On Writer's Block

My thoughts on why we tend not to write and get stuck.

 

On Writer's Block

I think nearly everyone who has attempted to write something at some point in their lives has had this happen to them. You look at a blank page and wonder what to put down or how you should start it. Or you might stare at that page and think to yourself that what you put down may not be as good as the idea in your head. Whatever the reason might be, sometimes as writers we are just unable to put words down on paper and it feels awful.

Often, this stems from the idea that what we write the first time should be as close to the end product as possible, a notion that I think has been instilled in us thanks to an educational system that measures us based on how well we do on tests and exams in the moment. But this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Writing is a process that involves many layers and more importantly, takes time. The first draft is not something that you should really care about. It is the equivalent of an artist’s rough sketch in a sketchbook. You will not stop there in creating your masterpiece. You will use it as the foundation or the “base” for what will come later (which is a lot of editing!).

One of the books I read over the course of many months last year was Barbara Baig’s How to be a Writer. That book taught me several important concepts about the writing process, but three of the most important ones (that I carry with me to this day) are:

         1. Never judge your first draft against someone’s polished work (one that probably took years to make). It’s like comparing your Level 1 character in a video game to someone’s Level 99 character. It probably took them a while to get to that skill level, but most of us don’t see that grind or the effort that it took to get there. We just see the end result of all that hard work and then wonder how they make it look so easy.

         2. Writing is all about communication. Have something to say to your reader. Otherwise, you’re just writing to write (no central topic or idea to convey). First and foremost, as writers, we should be communicators. That’s the whole point of writing! Whatever it is you want to say, make sure that you have a clear subject you want to talk about.

         3. Writing is not a talent or gift that was given to only a certain number of individuals at birth. It is a skill that can be developed over time, just like any other skill. Learning to write is very much akin to learning how to draw or to play a musical instrument. You can develop these skills if you dedicate enough time and effort to them.

Of course there were many other things that the book taught me, things that made me a more savvy writer, for instance. For example, words are not actually as valuable as we might think, they don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Sure, you can sit there and try and find the perfect word to use for a sentence you’re building, but you can also just go with what simply gets the message across in a timely manner. I was going to write erudite instead of savvy in my previous sentence, but savvy works just fine. It is suitable and quicker to digest. As a writer, you shouldn’t have to reach for the thesaurus every time you are crafting a sentence just so you can provide your readers with a more eloquent or articulate term for something you’re trying to say. The end goal should be to communicate your idea or thought in a way that is easily understood. That’s all writing is.

I find that books that overuse words like that (flowery, overly ornate synonyms) end up boring me after a while. I get that some people might enjoy that kind of prose, but I am not one of them. I want to immerse myself in the story and forget that the words are even there. I want to build a mental picture in my head of what’s happening in the book, not have to stop myself and search for a word on Google just to figure out what the author was trying to say. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I simply need to expand my vernacular. Either way, I tend to like books that just get an idea across quickly. This might be why I tend to write my own stories in that same fashion.

Another important concept I learned thanks to Barbara Baig’s book is that writing is never done in isolation, meaning that it builds upon other skill sets. It’s not enough to be good at stringing words together, you also need to be able to collect material about what you want to talk about. You need to connect things together, use references from things you may have learned about from others or observed in the past, and basically do your due diligence to research about what you are going to talk about. We’ve all done this for essays at school, but this is also important (if not more important) for creative writing as well. If you’re writing a science fiction novel about human colonists exploring another planet, you might want to research what kind of exoplanets we’ve discovered using our telescopes or how the human body might react to different environments. This might help you come up with things to say and show your readers.

Oh, and regarding first drafts, no one likes their first draft. Ernest Hemingway once said, “The first draft of anything is shit.” and he was right! You shouldn’t stop yourself from writing just because you’re afraid that what you will put down the first time on paper will be garbage. That’s normal! You should expect garbage, in fact. It is very unlikely that anyone, even the greatest writers in the world, can produce gold every time in their first draft. So why should you?

Stop thinking. Start writing.

The last thing I will say is that the less time you devote to making every word as perfect as you can in your writing, the more time you will have to build something on your page to play with later. We should be going for quantity over quality in our first drafts. The quality can come later. I will leave you all with this quote from Jodi Picoult, winner of 13 book awards and author of 28 books:

         “You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

Thanks for reading.