Keys to Producing Writing

 

Peter Elbow. Writing Without Teachers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973, 196 pp.

CHAPTER 1: FREEWRITING EXERCISES

The smallest level of all of the theory and practice contained in this book is the freewriting exercise. The idea in freewriting exercises is to write for a short amount of time--about ten minutes in most cases--and simply to write whatever comes into your mind. But even that description is not entirely accurate, since the whole idea of freewriting is to write without thinking. Perhaps a more accurate description of freewriting is writing whatever comes into your pen. These exercises should be done at least three times a  week. There is only one requirement for freewriting: "that you never stop." In addition, this piece of writing will never be evaluated in any formal setting (although, as you progress with these techniques, you may find yourself drawing on these informal sessions for material.)

How Freewriting Exercises Help

When you write, you may have a certain amount of internal editing through which you must work before getting your ideas on paper. You have every voice, every piece of schooling, every other text you have ever read telling you how to write. While you
may be able to manage the barrage of internal advice, you may also frequently find yourself paralyzed by the inability to negotiate that advice. In effect, you have so much advice, you find yourself staring at a blank page, or, often worse, writing a piece of text and scratching through it before you even know what you want to say.

Freewriting allows you to drop the internal editing and, if only briefly, write without stopping. As you progress with your practice in freewriting, you will become more and more accustomed to writing without the internal editing mechanism, and you will not find
yourself forcing your language onto the page but rather, as with informal speech, saying what you have to say. This practice also helps your own individual voice come through your writing (a voice that can become stifled by too much internal editing).

Producing a Finished Piece of Writing

Remember, in freewriting, digressions are important. In fact, your digressions may become the main focus of your writing later in the
process. If you find your mind wandering, do not worry. You can always come back to the subject with which you started. And if
you find your digression more interesting, explore it.

When you are trying to produce a "finished" piece of writing, you may want to try several freewriting exercises in a row. Think of
your subject, but, as previously stated, do not be afraid to digress. After each exercise, take a few minutes to examine what you
have just written and reflect on some of your thoughts. Use those reflections to start your next freewriting exercise. After three or
four in a row that are "more or less 'on' your subject" (or digression), start rearranging the text more formally, stripping what you do
not need, placing thoughts in a more organized way. You may find that you do not have any useful material, especially if you have
not used this method much. The method also (as you will readily see by the stack of paper that has accumulated on your desk) calls
for more material to be discarded, because freewriting is designed to generate more material in a much shorter amount of time than
by using traditional methods.

CHAPTER 2: THE PROCESS OF WRITING--GROWING

There are several myths you may use to avoid writing, but the main one is that you are in writing's power rather than the reverse.
You believe you are not intelligent, talented, or disciplined enough to produce writing when you want it. Often you may find yourself
waiting for inspiration rather than just writing. Most of these myths stem from a basic misconception about writing: that writing is a
two-part process. First, you decide what you think before you start writing. Then, you put your thoughts into writing.

This idea of writing is exactly opposite of the developmental approach to writing. You should feel comfortable not knowing what
you want to say when you start writing. You should feel comfortable writing in order to arrive at how you feel about a particular
subject, rather than the reverse. As you write you are "growing" and "cooking" your message that will eventually surface in later
versions of the writing. [emphasis added]

It Makes a Difference in Practice

The two key metaphors for this process are growing and cooking, and the main idea behind this version of the writing process is
efficiency. You will find yourself producing more material in the time you have to write.

For instance, let's say you have four hours to write a three to five page paper on a fairly difficult subject which requires little
research and more cognitive reasoning. It could be a critical analysis, an editorial, or a short story. Whatever the product, you have
four hours to produce the piece of writing.

In the traditional model, you would spend all four hours writing one belabored version of your final product. If that works, fine. But
you might spend all of that time writing only to arrive at a product that is not necessarily your best work.

In the developmental model, divide the four hours into four one-hour segments. In the first three segments, spend the first 45
minutes writing without stopping. Write as if you were speaking your ideas. Do not pause to revise. In the last 15 minutes, read
what you have written and try to sum your main point into one sentence. This sentence should not be taken lightly. It should be
something that someone else could argue against (with a creative assignment, it may even be a "center of gravity"--a central mood
or image that you want to express.) This sentence should be the starting point of your next 45-minute writing session. For the last
session, spend the entire hour editing--rearranging sentences, cutting material when appropriate, and trying, again, to build the piece
around a central idea. You may even make an outline by the time this last hour is used.

After the four hour session, you may not have a "finished" piece of writing. But you have written and engaged your material far more
than you would have in the traditional model. You have spent less time worrying about the final product and more time producing
material that is probably better and more clear than that produced by the traditional model.

Growing

Growing describes the process by which ideas develop through writing. You may start thinking 'X' about a subject, but the more
you write about it, the more you realize you actually believe 'Y'. Your final product represents 'Y' (but you had to experience 'X' to
get to 'Y'). Accept that your words (and your thoughts) can grow as you write. There are four stages to growing: start writing and
keep writing, disorientation and chaos, emerging center of gravity, and mopping up or editing.

Start Writing and Keep Writing

In the initial phases of your writing, you should worry less about your final product and more about just generating material. As you
generate material, you will find ourselves writing better material about your subject (which may shift as you grow). Often you have
to "warm up" (as in physical exercise) to perform well. Your best writing may not happen until you have written some
poorer-quality writing. "Trust that good stuff will come." Forget your anxieties and write.

Chaos and Disorientation

You will feel chaos and disorientation as you work in this process, particularly in the earlier phases. The developmental model
encourages a lack of control initially. There are no real outlines or planning in this model. You are asked to "let go" in the earlier
stages in order to produce your best writing and thinking about a particular subject. Then, later, you will edit and plan the material
more clearly. But do not try to control your writing in the earlier phases. If you have two ideas, follow both. See how they reflect
each other in this early phase. You may combine them later. Also, if you have digressions, follow them. They may become central
to your final product.

Emerging Center of Gravity

As you write, your theme will begin to emerge. In earlier stages you sum up the main focus after every session. These early
summations may be terrible. Let them be terrible. If you have trouble, exaggerate your points rather than compromise them. It is
much easier to work away from a point of exaggeration than to build on a point of compromise, and you will find that the
exaggeration itself can often generate material you may not have found using another method.

Editing

Once your central theme is established, you should try to edit the material. Editing in the developmental model is not far from the
traditional model. You want your ideas to be clear. Making an outline can sometimes help. The essence of editing is that you must
be able to remove large amounts of writing without feeling guilty. "You have to be a big spender. Not tightass." It is easy to
prescribe this approach but hard to put it to practice. You should think of the editing stage as positive, since you are removing so
much of the excess to reveal your final, much more clear product. This stage is the stage where you must be extremely critical of
your material. You cannot be afraid to throw something away simply because you are not able to admit that it does not belong in
your piece (no matter how brilliant you thought it was when you scribbled it down at three in the morning.)

CHAPTER 3: THE PROCESS OF WRITING--COOKING

While "growing" is the much larger process, cooking is the smaller version of what happens for any given writing situation. Cooking
uses conflicting ideas to produce material. By exploring an idea contrary to one you want to express, the idea you want to express
becomes far richer than had you not explored its opposite. And you may find, as a result of cooking, that you want to write about
something completely different than your original plan. The only requirement in cooking is that you have conflicting material. There
are several ways to generate the healthy conflict that will result in better writing:

Cooking as Interaction between People. If you are unable to generate any material on your own, sometimes speaking with
another person about your subject can help you more clearly investigate ideas you may not have fully explored.

Cooking as Interaction between Ideas. Try to find two or more ideas that are contrasting and explore all of them as viable
options. Try to be comfortable with disagreements between ideas, and use those disagreements to your advantage.

Cooking as Interaction between Words and Ideas, between Immersion and Perspective. Try to switch between concern for
words and structure and concern for the ideas you want to explore.

Cooking as Interaction between Metaphors. Metaphors can help you think of your ideas from a different perspective than their
literal representation.

Cooking as Interaction between Modes. Use different styles of writing (at least in the early stages) in order to generate material.
Drift among poetry, fiction, nonfiction, critical writing, anecdote, formal writing, informal writing, first-person, third-person, and any
other mode you devise.

Cooking as Interaction between You and Symbols on Paper. Try to put exactly what you are thinking onto the page without
examining the idea as you write it. Then, later, examine what you have written as if you were reading it for the first time--as if you
had not written it.

Noncooking. There are two scenarios when cooking is not happening. One scenario is when you have no conflicting ideas. This
lack of ideas can often be ameliorated by doing some freewriting exercises or simply exploring further the ideas that, until now, you
have not engaged enough. The second scenario is when you have ideas that conflict, but they will not interact because they drown
each other out rather than produce material. In this case, try exploring every idea separately, on its own ground.

Desperation Writing. There will be times when you will have to write something, but, for whatever reason, your mind is unable to
produce any cooking itself. In this case you will have to "cook" on the actual paper. Start writing and do not stop. After you have
about ten or twenty pages (which may be rambling, but do not worry), take out 3x5 cards and go through your material. Every time
you find a particularly good sentence or idea or image, summarize it into one sentence onto one card. Hopefully, you will have
around twenty or thirty cards when you finish. Then, separate the cards into stacks of related ideas. Try to summarize the main
point of each stack in one sentence. If, after the first round of this process, you find enough useful material, you might start
organizing your ideas into paragraphs--in other words, your first draft. If you do not have enough material after the first round of the
process, start over, but try letting your mind wander this time. Use metaphors and odd associations. If something else is on your
mind, write about whatever else you are thinking for ten minutes (a freewriting exercise) before returning to your main subject. Your
other preoccupations may be what are keeping you from concentrating on your main subject, and writing them may bring more
focus to your writing.

The Goal is Cooking

Remember that desperation writing, or external cooking, is only a temporary solution. After external cooking, you will want to
revert back to internal cooking (thinking of ideas in your mind) because this type of cooking tends to produce far richer, quicker
results. You will always have to expend some amount of mental energy (internal cooking) in your writing. There is no avoiding the
mental challenge of writing well. External cooking is designed to help your mind start processing your words and ideas, but only
internal cooking will produce your best writing.

Cooking and Energy. Cooking is about expending energy in positive directions. You may use the same amount of energy on
becoming too attached to a poor first draft as you would on external or internal cooking. But with cooking, you are generating far
more useful material for your time. You are, again, being much more efficient with your mental energy.

Goodness and Badness. If you are unwilling to let yourself write badly, you may not write anything at all. Sometimes your best
writing is mixed with your worst. Let yourself write badly. You may have to do it before you can begin to write well.

Why the Old, Wrong Model of Writing Persists. Cooking and growing are often discouraged by writing teachers and by
anxieties. The "meaning-into-words" model persists because of the unwillingness, for example, to use accidents or digressions as the
eventual main focus of a paper. Also, the traditional model, with its insistence on structure, can be reassuring if you are
uncomfortable with your writing.