Writer's Block and the Power of "And."

Our upcoming workshop, led by Michael Little...

In our search for plots, characters, and story titles, we often overlook that common little conjunction. Would "Romeo" by himself be a good title? But what if we add "and" and then come up with "Juliet"? Now we're cooking. Or "Butch Cassidy" by himself? Better to add "and the Sundance Kid." What's a better title: War? or War and Peace?

Storytelling aside, "peanut butter" is good, but add "and jelly" and you have a sandwich. Just the word "conjunction" is all about expanding and making connections. Ask Google:

conjunction:

(used to connect grammatically coordinated words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with;
pens and pencils. as well as; in addition to; besides; also; moreover:

added to; plus:
2 and 2 are 4.

then:
He read for an hour and went to bed.

also, at the same time:
to sleep and dream.

For my current short story in progress, I dreamed up a main character named Stormy Lamour (years before Stormy Daniels made the news). Stormy Lamour lives in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I like her name and made her the story title "Stormy Lamour." Her mother works at the Piggly Wiggly, and I finally improved the title with "Stormy Lamour and the Piggly Wiggly." Piggly Wiggly says comedy, and it's important because the Piggly Wiggly is next to the town library, and Stormy is going to meet the young librarian there, and he sees her dancing in a club in Little Rock one weekend and his father is a Baptist minister in Pine Bluff so it's going to be a problem and also part of a long run-on sentence, but that's one way to create a plot, with lots of "and's."

We'll also take a look at writer's block and its most dangerous outcomes in Stephen King's novel The Shining and the Kubrick 1980 film The Shining:
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and his son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who is plagued by psychic premonitions. As Jack's writing goes nowhere and Danny's visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel's dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing his family. (Wikipedia)