How You Can Easily Remove Writer’s Block

You’ve seen the classic image of the writer sitting down at a typewriter, inserting a fresh sheet of paper and then dashing off page after page of perfect prose. That’s the way to do it, right? And yet when you do it, what happens? Nothing, and so it would seem that you have a case of writer’s block.

Fortunately, a very easy way to overcome writer’s block exists, as long as you are willing to put a little thought and preparation into it. With the right preparation you can make writing an easy-to-do process so that the words just flow out of you.

The basic problem behind writer’s block is that the process of writing and the process of creating are not the same. They require different kinds of thinking and our minds find it hard to do both things at the same time. By recognizing this we can understand and then quickly deal with the essential problem behind writer’s block.

We can tackle writing in a 4-step process:

1. Create your editing guidelines
2. Create a structure to communicate your idea
3. Write the prose (the written language in its ordinary form)
4. Edit the writing

Firstly, let’s look at Step 3, the process of writing prose. Writing is an alternative form of speech only instead of speaking words we convert them into symbols that represent the spoken words. Most of us don’t suffer from too many problems with this and it’s the easiest part of the process. However, to get to the point where we turn on the flow of writing and complete an article, we need to deal with the other three parts of the process that will block that flow unless we deal with them up front.

Next, let’s look at Step 2, the process of creating. Creation is a more complex operation of the mind and we have to transform our early vague ideas into creations of solid substance. Because our initial ideas and imaginings are usually so vague and fleeting we need to capture them into words. We start this by writing down key ideas and themes. Next we need to build up a structure for solidifying these points and for communicating them. We can do this by creating a a ‘skeleton’ for the final piece of writing. The skeleton indicates the final form of the writing and shows how everything fits together. We then progressively ‘flesh out’ these ideas making them clearer and clearer to ourselves until we reach the stage where we can easily describe them with flowing prose and as if we were describing the final concept to someone in person.

For most people, writer’s block occurs when they try to write flowing prose without first having a clear idea of everything that they want to write about. Think about it this way: You would have little trouble in describing yourself or even retelling stories about your life because you know these things and they are already created in your mind but imagine that someone asked you to instantly create an imaginary story about someone in your family. You would probably falter, stutter, hesitate, pause, scratch your head and generally struggle your way through it as you attempted to create on the spot whilst describing it simultaneously. You might come to a complete stop, which would be ‘speaker’s block’. If you were then told to tell the story again the next day you could think through the tale properly and create a good story and practice telling it. Then when you tell the story you can do it masterfully and entertainingly. The process of writing is the same. Attempting to create and write on the spot is a no-no.

Step 1 and Step 4 both involve editing guidelines, so why are these so important? Another important part of the process of writing is to make decisions over what to include and also over what to exclude. As you go through the creation process you will come up with ideas and details about those ideas that provide little value or that detract from the main purpose of the writing. You will also need to consider things such as the target audience, the style of writing, the type of article and so on. The editorial guidelines that you create act as a filter for your decision making process. Thinking of these things in advance makes the process of creation and writing prose much easier so that you don’t struggle later on. If you don’t do this in advance then you will find yourself creating and writing passages that later get thrown out (thus wasting time) or else your flow of writing prose dries up because you find it so difficult to make decisions over how best to describe things.

Whilst it is good to create these guidelines in advance, you are probably raring to go and want to get on with transforming your ideas into writing, so treat the process of creating editing guidelines as a trial and error process with your early writings. When your writing dries up due to uncertainty over how to proceed you then need to create an editing guideline for yourself. For example, if the ‘How To’ article that you start turns more and more into a Wikipedia type explanatory article then you might decide that you actually have two articles on your hands. Decide which one that you want to do first and keep to the point. As another example, you might start the piece off in a conversational style only to find your writing getting more and more academic. Again, clear guidelines before you begin will make these decisions for you in advance of actually writing the prose.

Beyond creating the piece we also need to think about how to finish the piece. To avoid perfectionism stopping us from finishing the piece it’s good to create editing guidelines that indicate that a piece of writing is finished and is fit for publication.

We can put all of this together into a checklist that makes carrying out the 4-steps very easy (this list is an example and is not all-inclusive - you can create a checklist to your own specification):

Writing Checklist

Editing Guidelines

• Purpose of article (Ask the question, “What do I want to communicate to the reader that will prove useful?”)
• Target audience
• Type of article (explanatory, opinion, ‘how to,’ editorial, fiction)
• Length and scope
• Style of writing (conversational, academic, humorous, technical)

Structure Guidelines (what you choose to include is your choice, this is just an example)

• Title of the article
• Introduction (state the purpose of the writing)
• Explanation to communicate knowledge
• Explanation to communicate methods
• Examples
• Illustrations
• Video (if you’re creating hub pages!)
• Benefits
• Common problems
• Conclusion (state how the objectives in the title have been met)

Finishing Guidelines (if you can answer these questions suitably then it’s probably safe to publish)

• Does this article fully communicate the promise of the title and the introduction?
• Does it communicate expertise and competence?
• Does it entertain and keep the reader interested?
• Does it say anything that I cannot prove?
• Does it say anything that can be easily disputed and that undermines the whole thing?
• Is there anything about this article that’s going to make me feel embarrassed later on?

By putting plenty of thought and preparation into the whole process before actually attempting to write the finished article we can remove in advance all of the things that normally block the writing process. We also boost our overall productivity because we direct our efforts sensibly and carefully from the outset. We also get articles not just written but also finished and ready for publication because we create clear specifications about what makes an article fit for publication, or not.

So remember, think in advance about the decisions that you will have to make and keep your creative process separate from your writing process. Do these things and writer’s block will be a thing of the past for you. Now isn’t that an outcome to welcome?