Writing Process Part 1

Writing Strategies: Getting Started

Writing is easy. This is the truth. Anyone with five words at his command can slap together a sentence. It may be a grammarless and guttural burp, but it is writing.

Writing well, however, is hard. Unfortunately, it is made even harder when we stop to consider how hard it really is. When we are scared, when we sit there, pen in hand, and consider Shakespeare. And Hemingway. And Tony Hillerman. When we think about all the stuff of language—tone, voice, syntax and all the decisions we must make regarding how and in what order to take all the words of the English languages and lay them down on a sheet of paper so that they mean something—we hesitate. We over think it. We stall. We see that brilliant shining essay at the end of the rainbow. We see its perfections, its charming smile and bright eyes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Surely, that can’t come from this pukey thing before us, we think. We seize up. We stop. We wait for inspiration that never comes.

Our problem: Most of us don’t want to start with the ugliness. I won’t lie to you. Writing is hard work. It is walking forty miles only find you have forty more to go. It stings. But my friends, if you want to write a good paper, you have to start here, in the trenches of the mud field where the sloppy first drafts grow.

How do we get out of here? Write To Discover.

Myth: The first draft is the best draft.
Reality: This way of thinking will cause you to stall. If you strive too hard for perfection in your first draft, you will no doubt come up short and you won’t get a very good grade. A better strategy is to sit down and get started knowing full well you will come back to fix and redo part of it later. This relieves the pressure of having to be perfect. It also allows you the freedom to go back and improve your thinking and your writing after you’ve had a shot at it once or twice. Writing is exploring. Your first draft is are the first crunchy footfalls and there’s a white out up ahead.

Myth: You have to have a clear organized outline before you sit down to write.
Reality: While some people are into outlines and fill one out before they ever write a word, it is more helpful to most of us to build some kind of plan, a flow chart of sorts, that helps keep us on topic without restricting our exploratory process. Not knowing exactly how you are going to pull it off shouldn’t be a reason to stop writing.

Myth: Write your introduction first, then your body, then your conclusion.
Reality. Many good writers write their introduction last. We might even change the thesis after they have written out the rest of the paper. Often, we write entire sections of the paper independently from others. The place we start might turn out to be paragraph 28 in your final draft. There are no global rules for how to do this. You have to develop your own strategies. I use sticky pads. I compose in my head. I compose freehand. I compose outside the constraints of order, keeping faith in the idea I am hunting. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I have to revise a lot.

Myth: You should write an entire draft in one sitting. Don’t stop until it’s done.
Reality: We usually do better if we break the business of writing into bite-sized chunks. If we come back to the paper often, after a break, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to re-read what we have written, to rewrite and revise it, and rediscover what we are up to. It is a process, remember. Make it one.

Reality: You might not be done with your research. You might be unsure of where to go, how to argue, what your point is, and even what your thesis is. It’s okay. Just start. Once you get going, it gets easier. In the end, it is our writing that guides us. We have to trust in it to show us where we are going. We have to have the courage to follow.



Exercise. Aristotle’s Freewriting. Just write. Don’t stop. Don’t worry.

2.5 minutes: Take your topic and define it. For example, under the general heading of “Definition” are questions like "How does the dictionary define _________?" and "What earlier words did ________ come from?" Ex: “The role of adjunct professors in the state of Colorado” Defined: “Who are they? What do they teach? What’s the history of using adjunct teachers and what is their role today?”

2.5 minutes: Comparison: Take your topic, break it into parts, and compare it. Ask, "From what is ________ different?" and "_________ is most like what?" Divide it into categories; compare its parts “How much we pay adjuncts to teach English. How much to teach at community colleges. How much to teach a private schools. What they teach. How they teach it. Etc.”

3 mins: Relationship, "What causes _________?" and "Why does ________ happen?"

3 mins: Testimony, "What have I heard people say about ________?" and "Are there any laws about ________?"

3 mins: Circumstances, "Is _______ possible or impossible?" and "If ________ starts, what makes it end?" Similarly, what are the good and bad consequences of ________?