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In my freshman creative writing class at university, my professor recommended using stream of thought and it seemed to work very well. Just literally start wri
by toofy 8y ago
In my freshman creative writing class at university, my professor recommended using stream of thought and it seemed to work very well.
Just literally start writing everything you think, as you think it, everything, just write it. Don’t fret over spelling or even bother with punctuation, no matter how disjointed, just stream and eventually you begin to somehow fall into focus and the words will flow much much better.
Once you’re finished and have gotten your point across, just go back and edit.
We all kinda looked at each other and rolled our eyes because it sounds so strange, but it really does seem to work.
- csa 8y agoFor those interested in learning more about this method, Peter Elbow is the relevant author. His books Writng without Teacher and Writing with Power go into more details.
- dri_ft 8y ago> Writng without Teacher Feel like you might have taken the "don't fret over spelling" part of the method a bit too literally here.
- thecatspaw 8y agoI have to admit I am a little bit disappointed that its not the actual title of the book
- csa 8y agoYeah. I blame it on fat fingering on a phone. For reference, it’s actualy Writing without Teachers. Thanks for letting me know.
- avian 8y agoThis is good advice, because it also forces you to learn to edit what you've written. What I've seen is that editing is a separate skill from writing that needs some effort to learn. Maybe editing is not that important for blog posts. Shorter texts can sometimes be written in one pass, but for producing anything longer it's a vital skill.
- henrik_w 8y ago+1 for this. I know it works for me, but I still get stuck sometimes trying to get the sentence perfect the first time. But this only slows me down. Once I have something, it is relatively easier to edit it into a good sentence than it is to find a good sentence from the beginning. I think it is the same way when I write code. First get something to work, then refactor it works really well.
- r_singh 8y agoPG's essay on writing says this too, this helps a lot
- diminoten 8y agoI (and a lot of others) call this "word vomit", and it's definitely very helpful. I do something similar with code, "code vomit" (how creative). Do whatever it takes to get the damn thing working, then go back over it and apply as many good coding principles as you can.
- claytonjy 8y agoI think the more crude advice of "write drunk, edit sober" comes from a similar line of reasoning; alcohol is the push to start the stream of consciousness.