8 Techniques to Use When You Write Yourself into a Corner
August 6, 2026 | Ian Everett
Hello George RR Martin. Or any other such writer who has found themselves in the precarious situation of having written themselves into a corner. Yes, yes, we understand that the delicious tears of your audience were too sweet to resist, the siren call of leaving your readers desperate to find some sort of solution to the problems you have crafted too strong for you.
But now that you’ve chased that high, ridden that lightning, surrendered to your temptations, you’re left with nothing but regret and a knot you don’t know how to untangle. The contrivances of plot have trapped you into walking down the wrong road. You think that this is it – this is how your book ends. An incomplete draft that has ossified into a broken shape. You’ve found yourself trapped in a horrible corner that makes you feel like you should break out a stool chair and a dunce cap
Take a deep breath. You got a name? You got a family? That’s what it’s all about.
Today, we’re going to learn how to bust out of a corner in your novel.
Now, while GRRM can’t employ some of the techniques I’m going to discuss, mostly due to the fact that the corner he wrote himself into is currently published… the average writer in the drafting phase of their process will find some of the following advice useful in busting out of a corner.
Writing yourself into a corner is an incredible frustrating experience. Stop me if you’ve felt these before:
You can’t figure out why a scene isn’t working, despite being on draft 5
You’ve realized that your antagonist should win by all rights, without the intervention of a deus ex machina (an ass pull, as the kids are calling it these days)
You can’t figure out how to get a character from point A to point B, because you can’t imagine them deviating from their course even just a little
The scene just feels bland, boring, or dumb, like the characters are performing a script and not actually experiencing the events of the story.
These feelings can feel a lot like Burn Out or Writer’s Block, but what they signal may actually be within the text, not your mind.
REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: KILL YOUR DARLINGS
The story is not immutable. You are allowed to make severe and drastic changes if a situation isn’t working. Give yourself permission to write your story as you see fit, which includes slicing bits away that aren’t working. A lot of writers might feel uncomfortable with this idea. Perhaps you’ve filled out a meticulous worksheet about every plot beat and plan on hitting every single one like you’re in a timed target course. Or you’ve outlined your character’s every internal aspect, from how they view justice to their preference in shoes, and that means they must act a certain way always, even if it lands you in a corner.
But hear me on this: writers are artists. There are other creative artists we can look to for inspiration in how we work. A sculptor doesn’t leave lumps in their work they don’t want, and a musician doesn’t leave notes they don’t think are working in a song. A sketch artist has an eraser for a reason.
All that to say: a corner is not impossible to escape. You’re not beyond the narrative event horizon (again, unless you are GRRM because Danaerys still hasn’t gotten to Westeros). So, before you succumb to despair, give these different techniques a try:
TECHNIQUE #1: WORK BACKWARDS
If you find out your character is stuck in a situation and you don’t know how they’d solve it given the current circumstances and their current ability… then change the current circumstances and their current ability by adding in scenes earlier to match what you want to happen now.
Go back and write in scenes of your character learning how to tackle this specific problem. For example, if they need to demonstrate some kind of skill with a weapon or know how to disable a certain technology the antagonist uses, go back to earlier within your story and include a scene that shows them training with said weapon or learning about how the technology works.
You can try giving your antagonist a flaw that your protagonist can exploit, and foreshadow this in previous chapters during drafting or editing. For example, what if a greedy businessman is undone when his greed and corruption are exposed to the authorities who actually do something about it this time? (We can dream, right?) This allows you to build out characters a bit more as well, so I’m a big personal fan of it.
Giving your character knowledge of a crucial piece of information right now while you are drafting and not later for this scene. Once you’re in the editing phase, you can then figure out how they know it and write that as an earlier scene in your book.
TECHNIQUE #2: ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES
Okay, so you realize your character is stuck… the situation is untenable… they’re going to lose, something bad is going to happen, and you didn’t plan it… You’ve perhaps convinced yourself that the only outcome of defeat is death. What if, instead, you accepted the situation you’ve written… and allowed those circumstances to change the story?
Let’s say you’re writing an epic fantasy focused on great battles of good versus evil. Your hero loses to the villain, who accomplishes his big disastrous plan. The end. But why does that have to be the end?
What if there’s a next chapter? Hell, the Hero’s Journey and Three Act Structure both bake in a deep loss into their formulas.
So ask yourself: What happens then? Is the hero spared or perhaps thrown in prison? What if instead of being executed, they are exiled from the kingdom? There are so many ways this could go besides death. By following those ways, you are not just getting yourself out of the corner you wrote, but you are also expanding on your characters (like your villain, who may now be a bit more merciful or reasonable than a stock Evil Cartoon Bad Guy).
TECHNIQUE #3: SLEEP ON IT
This technique is for those late nights where you’ve been writing for the last three hours and you feel like you’re about to pass out, but you absolutely NEED to figure this out right now. Proper sleep schedule be damned.
This is where the lines between “writing yourself into a corner” and “writer’s block” blur. Sometimes, you’re just mentally or physically worn out, and thus can’t see what might be an obvious solution. If you’re feeling stuck on a scene and you glance at the clock and see an AM while it’s dark out, what it could mean is just that you need a break. Stop burning the candle at both ends, go wrap yourself up in a fuzzy blanket, and let your subconscious mind do the work of trying to untangle the plot! I promise that letting it lie for one night won’t kill you.
TECHNIQUE #4: UNTIGHTEN THE KNOT
If you find yourself writing into a corner, it might be because you’ve made the situation too tense or too specific, whether about your character’s abilities or something else. It might be time to loosen the belt a bit and give yourself a bit of wiggle room:
Say you’re writing some kind of romance plot where the love interest’s family is against the protagonist and has been from the start. What if you reimagined them as a diverse crew where they aren’t so completely hateful to your protagonist, even if some of them do outright oppose your character. Once you have multiple camps within one faction, perhaps they can be swayed by your character being a little more persuasive than you initially imagined?
Or imagine you’re writing an epic spaceship battle between your hero and an enemy who carries some kind of EMP device that disables other ships without fail, giving them a perfect counter to more skilled pilots or more outfitted ships. Perhaps you can you introduce the hero having fashioned a shield of some kind against EMPs, giving her the advantage now.
Or you’re writing a thriller where your protagonist needs to be able to break and enter either through picking a lock or smashing a window, but they’re a bus driver by day. What if hiding in your bus driver’s backstory is a brush with criminal enterprise such as working for smugglers?
TECHNIQUE #5: WRITE IN A TWIST
Everyone is familiar with the Deus Ex Machina. But in case you’re not, the idea is that when the heroes face absolute defeat, they are rescued by an unexpected event that is not established by any previous scene in the story.
Tolkien also coined a term: eucatastrophes, where a sudden, unexpected miracle subverts defeat. These aren’t exactly the same idea as the Deus Ex Machina: the eucatastrophe should still be obvious from narrative logic, while a Deus Ex Machina truly comes from outside of the story and has no precedent.
But what I’d like to introduce you to is the Deus Ex Machina’s insane cousin. Or the eucatastrophe’s regular form. I like to think of it as the Salted Earth, myself.
Rather than reaching a hand down into the situation to solve everything for your protagonist… what if you reach a hand down and make things worse for everyone? What if the battlefield is leveled and everyone loses their shiny toys? What if two rival politicians have their feud interrupted by the next World War?
Or perhaps your hero and villain are clashing as the hero’s ragtag band tries to take over the castle, station, or whatever depending on genre… when suddenly the mercenary the villain hired sets the whole damn place on fire!
Putting everyone on equal grounds or presenting them with a common problem could help you take the story in a new direction, rather than ending in a confrontation that has a foregone conclusion. Now the villain has to figure things out from square zero, just like the hero does.
TECHNIQUE #6: GET OUTSIDE HELP
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with phoning in a friend. Find someone whose creative opinion you trust, who you know understands your niche even if they don’t necessarily like it and can give you advice that will conform with genre expectations and tropes. Ask them if they can see a way out of the corner you’ve written. New eyes can help you spot things you didn’t think of! Just be sure to give them a cut of the massive royalties from your bestseller. Or at least take them to a nice steak dinner every now and again.
TECHNIQUE #7: REREAD
Something helpful if you’re ever feeling stuck, but might be high effort and time intensive, is to reread your work from the start up to where you are stuck. You’ll find your brain making connections or creating new ideas as you read your way to the corner. The solution may hide within those connections! For example, you could realize that your protagonist picked up a skill or an item they can use in their final confrontation.
TECHNIQUE #8: WHAT CORNER?
This is the most painful one.
Delete it.
Try again. Find a different path. Your outline is not a religious text or binding law. It is a mere suggestion. If the original scenario doesn’t work at all, time to think up a new scenario. And I share your pain, for I’ve had to do this on my current WIP for the ending.
EXERCISES TO HELP BREAK A CORNER
Let’s try some exercises that might help get you out of that corner:
Restriction Exercise – Write a complete story in 100 words or less. What words do you use? What is most important?
Deletion Exercise – Take a scene from your book and put it in a separate document. Reduce the words in this scene by half, at least.
Reverse Outline Exercise – Take the outline of your novel (if you have one) and delete all but the premise and the ending. Rewrite your outline but going from the ending to the beginning.
Dear writers, friends, compatriots. We all know that writing yourself into a corner is inevitable. Clearly, even the most published among us have stumbled into this problem. But it’s not about how many times you write yourself into a corner. It’s how many times you write yourself out of one.
If you find yourself trapped in a corner, the Tomeworks editors are here to help! A developmental editor focuses on revising plots and narratives, adding, removing, or relocating scenes within the story, refining character arcs, and ensuring a novel has a hooky intro, a solid middle section, and a satisfying conclusion. Interested? Contact us for a consultation today!