Everyone writes differently: some people sit down at a blank page and dump a poem or essay out with little effort (at least for a first draft) while others require laborious research and planning to get even so much as a title on the page. Some people have an innate grasp of dialogue, while others would prefer to never deal with how people speak to each other. No matter how or what you write, though, there are certain things that help you reach the end game of your writing (i.e., anything that you consider finished). In light of that, I’m going to talk about what I’ve started calling my Writing Toolkit, offering suggestions about how you might be able to get your tools in order to facilitate your writing process. This will be an ongoing blog, with probably 7 posts to create a toolkit that will make your life easier as a writer.
Know how you start to write.
The first thing you need when you’re writing is knowledge of how you begin writing – this may seem a bit paradoxical but it’s true; until you know how you start you’ll have trouble creating ideal situations for your writing. Do you plan, plot and ponder or do you skip, skid and slide your way into the writing project you’re working on – either way you need to know you get going in order to hone your skill.
Minimal planning:
I write and plan mostly in my head. I know that it doesn’t really help me to sit down at a computer and force out a document if I don’t really have it planned in my head – the piece will feel forced and I won’t be happy with it. That being said, I do sometimes plan on paper, especially if a project is important or has a very broad span – in these cases a rough plan will keep me on track and give me something to refer to when I get stuck.
A typical plan for an essay for me might look like this:
Thesis: Ben Franklin wasn’t just a selfish bastard or a selfless altruist, but managed to incorporate altruism with self-service.
Proof: Ben Franklin as a selfish bastard (takes advantage of situations he creates) **One or two Examples**
Ben Franklin as an altruist (gives up copyrights for the betterment of a large segment of society)**One or two Examples**
Ben Franklin’s altruism as self-serving (encouraging paper currency as a printer, manipulating the throne while making money for local wagon owners, starting up businesses and taking a large percentage, etc.)**Majority of Proofs >10**
Conclusion: Ben Franklin was a lot more complicated than most history classes are willing to admit.
While a typical outline for a long short story or a short novel might look like this:
I – Intro to antagonist – position of strength, likeable
II – Intro to universe
III – Intro to protagonist – prickly, somewhat weak
A. Protagonist in Universe
IV – Protagonist backslides
A. The universe sucks and is hard to handle.
V – Pro. Vs Ant. – Pro growth, snaps out of problem.
VI – Pro wins by making space in universe, ignoring problems posed by Ant.
VII – Ant. Pissy about Pro, can’t do anything about it.
A. The universe sucks and is hard to handle when you’re a dick.
(It should now be clear that I prefer anti-heroes.)
These plans might look somewhat contradictory – an essay is only going to be 5000 words or less while a short novel might be 100 pages, but both plans are about the same length; the reason for this, with my writing in particular, is that I write specifics in my head – the characters are usually formed before I start a piece so I don’t need to make notes to myself about them, and I usually don’t start writing fiction without a central conflict planned in my head so there’s no need to write that out either.
Intensive planning:
But what if you are a consummate planner, what if you need detailed outlines to get from one paragraph to the next? The key here is to not let yourself get trapped in a plan –especially not early in the writing process.
I knew a hardcore Planner in college – she planned from the beginning of the quarter until the final period on her final essay, and she wrote terrible essays. Why? If she planned so meticulously, shouldn’t she have gotten better grades? No – because she planned before she knew what she was planning. If you are going to meticulously plan your writing, don’t write your plan until AFTER you’ve done your research.
Let’s take my Benjamin Franklin essay as an example, and modify it to fit this girl’s methods:
Thesis: Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant founding father and was also a consummate altruist, sacrificing his inventions and time to the public good.
Proof: Giving away the patent for the Franklin Stove
A.B.C….
Forming the Fire Department
A.B.C…
Forming the Police Department/Neighborhood Watch
A.B.C…
Planning the Sweeping of the Streets
A.B.C…
Planning the Lighting of the Streets
A.B.C….
Serving as a Diplomat instead of continuing in business
A.B.C…
Volunteering to take public positions, but not in position of power.
A.B.C…
Conclusion: Benjamin Franklin did a lot of good for America at his own expense, and selflessly served this country in its formative years.
Now, all of this is true, Ben Franklin did all of these things and he did them well – so why doesn’t the girl get a good grade on her essay? Because that’s only half of the truth – there’s a lot of evidence that Ben Franklin did most of what he did because he was a selfish prick who wanted to control people whom he thought were too stupid to control themselves. While our Planner was researching, she came across this information, she was well aware of the very strong counter-argument to her thesis, but she ignored it why? Even though she wrote on a different topic, I asked these questions of her (I had helped her with some research and found counter-arguments that she wholly ignored) and thus can give you a direct quote: “Well, all that stuff didn’t fit in with the essay I had planned on writing, so I didn’t put it in because it would change my argument too much.”
Planners out there: do your research before you plan.
Everyone out there: don’t plan your initial research.
You should go into a piece with an open mind – if you’re outlining a story or planning an essay, make sure you’re allowing reality to shape your work – pushing too hard to make a piece work when it simply doesn’t only leads to heartbreak.
Another example: Once I wrote a short story – it was a Science Fiction story and I thought it was pretty cool. I had some of my friends look it over, and they liked it, but one of my friends (who happened to be an intern at JPL at the time) was blessedly blunt with me about it: “Alli, the science is wrong. Space travel doesn’t work like that.” I tried to get around it, to change parts of the story, to make the story conform to science that didn’t fit and it made the story worse. I scrapped the story, re-wrote it with the reliance on space travel significantly minimized, and it made the story better.
No planning:
So let’s say you just sit down and freewrite – you let the words pour out and you hit “print” whenever your fingers have stopped moving for more than five minutes – what do you need in order to do better at the beginning? Well, it’s not the beginning you probably need help with, it’s the end.
If you don’t plan your writing, you need to rewrite your freewrites.
You may have noticed is that I don’t list plans for my poetry or short stories: the reason for this is that I don’t plan poetry or short stories – I write them in my head, rewrite them on paper, rewrite them on a computer, then do one or two more drafts before I’m satisfied, usually making only minor changes in the last three drafts – what you should note is that I make at least three drafts: I don’t care who the hell you think you are, but you should be doing the same – drafting at least once or twice to ensure a better product.
Freewriting is a great exercise, and it serves as a good illustration of what potential is evident in an idea, but freewrites aren’t final products.
If you are a freewriter, before you hit “print” you should go through your text a few times: check for grammar errors, check for places where the structure is weak, check that the whole coheres, and check a few more times for good measure. It’s no good to have written something that has brilliant elements if it’s riddled with non-sequiturs; there’s no point in displaying your beautiful control of language if your writing doesn’t have a message (thesis, theme, moral – whatever – there has to be some kind of payout other than beautiful language – even if it is a poem); there’s no value in making an excellent point of the language you use to express it is broken and incomprehensible. Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite.
This goes for everyone, but non-planners especially need to pay special attention to their work in order to ensure that it can be understood and appreciated by your audience.
Anyway, that went a hell of a lot longer than I expected (my non-planning side in evidence) so I’m going to cut it off now: I’ll be back on Sunday, February 5th with my next toolkit tip – How do you write Best?
Until then, figure out how you start and let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Alli.
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