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ways of getting words on paper |
Perhaps my general point would be clearer if I called this section "More Ways of Producing a First Draft," but I want to emphasize the fact that first-stage writing need not take the form of a draft. That is, it need not be a single connected piece of writing. There is no good reason why you must try to produce something in your first cycle of writing that resembles the form of what you want to end up with. Of course, if you have a vision of how your piece ought to be structured, yes, by all means do your raw writing in the form of a draft. But if you only have the hint of a hunch or some initial thoughts or incidents or images and you can't see how they should be shaped, it's usually best to go ahead all the same and plunge into what I call raw writing. Instead of a draft you will be producing a pile of rough ingredients. The fact is that you usually get more and better visions for how to shape these ingredients by starting to write them out however they happen to come off the pencil than by waiting till you get the so-called "right" structure. Any structure that you dream up before actually getting your hands dirty in the writing itself is apt to be like a plan you work out for travel in an unfamiliar country: it usually has to be changed once you get there and see how things really work. The secret of success in getting words down on paper is learning to adopt a crucial attitude that is new for most people: a sense of trust that when you have the germ of an idea or even just the hankering for one, you will be led sooner or later to the words you are looking for if you just start in writing. You need to learn to avoid that commoner response to the itch of an idea: waiting and not writing till you see things clearly and have the words you want already in your head.I have already in Section I described three ways of getting words on paper: | • | • Freewriting is an exercise for making the quickest and deepest improvements in how you write. The goal is in the process, not the product. | | • | • The dangerous method, trying to write something right the first time, is useful to most people on certain occasions. Only a few people can use it efficiently and creatively as their normal procedure. | | • | • The direct writing process is the simplest and most practical way of getting words on paper when you are writing something in a hurry or when you know you'll have no trouble finding material. It is a way of inviting relatively little chaos and keeping it within limited bounds. You don't try to get things right or in the right order as you write, but you do keep your goal in mind at all times -- avoid digressions and getting lost. |
"The Open-Ended Writing Process" begins this section and it is at the opposite extreme from the direct writing process. It courts the most intuition, it invites the most chaos, it takes the most time, and it requires you to let the writing determine entirely its own goals. Next, Chapter 8, "The Loop Writing Process," tries for the best of both extremes. It helps you make good use of what might be called "almost-freewriting" for any topic you happen to be writing about, even if the topic seems very foreign to you. You will find the loop writing process especially helpful if your topic bores you or you can't think of much to say about it. This process is the most powerful way to bring creative imagination into nonfiction or expository writing. Next, Chapter 9, "Metaphors for Priming the Pump," contains metaphorical push-ups for helping you see more about any topic and think more creatively. In "Working on Writing While Not Thinking about Writing," I suggest some common occasions in life when you might not think to use writing but it will prove useful -- occasions, however, when the writing itself doesn't matter and so you don't worry or even think about it. This kind of writing is peculiarly helpful in making your other, more formal writing more comfortable for you and more natural and lively for readers. Finally, "Poetry as No Big Deal" describes a way of writing poetry where the emphasis is on modest goals and pleasure. The eight ways of getting words on paper described in these first two sections are, in effect, different strategies for bringing out creativity. You can also think of them as different strategies for managing chaos. It has seemed to some readers of my earlier book as though I only celebrate chaos. It is true that I believe most people need to learn to exploit chaos better in their writing: it helps break down preconceptions and old frameworks and permits growth and new ideas. You can use chaos to blast open what you are stuck on. But once I persuade you to use chaos, I am eager to turn around and admit that there are many situations where you should keep chaos to a minimum (as in the dangerous method and the direct writing process). Chaos increases anxiety and may make the job take longer. There are many times when I cannot think at all till I have some firm structure to work from. I have to make an outline that is simple and neat -- plodding even -- before my mind will take the tiniest flight. On such occasions I may theoretically be limiting myself by starting with a rigid cage to keep out chaos, but practically speaking I would limit myself much more if I tried to deal with more chaos than I could handle. (Sometimes an outline serves best as a cage to break out of: it makes you think of ideas that won't fit inside but which otherwise wouldn't occur to you. This is an argument for not spending too long making perfect outlines.) By settling on eight specific processes for getting words on paper and describing some of them in a very definite step-by-step fashion, I am not trying to suggest that these are eight pure essences made in heaven. I'm simply trying to lay out an admittedly artificial spectrum of processes which you can easily learn to use -perhaps even to vary and add to. By doing so you will finally free yourself from that common human condition of falling into a single and unvarying gear for trying to write whenever you sit down to write something. You don't see options and indeed you don't even see clearly your own process -- you are "just writing." Some people have learned a good gear. Many are stuck with a terrible one. But no gear is efficient or creative for all writing tasks.
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