Ten Ways to Think About Writing
After reading E. Shelley Reid’s article, “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students” I better understood the analytical approach to many writers’ works, I was able to realize that many writers have seemingly similar issues in their works and as they were pointed out in the article I realized that I also have those issues at times.
Early on one of the issues shown was the “set rules” that are in place during our younger years that then restrict us from furthering our writing abilities. These rules that are implemented are set as a barrier for students and are often torturously difficult to break down, it leads to overthinking and writing that is often stripped down of their originality because of their fear. Although structured writing is necessary and becomes very favorable in certain instances it is the free flow writing that makes a writer evolve. Free flow writing leads to an array of ideas and possible writings, granted structured writing is used to perfect these ideas but they are fore fronted by the unstructured writing.
Writing has always been a struggle for me but above all I struggle with not adding enough detail. There have been moments in writing when I thoroughly try to add more details but then I feel like I’ve over done it or that the piece is no longer mine. By adding more detail I felt like the writing was no longer mine, my writing style is a bit less detailed but still to the point and those ” rules ” that I previously touched on have limited me to feeling like I must over detail my work to have it achieve a better grade. Thus creating a detachment from my writing; leading to a rift in my readers interest which as Reid wrote about. Readers interest is enormously important which is why there must be a feeling of attachment from the author and their work.
Although I think it is important to have structure in your writing it is also important to have the ability to have a free form sense of writing to evolve your writing and not stay stagnant in the cookie cutter idea of what is supposed to be done.
