Ep 188: Write to Discover What You Really Want to Say

03/05/19 • 15 min

[Ep 188] In this series, you’ve discovered more about yourself through writing—you may have begun to heal emotional wounds. The act of writing has helped you find the courage to continue to write. Through writing, you’ve articulated your reason for doing the work. And you’ve identified your top themes and topics. Most recently, you’ve written to discover your ideal reader. Today, you’ll see how the act of writing—the process of writing any given project—can lead us to discover what we really want to say. Discovery Writing to Unearth Ideas Before we begin to outline or research, we can use writing to probe what is on our mind—to unearth what we want to say. An effective tool for this—and I’ve talked about it before—is freewriting. I was introduced to the practice of freewriting in college, thanks to a book that was newly released at the time and used in two of my creative writing courses: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. Her invitation to freewrite—to set a timer for, say, ten minutes and write, pen to paper, without stopping—gave me a way to shimmy past my stifling editor-mind to what Goldberg calls “first thoughts.”1 Those first thoughts unleashed in me the memories, stories, images, and ideas that I hadn’t yet reached when I sat down to write using an outline. Over time, the practice generally led to my discovering what I really wanted to say in my next project—which, at the time, was usually a poem. Freewriting While Composing the Draft I still use freewriting as a tool to unstick my thoughts—often before even launching a new project. But freewriting can be also used while my writing is in-progress. I can be busy writing a paragraph—sometimes even when I’m following an outline I’ve developed—and pause to go deeper with freewriting. Priscilla Long agrees with this balance of writing into an essay form or structure while occasionally stepping away to further explore ideas and thoughts through freewriting. She refers to freewriting as “discovery writing” in The Writer’s Portable Mentor, where she says this: [W]riting into a structure should be done in tandem with “discovery writing,” that is, writing to learn what you have to say, writing to work out your thoughts, writing to find out what your antagonist thinks (by writing from her point of view in your notebook, even though in the finished story you are never going to be in her point of view).2 In other words, when we need clarity, Long recommends we stop in the midst of writing to an outline or “template” and spend a few minutes freewriting. This avoids shallow treatment of our topic or story. Instead, we respect our mind’s hesitation and take time to discover what we really want to say. After freewriting, we gain insight and turn back to the draft, adjusting our ideas as needed. Determine and Draft Your Project’s Big Idea Let’s say that you’ve spent a few minutes freewriting to determine what to write about. You’ve thought about it, you’ve researched, you’ve outlined. You have a good solid concept for this project. When you’re ready to embark on the first words of your next project, determine and draft your project’s Big Idea. What’s this piece about? What’s the focus? What’s the driving theme? Articulating Your Working Thesis Writing this out is a kind of discovery writing all its own—you’re trying to articulate a thesis. Remember the thesis? Back in high school and college you were probably trained to express it as one sentence—a statement that is, in fact, arguable. A thesis can be used in fiction, nonfiction, and some poetry; it encapsulates what your project is about. The thesis statement expresses the Big Idea of your project in that one sentence. You set out to explore and support this statement throughout the piece. Your thesis establishes strong focus for the project from the start. A working thesis is flexible, though. The further you get into your research and writing,

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Ep 187: Write to Discover Your Ideal Reader

[Ep 187] In composition classes, college students learn to identify their audience—who are they writing for? On the topic of audience, The Writing Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests students think about writing a letter to their grandmothers about their first month at college. Then they say to imagine writing another letter on the same topic, but this time to their best friend. “Unless you have an extremely cool grandma to whom you’re very close, it’s likely that your two letters would look quite different in terms of content, structure, and even tone.”1 The writing form was the same—a letter. And the topic was the same—the first month in college. The only variable was the audience—the reader. And knowing the reader will affect the writer’s choices. Discover Your Ideal Reader for a Writing Project In this Write to Discover series, we’ve explored our top themes and topics and seen that they can be conveyed in a variety of packages—that is, various genres, styles, or forms. As we add in this new element—the reader—we must ask: Who will be reading this piece? What does he already know about this topic? Will this reader have certain expectations based on the type of writing, such as a genre with its conventions? As we dig into the reader’s demographics and experiences, our examples and language as writers will shift; our choices will narrow. For example, an essay on recycling written for The Atlantic will be read by a different audience than a children’s book about recycling or an article in a women’s magazine about recycling. We’ll make different choices to suit our reader in order to produce the best possible project. For any given writing project, you have to know your audience. “I never think of an audience” But you may be resisting this basic writing advice. Perhaps you side with writers like Diane Ackerman, who said in an interview: Actually, I never think of an audience when I’m writing. I just try to write about what fascinates me and to contemplate what disturbs me or provokes me in some way, or amazes me. I suppose if I have a philosophy on this it’s that if you set out to nourish your own curiosity and your own intellectual yearnings and use yourself as an object of investigation, then, without meaning to, you will probably be touching the lives of a lot of people.2 With this philosophy, Diane Ackerman’s audience would be comprised of, well, people sort of like Diane Ackerman. So while she says she never thinks of an audience but instead simply writes what disturbs, provokes, or amazes her, she’s actually writing for an audience demographic that’s close to her own. And it’s worked well for her. She’s a prolific, successful author of many books, poems, and essays. Even if you resist this idea of an ideal reader, even if you’re simply writing what pleases you, you are indeed writing for a certain kind of reader—a reader with characteristics similar to yours. Writing Is a Business with a Customer: the Reader Lee Gutkind, in his book Creative Nonfiction, seeks a balance between writing what you enjoy and keeping the reader in mind: [W]riting...is a business. The reader...is a customer. When you write, you are attempting to create a product that your reader wants to buy—or read. Don't get me wrong. You must like what you write—and be proud of it. Your article or essay has your name under the title and contains your thoughts and ideas. You are the creator, the person responsible for its existence. But never forget the ultimate reason you are writing nonfiction—to inform, entertain, and influence the readership, however extensive (as in The New Yorker) or limited (as in your school newspaper) it may be. Yes, writing is a selfish art. We write because we want to write. But we also write because we need to make contact with as many other people—readers—as possible and make an impact in order to influence their thoughts and actions.3

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Ep 189: Write to Discover New Skills and Techniques

[Ep 189] When I feel my writing getting a little stale, I start looking around for a teacher. Now, I don’t mean I’m looking for a class with an instructor, although that’s certainly another way to learn and grow as a writer. I mean I start looking around for an author and text that has something to teach me. In this way, I can continually improve my skills as a writer. Develop a Customized Course of Study A lot of writers feel a strong urge to enter an MFA program to do this. If you feel compelled to pursue that, by all means, research it and see if that’s the best next step for you. But you don’t have to embark on a pre-planned course of study. You can develop your own path to establish a writing foundation, to build on an existing set of skills and experience, or to refresh your techniques after falling into a writing rut. Without spending a dime, you can invent an efficient, customized writing course using resources readily available online or at your local library to build your skills and style. By including reading, study, analysis, and practice pertaining to your biggest areas of struggle or weakness, you can write to discover the skills and techniques you’re lacking and integrate them into your work. Discover New Skills the Ben Franklin Way Novelist James Scott Bell wrote an article about how to strengthen your fiction the Ben Franklin way.1 He explains how Ben Franklin came up with his own self-study course to grow in virtues. Franklin made a grid and evaluated whether or not he was successful in his pursuit of a given virtue each week. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father concluded he did not attain perfection, as he had hoped, but “was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it.”2 James Scott Bell proposes the fiction writer identify key areas to develop into a stronger writer much as Franklin identified his list of virtues. Bell calls these key areas “critical success factors,” or CSFs.3 He explains: Business and sales folk have been using Franklin’s system for decades to improve their own performance. Not via Franklin’s virtues, but by determining their own areas of competence. These are called critical success factors.4 Bell goes through each CSF a fiction author would want to develop and points to related resources: if the reader wants to learn about scenes, voice, or other aspects of fiction, Bell provides links to articles or books that can address each of those. By tapping into these resources, the writer develops his own self-study course.5 You can do the same. Discover Your Critical Success Factors You can make a list of what you feel are your personal CSFs related to the writing you do. In this way, any of us can identify an area to improve in and find instruction and models pertaining to that exact skill or technique and we can learn from them. For fiction, you could check out James Scott Bell’s list in that article, where he cites the seven key elements a fiction writer could focus on: plot structure characters scenes dialogue voice meaning (theme).6 You could make a list of CSFs for nonfiction writers. This might include research, idea development and organization, sentence fluency and word choice, grammar skills, or something as focused as transitions. Find Mentor Texts Find some “mentors,” or more accurately, some “mentor texts” you can study and learn from—mentors who excel in the areas where you feel you’re weak. Some of these mentor texts may be instructional, explaining how to do things. Others may simply serve as models. When you find a mentor text like that—that’s a model—it’s time for close reading. And I’ve found that close reading is achieved easily with a practice we normally think of for children: copy work. Any adult ready to develop stronger skills can practice copy work. It forces close reading.