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Home  Browse All Articles Improve Your Writing Free Write: Planting Mental Seeds of Creativity
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Free Write: Planting Mental Seeds of Creativity |
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Written by Glenda K. Fralin
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Tuesday, 03 July 2007 |
Free Write: Planting Mental Seeds of Creativity
A Free Write is a form of free association. When drafting a Free Write, some writers simply avoid thinking about a topic at all. They start writing anything that comes to mind during the process without any particular direction. Then, the author will go back, read it, and find something on which to focus.
Another style of Free Writing is not quite so free. Some authors of text books about written communication call this technique a Focused Free Write. In a Focused Free Write, one may write in much the same manner with the exception being they will totally focus on one topic. For instance, if one wanted to write something about mother for Mother’s Day, one may use the topic of mother or motherhood and write anything that comes to mind. Then go back, read it, and decide what part one wants to use.
Both forms of Free Writing are valuable exercises writers use to break out of writer’s block. They may also be used to create new ideas.
Choosing a topic and making a Free Write is one of my favorite tools. I believe this process is important to the way I write. One thing we must be careful of is to avoid seeing our Free Write as a finished product. Some Free Writes seem to be a complete story if we are focused enough to move smoothly from one part to another. It is easier for us to see on paper exactly where we are going. However, sometimes when I ask someone else to critique my work, I have been stung when their reply revealed they did not know what I was writing about. We feel it is complete because it is clear to us. We do not realize we are asking others to read our minds. When we review the Free Write and use it as a starter, we make much better progress.
It's a bit like designing a landscape. If one designs a landscape and never questions the design, the full potential of the space may be lost. If one asks other experts to critique a written piece, the concept works in a similar manner. Critiques are a resource, not a rejection. Writers are not as competitive as some may think. We like to help each other grow. If one is blind to other possibilities, the design will be lacking flow and symmetry when finished. Places to find good critiques from other writers are local writers’ groups. The Internet has forums that exist specifically for writers to share and learn. Use the online forums with caution. A key point of any Internet forum is to make sure to retain complete control of the work.
Revisions and edits help us to acquire immediate answers to the basic questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how of the setting and main character. This wonderful advice came to me from a journalist friend who critiqued a short story I was writing at the time. He felt the first paragraph of a story should answer most or all of these questions.
Free Writes are a wonderful tool. I recommend them. They can generate more than one work. They cannot, however, be a finished product. Evaluate your work as if you were a critic and allow other critics to do the same. Then, the product may be a marketable piece of writing.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 October 2007 )
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