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Writing’s hard, but your message is just as valuable and valid as anybody else’s.
That blank page is the start of a journey. And if you’re writing a novel, or even a short story or script, that journey can be a long one.
So we need to know where we’re going, yes?
Well, kinda.
You Can’t Force It
An agent I had once said to me, “You can’t force it, Martin.” This was really tough to take at the time, but I now realise that this was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve ever been given.
These days I see a lot of university students writing essays or dissertations or whatever, and a common problem is, they’ve been given a question, they’ve decided what their angle is going to be and what the conclusion will be before they’ve even started writing.
By fixing their destination so rigidly they’ve put themselves on tracks, and there’s no way off these tracks. There’s no points in the rails. They haven’t given themselves the option of discovery.
Discovery can make more work because things can change significantly. But that’s better than focusing on a single point and refusing to consider any other options. Because that will mean you have to force things to make them fit.
And like the man said, you can’t force it.
Paper Cuts
So we’ve got a destination in mind, but we’ve allowed enough flexibility to go off the beaten track or off piste or whatever metaphor you’d like to use. Now what?
Just get the words down. Just set off and follow the writing.
Try not to edit as you go along. This is difficult because of the technology we use. Because it’s so easy to change things as we go along, that’s what we do.
We type and then think.
And we undo and retype and think a bit more and undo and retype and delete.
Editing as we go along slows us down. It wastes time. Why polish that paragraph that you might end up cutting anyway?
And at some point you might know it needs cutting, but you could be reluctant to do so because you think “I’ve spent ages on that!”
I haven’t done this myself of course. I’ve heard of people who have.
Own Your Writing
A lot of writers I know turn off all spelling and grammar checks when writing a first draft. Not because they don’t value those tools, but they can be so distracting. Another issue is that it’s too easy to just accept the suggestion the software has made made without really knowing why.
Students, for example, will often bring me a piece of writing. I’ll be reading it and at a point I’ll say to them, “Well, why did you do that?” And they’ll say something like, “I don’t know, word just underlined it.”
Or they’ll run work through Grammarly and make changes without knowing why.
You need to know.
You need to have full ownership of your writing.
When you’ve learned and gained experience, you won’t need to think about it so much. And then you can trust your gut instinct not the technology.
Sophisticated procrastination
Do you do a lot of research or planning? They’re both important, but be honest: is all your research and planning a form of sophisticated procrastination?
Are you simply delaying the start?
James Clear talks about this in his book Atomic Habits.
He talks about the difference between motion and action.
Motion is thinking and planning, which is valuable, but action is actually doing.
At some point you just have to start.
But all that said there is a balance to be had.
Losing the Plot
I used to launch into writing way too early.
I’d have what I thought was a great idea and a vague notion of what it was going to be and where it was going to go, and I’d create a new Scrivener document and leap headlong into the writing.
Doing that prematurely meant that I often lost my way, and then I’d feel like I’d have to get things back on track. And that often meant I’d force things.
And as we now know…
So by all means prepare and have an idea of your destination. But build in opportunities for discovery.
Try not to use planning as a way of delaying departure. Everybody hates delays.
Writing is a voyage of discovery. If you plan too much, screw things down too tightly, there’s no opportunity to benefit from the unexpected.
When to Stop
I do a bit of gardening.
It’s my hobby, if you like.
My ethos for gardening is stop when you’ve had enough. If it becomes a chore you won’t enjoy it and if you don’t enjoy it you won’t want to do it.
Same with writing.
Be consistent.
You turn up at the page every day.
You write for an hour, half an hour, 20 minutes.
You do whatever you can do.
But however much you write you stop when you know what’s coming next. Stop when you know what’s coming next and when you’re feeling positive about the work.
Then you’ll keep coming back.
I’m a published novelist, writer, editor and Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow with 30 years’ experience across business, fiction, other non-fiction, scriptwriting and education.
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Martin Sketchley 