting go”-aspect with a fresh and different way.
Sometimes all that’s missing is a sparking thought or the courage to erase – or write in – certain things.
This happened with a significant scene from my Kyle-novel.
30 years ago, this happened: In the evening, after I had finished writing a homework, the thought came over me that I could actually write a story. It was an encounter between Kyle and a blonde beauty on an icy wasteland, and an intense scene in a tent took place.
Fragments of this story you found in the novel, but the original is floating somewhere out there in Nirvana.
Why? Because at that time I had learned the bitter lesson that one should save this work regularly: The first story was so long at the end of the night that it took up more space on the 5 ¼-inch floppy disk than there was room for (this was before hard drives). And since the (self-written) software did not provide for the case “Please make room”, I could ‘not save’.
I had forgotten the story, but little by little, it revealed itself again while reworking. And it became a key-scene: Kyle and Alexandra in the tent, the moment of metamorphosis…
Thank you, universe! Nothing gets away from you 😉
The Narrative Designer's Workshop 