A Divided Brain

Writing is a creative activity and is right-brained. But it's also an editing activity and is left-brained. Writing requires use of both sides of the brain, but how do you utilize two opposing forces effectively? The right brain is the one that likes to play with words and ideas and free associate. It's a stream of consciousness type of thinking. This is the part of your brain that should have free rein to create your first drafts. You can engage this part of your brain through a number of techniques such as brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, etc. When writing your first drafts, you should keep your left brain at bay. Engaging this part of your brain in the drafting process runs the risk of never finishing your first draft. That's because the left brain is the critical part of your brain. It's the editor, the taskmaster, and it can stop creativity dead in its tracks. Only after you've completed your first draft should you get the left brain involved. After your right brain has depleted itself and spent its fancies, you can put your left brain to work to clean up the mess. This is the time to do all of the hard work of editing and rewriting and it is fully left brain work. Once the editor part of your brain has done its work, you can re-engage your right brain for some more creative rewriting. Again, at this point, you must turn your left brain off and let your creative juices flow. Alternating the two halves of your brain in this way can lead to better productivity and better results. Your brain may be divided, but the two halves can work together to make your writing whole.

Planning Your Writing

Just as you would not build a house without a plan to follow, you should have a plan for your writing projects. Having a solid plan in place before you begin to write will enhance your success. Planning gives you a clear goal and specific steps to reach that goal. Following the plan keeps your writing on target and well-constructed, just like a solid, well-built house. The first thing you should consider is what your task is. What are you trying to accomplish with this story or article or book? What is expected of you by teachers, editors and publishers who will review your writing? Once you are clear on what your goal is, construct a plan on how to get there. It can be in the form of an outline, a storyboard or a narrative discussion. However you do it, you should be spelling out the steps and the sequence required to get you to your goal. It doesn't have to be detailed to begin with. It just needs to be complete, from beginning to end. Then you need to write following your plan. If you deviate from it, have a good reason for doing so. Otherwise, stick with it. Write the piece from beginning to end before you begin the editing process. It's important to get the first draft completed. Then review your goal and your plan and revise your work accordingly. Every place you've strayed from your message, edit until you're back on track. Re-work your writing until it's as good as it can get. Then review your plan again. Have you met your goal? Have you met the expectations placed on you? Then and only then are you ready to submit your work for review. Develop a plan for all your writing. Stick with it and enjoy the results.

Writing With Drama

Drama isn't only for fiction. Using dramatic techniques to enliven your writing will help whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction. What makes writing interesting to read is the use of techniques that engage and hook readers. These dramatic techniques can range from vignettes or anecdotes to descriptive passages to plays on words. The point of using them is to create conflict or suspense that keeps readers reading and wanting more. Just reciting facts to readers or telling a story is not enough to keep their interest. They must feel that there is something beneath the surface, something to be explored or solved, something that makes them think or see things in new ways. This feeling makes reading an active rather than a passive pursuit and it makes readers focus on your story or message and pay close attention. If you feel your prose is dragging, try one of the many dramatic techniques available to writers. It may be something as simple as constructing a metaphor or something as elaborate as a detailed flashback. Whatever it is, its purpose is to ratchet up the tension and get readers to take notice. You want readers to be excited about your writing, so get dramatic and watch your readers' excitement grow!

Exploring Ideas

My beginning writing students often express difficulty in coming up with ideas to write about. I encourage them to plumb many sources for possible ideas. One of the deepest wells to dip into for ideas is the daily news. So many things are happening in our world on a daily basis that there are endless ideas and issues to write about. There are political issues, cultural trends, life and health issues, economic issues, etc. Just a tidbit from one of these news items can be the source of a topic to write about. A tidbit combined with some targeted research can be an essay or an article or even a short story. Beyond that, there are other less conventional sources to consider for writing ideas. Use your own imagination to come up with topics that interest you. What is your pet peeve, your greatest inspiration, your greatest worry or fear? What makes you happy, sad or angry? What holds the most fascination for you? All of these are plausible sources for ideas to write about. Think of other sources such as conversations you have had with friends and family. What topics come up for discussion? Can any of these be a possible writing topic? The world is rife with ideas. You can find them on billboards, in song lyrics, in graffiti and artwork. The challenge is to keep your eyes wide open and look for ideas in everything you encounter. It won't be long before you have a long and interesting list of things to write about. The challenge will be narrowing it down to just one topic to concentrate on for a particular project. But at least you won't be lacking ideas!

Writing by Hand

I ask my beginning writing students to do a lot of in-class writing. There are a number of reasons for this, but none as important as encouraging them to maintain that creative connection between mind, hand and paper. It is vastly different than the connection between mind, hand and keyboard that they're so used to. Our minds process information in different ways when we write the old-fashioned way with pencil and paper. Different neural pathways are utilized with tactile writing and the result is more creative, more unique writing than the writing that appears on a computer screen at the tapping of keys. When you write with pencil and paper, you feel what you're writing. You connect with it more and it's more meaningful to you. You also see it with clearer eyes and can spot the flaws in your writing much easier than you can on a computer screen that makes even bad writing look good. It's not a bad idea to write all your first drafts by hand and then do the tedious editing and polishing work on a computer. You may find that your writing is richer, more nuanced, more on target than writing that is originally produced with the sterility of a computer screen. At the very least, it's good to occasionally write by hand just to maintain the ability to do so. We are rapidly becoming a society in which handwriting is a lost art. And when we reach that point, our writing skills, our communications styles and our creative neurons will be changed forever. Can we afford to lose this vital connection for the sake of convenience?

Stretching Your Writing

Writers sometimes have to step outside of their comfort zones in order to grow. Creativity is like a muscle. It must be stretched in order to strengthen. This means you play to its weak side. You help it grow by asking it to do unusual movements. The same principle is true with writing. If you only attend to your strengths, you achieve minimal growth. It's when you stretch yourself to try things you're not comfortable with that you begin to see your skills broaden and strengthen. That doesn't mean that you abandon your strengths and focus on things you're not particularly good at. It does mean being willing to try something different to see if you can enhance the strengths you already have. For instance, are you a nonfiction writer? How about trying to write some poetry? You may think that sounds absurd, especially if you have no particular skill or experience with poetry. But if you give it a try, you may find talent you didn't know you had. At the very least, you may find something in poetry that will enhance your nonfiction writing - for instance, using poetic techniques of rhythm and meter to make your prose more fluid and interesting. Trying other things will build, not diminish, your talent. But first you must give yourself permission to try something new and perhaps to fail miserably at it. It's the exploration process that's important, not the result. Stretch your creative muscles whenever possible and watch your writing skills improve in unusual and surprising ways.

Writing Goals

Setting writing goals is important to writers. It keeps us on track with our writing careers and helps us stay productive. However, goals may need to be adjusted, especially if they're not working. Writing goals can come in many forms - from writing daily to writing a certain word count daily or weekly to completing a project one at a time from beginning to end. Whatever the goals are, they have to work for you. For example, suppose you set a goal of writing every day, without fail, for a year. At the end of that year, however, you find that while you engaged in writing activities every day, they were more quantitative than qualitative. In other words, they helped you achieve your goal of writing every day but didn't do much to help you complete writing projects. What happened is the goal took precedence over the writing and quality writing time (completing a project) became secondary to quantity writing time (writing something every day). If this goal hasn't worked for you, it's time to adjust it. Maybe daily writing isn't an appropriate goal for you. Maybe weekly goals will work better. Maybe setting periods of time aside for writing every few weeks or so is what will work best for you. Only you can make that decision. The writing gurus can't make it for you. Setting goals is a bold step. Equally bold is having the courage to change goals once they're set without labeling it as a failure. Changing goals is an adjustment for the better and it shows you're being realistic rather than just blindly following a pre-determined path. Let your goals work for you instead of you working for them and you'll be a happier and more productive writer.

Keeping Description Lean

Descriptors are words that help writers convey mental images to readers. When used effectively, they can greatly enchance your writing. They can help you paint word pictures for your readers that will make readers feel as if they are actually experiencing what you are describing. If they're overused, however, they will quickly overwhelm and confuse readers and will ultimately weaken your writing. Keeping descriptors to a minimum will keep your prose leaner and more powerful. A little description goes a long way. Instead of flooding your prose with descriptors, strive to keep descriptive language to no more than 25% of your overall writing. Search for those words that pack the most punch and use one or two stronger descriptive words instead of eight or ten weaker ones to convey the same word picture. You're looking for quality, not quantity, in your descriptive passages. Allow readers to form the majority of word pictures on their own. Give them just enough teasers to prompt them to finish the picture in their mind's eye. When describing, stay with a single theme (such as nature) instead of multiple themes which will confuse readers. Make sure the descriptors make sense and convey exactly the image you want to convey. Use descriptors only when not using them would leave your writing vague and ineffective. Even though it seems counterintuitive, keeping your descriptive language lean and precise will actually make your writing more vivid, not less so.

Detach to Connect

Often with my student writers I find an unhealthy attachment to their writing. They become so attached to what they've written that they're unwilling to change it, even when they receive overwhelming feedback to do so. Several factors drive this tendency. Resistance to change can come from fear of failing. Novice writers may want to hang on to what they've written because they fear the void they'll face if they hit the delete button. "At least," they reason, "I have something down on paper. I think I'll just hang on to it." Resistance to changing or editing writing can also come from becoming too fond of certain expressions or turns of phrase to the point that writers don't want to let go of them even though it's clear they detract from rather than enhance the writing. And sometimes resistance can just come from a false sense of already possessing skills they don't possess, thinking they are better writers than they actually are. Whatever the cause, becoming too attached to your writing can be dangerous. It's ironic that, in order to write well, you must develop a healthy detachment from your writing. It's okay to be fond of your writing, but not to the point of dismissing feedback that will help you make your writing better . Detaching from your writing to the point that you can be open not only to feedback from others but also to your own internal editor that tells you something isn't working well is critical to honing your skills as a writer. What you strive for is to connect deeply with readers. Detaching from your writing will help you make that valuable connection.

When Simple Is Better

There are some instances when writers must use technical jargon, but for most writing that we do, a simple vocabulary is best. We don't want to write above readers' heads. This is not to say that we should regard readers as not very intelligent. But if our goal as writers is to facilitate clear communication, it's our job to write text that readers can digest with ease and clarity. They shouldn't have to interrupt their reading multiple times to look up our fancy words in a dictionary, especially when a simpler, more common word will express the thought just as well. When thinking about slogans or quotes that have come to carry great meaning in our culture, very few if any contain unusual, uncommon words. Rather, they contain, unusual, uncommon thoughts - phrasing common ideas in uncommon ways that resonate deeply with people. That's the real job we have as writers - communicating lasting impressions that help readers understand themselves or the world a little bit better. We can't do that with vocabulary displays and intellect showdowns. The only thing we should be displaying is our facility with clear, meaningful writing. The intellect part will take care of itself. Keeping it simple really is keeping it better.