“A Study of Writer’s Block, Part Two”

Last time we got a glimpse of the composing processes of students who had a hard time writing. This time, we’ll pick up with some discussion of fluent writers.

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What about the students who weren’t stymied, who wrote with relative fluency? They too talked of rules and assumptions and displayed planning strategies. The interesting thing, though, is that their rules were more flexible; that is, a rule seemed to include conditions under which it ought and ought not to be used. The rules weren't absolutes, but rather statements about what one might do in certain writing situations. Their assumptions, as well, were not absolute, and they tended to enhance composing, opening up rather than restricting possibilities. And their planning strategies tended to be flexible and appropriate to the task. Fluent writers had their rules, strategies, and assumptions, but they were of a different kind from those of the blocked writers.

What to do? One is tempted to urge the blocked writers to clear their minds of troubling rules, plans, and assumptions. In a few cases, that might not be such a bad idea. But what about Liz's preoccupation with passive constructions? Some degree of concern about casting one's language in the active voice is a good thing. And Gary's precise strategies? It would be hard to imagine good academic writing that isn't preceded by careful analysis of one's materials. Writers need the order and the guidance that rules, strategies, and assumptions provide. The answer to Liz's, Tyrrell’s, and Gary's problems, then, lies in altering their approaches to make them more conditional, adaptive, and flexible. Let me explain further. For the sake of convenience, I’ll focus on rules, though what I’ll say has application to the assumptions we develop and the planning strategies we learn.

Writing is a phenomenally complex learned activity. To write in a way that others can understand we must employ a large and complicated body of conventions. We learn from our parents or earliest teachers that script, in English, goes left to right straight across the page. We learn about letter formation, spelling, sentence structure, and so on. Some of this information we absorb more or less unconsciously through reading, and some of it we learn formally as guidelines, as directives ... as rules.

And there are all kinds of rules. Some tell us how to format our writing (for example, when to capitalize, how to paragraph, how to footnote). There are grammar rules (for example, "Make a pronoun agree in number with its antecedent”). There are preferences concerning style that are often stated as rules (“Avoid passive voice”). There are usage rules (“That always introduces restrictive clauses; which can introduce both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses”). There are rules that tell us how to compose (“Before you begin writing, decide on your thesis and write it down in a single, declarative sentence”). The list goes on and on. Some of these rules make sense; others are confusing, questionable, or contradictory. Fortunately we assimilate a good deal of the information they contain gradually by reading other writers, by writing ourselves, or by simply being around print. Therefore, we can confirm or alter or reject them from experience.

But all too often the rules are turned into absolutes. And that's where the trouble begins. Most rules about writing should not be expressed (in textbooks), stored (in our minds), or enacted (on the page) as absolutes, as mathematical, unvarying directives. True, a few rules apply in virtually all situations (for example, certain formatting rules or capitalization rules). But most rules do not. Writing rules, like any rules about language, have a history and have a time and place. They are highly context-bound.

Should you always, as some textbooks suggest, place your thesis sentence at the beginning of your first paragraph or, as others suggest, work up to it and place it at the end of the paragraph? Well, the answer is that both injunctions are right ... and wrong. Students writing essay exams would be well-advised to demonstrate their knowledge and direct the reader’s attention as soon as possible. But the writer who wants to give a sense of intellectual discovery might offer a series of facts and events that gradually lead up to a thesis sentence. The writing situation, the rhetorical purpose, and the nature of the material one is working with will provide the answer. A single-edged rule cannot.

How about our use of language, usage rules? Certainly there’s a right and wrong here. Again, not quite. First of all, there’s a time in one's writing to worry about such things. Concern yourself with questions of usage too early in your composing and you’ll end up like Liz, worrying about the minutiae of language while your thought fades to a wisp. Second, the social consequences of following or ignoring such rules vary widely depending on whether you're writing formal or informal prose. Third, usage rules themselves have an evolutionary history: we aren’t obliged to follow some of the rules that early twentieth century writers had to deal with, and our rules will alter and even disappear as the English language moves on in time. No, there are no absolutes here either.

Well, how about some of the general, commonsense rules about the very act of writing itself? Certainly rules like "Think before you write” ought to be followed? Again, a qualification is in order. While it certainly is good advice to think through ideas before we record them for others to see, many people, in fact, use writing as a way of thinking. They make major decisions as they write. There are times when it's best to put a piece of writing aside and ponder, but there are also times when one ought to keep pen in hand or finger on keyboard and attempt to resolve a conceptual tangle by sketching out what comes to mind. Both approaches are legitimate.

I'll stop here. I hope I've shown that it's difficult to make hard and fast statements about the structure, the language, or the composing of an essay. Let me be clear: I’m not calling for an abandonment of rules, strategies, etc., but for a more context-sensitive and fluid use of them. Unfortunately, there’s a strong push in our culture to make absolute statements about writing, especially when issues of style and usage are concerned. But I hope by now the reader of this essay believes that most roles about writing – about how to do it, about how it should be structured, about what words to use – are not absolute, and should be taught and enacted in a flexible, context-dependent way. Given certain conditions, you follow them; given other conditions you modify or suspend them. A teacher may insist that a young writer follow a particular dictum in order to learn a pattern. That’s fine. But there also comes a time when the teacher extends the lesson and explains when the dictum is and isn't appropriate.

Our writing and how we do it can be such a personal thing. Certainly, most of us are at least a little sensitive about the writing we do. I hope this discussion has been helpful, if for no other reason then it gets us to reflect on how we write and make some adjustments to make that writing go a little easier.