I've come to a point in my current work-in-progress where I have no idea what happens next. I need to somehow connect two major events--one just written, the other happening in a couple days of story-time--without completely boring the heck out of my readers by getting bogged down in details. These are some of the questions writers have to ask themselves all the time: What's important here? What's going to propel the story forward? What needs to happen, and what can't happen yet? What's most natural for my characters to do at this moment?
One writer, whose name I forget, gave the following solution to writer's block: "Send in a man with a gun." While I can't do that literally, I can still follow the underlying advice: make something unexpected happen--something to make the characters (and readers) jump. I don't think it will be quite as drastic as a man with a gun, however.
I'll let you know if I come up with something.
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