"What am I trying to say?" "It's on the tip of my tongue."
Two phrases I'm sure we're all familiar with. The process of conveying abstract thought in coherent words is something we all encounter on a daily basis. Even typing this out now, I'm having trouble finding the right string of words that best convey the ideas I'm trying to lay out. I've always suffered a bit of a disconnect when it comes to converting my thoughts into words. What usually ends up happening is I'll string together words trying to "capture" a certain "feel" of an idea, but is not in any way a cohesive sentence, if they could be considered sentences at all. This type of "stream-of-consciousness" writing may have its purposes, but is not at all practical in real world applications. How do you convert your brain-mash to a form that makes sense to other people? What tips and tricks do you, the good people of Hubski, have for organizing your thoughts?
Writing, like speech, has a physicality to it. Perhaps the main way this shows is in its serial nature, where ideas are no longer jumbled up in your head but laid out one after the other. This definitely has to do with logical structure; but it also happens in poetry, for example, so its not the same. The cool thing is, you can choose how to order your ideas so that they have the effect you want. And you can enjoy the process. In that sense writing feels more like creating something tangible, choosing words and ways to express yourself that will convey what you want. And choosing the right order to express those ideas. Doing an outline can certainly help, but personally I find that preparing a very detailed outline can be counter-productive for this, making my writing too mechanic. When you're writing, or when you're telling a story, the main thing is to focus on what you're trying to express now and have in the back of your mind a general idea of where you're going with this. Typical examples of bad writing involve people getting ahead of themselves and getting to the conclusions before developing important parts of the argument or story. This can make people repeat themselves over and over again, getting their big points washed out in a disorganised mess.
My strategy is somewhat different than those proposed here so I thought I would throw in. 1. Try to write whatever it is you're trying to write. (Blog post, email, hubski post, article, whatever.) 2. Take that piece of paper, look at it for a moment. 3. Now crumple it up and throw it out. 4. It's okay. You can reread it if you want. You can even keep it and reference back to it if you're really attached. But then... 5. New page. New document. Or at least, hit enter a ton of times before your first draft. Get it out of your sight. 6. Now, write it again. ___ I almost always do this instead of taking my first draft and trying to edit it into something cohesive. I find I, like many writers, have trouble getting started. I know maybe what the meat of what I'm trying to say is, or maybe where I want to start, but not really. So often half or more of my first draft is me shitting on the page trying to wander into the beginning of my piece. I say, let that happen. I even think it's kind of necessary. Then, once you have all the shit out of your system, and your mind is warmed up and used to the idea that "Now, We're Writing," that's when you can actually get a decent start. I also think that when I work in this manner I often get many of my initial or important points down but they are rarely clear, rarely as powerful as they could be, or as well spaced out or detailed, as they need to be in the final form. However the spitballs of the first draft allow me to flesh them out more fully than I had in my head. Although I do believe that you don't need to reference an original draft to successfully write a second one (everything you wrote is in your head; you should know it), referencing the points you make in the first, seeing where your verbiage worked and didn't, can allow you to incorporate the strong points of the first draft in with your more moderated and thought-out second draft. So basically, start by shitting or vomiting all over the page. Don't worry about it; know that you're shitting or vomiting but that it's important just to get the damn words down. I find it really, really helpful. Then do it again. After that I start doing read-throughs and line-edits. Sometimes if a piece is giving me a lot of trouble I repeat the first part a few times. It helps, I think. Write lots. Only keep what works.
First I jot down an outline. I try to lay out my key points, then layout each sub point. Each sub point should directly prove the key point and each key point should prove the overall argument. Once that outline is there, I type out my thoughts in long form. Once the long form is done, I hatchet out anything that doesn't match the outline. Lastly I try to write for brevity. I minimize prose and maximize focus. I find clear language is more valuable to people than beautiful language, but that might just be my audience.
As always, practice makes perfect. One thing I like to do is use a website like Write or Die where you give yourself a word count goal and a specified amount of time and it does annoying things if you're not writing fast enough or don't meet your goal. I'll just word-barf my unedited thoughts no matter how badly they come out. Then I'll do this again the next day and it'll usually come out much more refined since I've already had practice writing. Then from there I'll refine it down to the best material and edit any phrases that aren't clear/accurate. Usually I do this in chunks of 750 word bursts, and I can get 200-350 quality words out of those bursts once I edit and refine them. This is just what works for me though - you should experiment with a bunch of things and see what works for you. I think the one universal piece of advice I have is that you're never going to get everything perfect on the first draft. Trying to get everything right the first time will slow you down so much, and I find it rarely beneficial.
Thanks for all the insightful responses. Working through an outline is definitely something I've never really practiced, and may alleviate the feeling of grasping at aether in terms of getting my ideas out there. I think my main issue is having the mind of a goldfish. I have little confidence in my ability be clear and concise, most of my thoughts and ideas lack focus and I find myself trying to overload each sentence with as many ideas as I can fit. I think most of the responses are spot on in that I need to slow down and reflect on what my words are really trying to say.
Definitely coerce yourself into the habit of making an outline- I still dislike making one, but the quality of writing is noticeably more lucid, exact, and stronger logically. A suggestion from my favorite English teacher (Rene Wang) is that for an essay, get a blank sheet of paper and write down anything that comes to mind all over the page, then connect those that have a relationship and group those ideas into major points. It also beneficial for you to read novels; not only do you pick up some ways to structure your sentence, you also can 'borrow' some of their style and diction that make it easier to elucidate your idea. p.s I tried Dickens for vocabulary- on every page there'd be at least 5 words I didn't know, 3 I've never seen, and 1 that made me go 'there's a word that means that?'
I trust my instincts. By that, I mean that the first word that comes to mind when I'm trying to articulate an idea is usually the most accurate one. I used to revise everything I wrote over and over again, trying to capture the spirit of my thoughts by changing words and sentences around, but the result usually read like an owner's manual that had been written by a committee - no soul at all. In the situation you're describing, in which I just string words together without regard for grammar or sentence structure, I certainly have to go back and edit them into a form someone else would understand... but I try to change my actual word choice as little as possible.
All of the responses so far definitely touch what I have in mind as my preference. Free-writing is a great way to just jot down what is on the top of your head. When I free-write I first choose a topic or an idea. When I start, I do not stop to think about what to write. It does not have to be coherent or perfect grammar. When I am satisfied with my free-written piece, I go back and edit and rewrite the chunks and move them around to make it coherent. That said, you may have a different preference but want to incorporate some ideas from my method and from others who commented. Point being, it will take time to find what works best for you. Good luck, cheers.
My favorite strategy is to just write down everything I'm thinking then edit it over and over again. I find that when I at least have all the ideas down on the page it is easier to add, delete, and reorganize them into a more cohesive collection of thoughts