Pick a section of your piece that isn’t working, or just pick the most recent section you’ve written. If you’re writing a novel, pick a scene; if a short story, pick a paragraph; if a poem, a line or a stanza. Then expand on it. Radically. Stay within the action or image of the section, but overwrite it, make it florid, pack it with details. You’re not editing now, you’re generating. Remember that you can always cut it back later.
Always make a backup copy of your work before making any radical changes.
This tip is from 19 Tricks to Shatter Writer’s Block. If you missed any of the previous tips, you can find them all in the Hack Your Noodle section of Read Write Repeat.
I’m a fiction writer, so my tricks are developed for fiction writers, but most of them can help you no matter what you’re writing, whether that’s poetry, memoir, song lyrics, a screenplay, a business presentation, or even a school paper.