We have all experienced writer's block in some capacity when writing novels or short stories. Perhaps you had a great idea for a novel, but once you sit down to write it, you realize that the idea is so small that it doesn't constitute an entire novel. You may realize that you will need to develop additional storylines and characters to make it work and this may be a huge disappointment. Your idea may be scrapped on the editing table after you have worked through various scenarios to make it work. However, you can get inspired by minor scenes to make your novel work if you know what to look for.

When you find a great novel idea, you don't have to have everything worked out before you start writing. Instead, you can focus on what you don't want the book to be. You start with a simple idea of what you think the plot should be, and then you continue to develop that idea into a paragraph. Later, you develop that paragraph into an entire page. By stretching out your idea, you are not creating additional scenes just for the sake creating filler content in your novel.

Find inspiration from others

When you are stretching your idea from a single sentence that you have previously written down to a full page, you may run into the issue of trying to write additional content. You don't want to add to much additional content, including storylines and characters, just to make it a novel.

Instead, you want to build on your own idea and keep your own characters the main priority.

One way to keep the focus on your own story is to take Inspiration from stories that may be similar to what you're writing. You can reinvent Scene from a book by taking a seemingly nonimportant scene from a novel and then rework it so it fits your narrative.

For example, you can change the course of the characters in the scene, add one or more unique elements to the scene, but perhaps change the outcome of the scene depending on how it fits with your novel.

But do avoid plagiarism

Many would argue that there are no original ideas left in the world when it comes to writing a novel.

Others could argue that this isn't necessarily true especially if you have a really unique idea. While it is quite all right to borrow inspiration from a novel that someone else has written, it is not all right to downright steal an idea and copy it for your book. For example, if you use the exact same scene, exact same type of characters, and perhaps even some of the same language spoken by the characters in your novel that have appeared in another novel, you could be in serious legal trouble.

There is the issue of copyright and writers must protect their own work. If you find yourself taking too much of someone else's work as you try to reinvent the scene, stop and delete what you're writing and start over. You don't want to end up in any form of trouble.

Have you ever tried to reinvent the scene from a book as inspiration for your novel? How did you find that work for you?