The premise here is pretty typical: Uber driver after the apocalypse. But for the longest time I couldn’t actually get the story down on the page.
Then I read an essay called On Worldbuilding and the Question of Resistance, and I realized where my problem lie. I was trying to write from the POV of the driver. Of course I was sympathetic to the driver; that was my job! Just, you know, a little more extreme.
Once I put myself in the shoes of the entitled jerkass passenger, it suddenly flowed.
And then I finished the story, set it aside, and forgot about it entirely for more than a year because I’m a walking disaster.