What is the hardest concept for improvement out there?
Going Slow
Going slow is the key that makes mastery possible. There are many times we are better off if we use this concept. Writers can get locked into thinking we need to write as fast as we can so we can get something out there or to get to our authentic voice. There is a time for this. I personally like to use it for quick first drafts. It helps me get my ideas down. However there are times we should go slow, or at least slow down.
One is the Hardest Number
The hardest advice for a writer is to be told to improve just one thing. Many of us have lists ot things we know we need to work on. Yet, often working on that one thing can improve not just the current draft but all the ones that come after.
Working on multiple fixes at one time tends to divide our one thought mind into a multi tasking mindset. This might be good for the ego but it will not really eliminate an error from our practice. We are better off if we work to just take out that one concept that is mot problematic for us. If you eliminate a dragging element in your process, then you are naturally going to improve. A clean mental process means faster and better writing.
Improve Skills
Improving a skill is a good time to slow down a bit with some focused work on one aspect of our skill base. This holds especially true when you are faced with a list of things you want to improve yesterday. Trying to hit a list all at once is just another form of multi-tasking. Our brains are rigged to work with one thing at a time. A slowed down approach is the best way to make headway, one correction at a time. This allows us to get deeper into the work. A deeper view allows us to see more clearly what we are getting right and wrong without having to balance a lot of other concerns at the same time.
The concept here is slow down to learn fast. We learn things faster with one thing to focus on. This is part of the reason you did not try to study math, history and a foreign language all at the same time in school. Our minds are made to deal with only one thing at a time with any efficiency. Trying to bring multi tasking into a learning environment is of an error.
Mastery Comes When We Go Slow
When we want to work to master a skill focus is again the key. Just one focal point is enough. Even then you are likely still working with multiple items. Think of driving. We have to monitor the road. Watch the speed. Control the wheel. Control the gas and breaks. Shift if it is a manual transmission. Even automatic requires the occasional reverse or parking setting. Learning to drive bounces our attention to far more than one thing at a time.
Writing works much the same way. It is a simple skill, and yet it is not. We have to work with typing, editing, original rough draft, rewrite, research, outlines, theme, characters /people in the story, interviews, and so on. Accuracy comes from slowing down and working on each of the skills at a base level so they become more automatic and flow into a more harmonious whole.
Shifting Gears
There rush is in the muse lead madness of the rough draft. The edit is more in the conversational mode. Moving from one to the other requires a different speed. Edits require a slower pace so that you can catch your own biases and errors as well as give you time to accept the validity of an editor’s efforts.
Deep Work
Deep writing demands we slow down to allow our minds to cover the ideas and or work through our outline before we write. Sometimes you just have to accept being slow to wrap your mind around things enough to clairfy and demistify.
Process
We slow down at many points during the process as a whole. We shift down when we shift from plugging pages to tackle questions like what is the theme of my book or blog? Finding the answers to the critical structure elements in our work are not just a snap of the fingers away. You are going to need some time to find those answers.
Research Fast and Slow
Research is a two phase process we do before and after the first draft. We only need a limited amount of research to tackle a totally new subject. The best advice I have ever gotten to avoid death by research was limit the initial research, like just three books. Do it fast. Do not take notes. Move to the rough draft and cover the entire canvas. Do all of that as fast as possible. Research after the first draft is done. It’s quite likely we will need a bit more work to refine the work. That’s when we can slow down a bit for deep research, but only after we get our first draft done.
Blogs Collumns and More
Slowing down is also a wise idea when you are tackling a larger project such as a blog or a regular collumn or a large white paper project. There is virtually no way to realistically create such work in just a day or so. Sure there are some ways to get through the process in a shorter time, but you are still going to have to slow down at points to get the devilish details into place.
Anytime we work on a longer term project over time we are going to have to slow down. Our focus is often more on the work this week than the overall growth of the work. It would be impossible to work from the perspective of the end point for a ten year project today. The scale would stop us in our tracks. Can you write 7000 articles in a month? No one else can either. We are far better off working on what we need to get done today. That means we have to thing in slower terms than where it will be in a decade.
Accuracy in Thought
Developing the mind takes time but developed our mental processes actually speeds up our long term writing skills. Asimov worked on his memory first, rather than his rewrites later.
When we look at the number of drafts writers go through, we see two types. Some writers advise getting used to working in multiple drafts and thinking of the process in terms of multiple drafts. Many of the great writers advocate this. This is a solid successful process. However there are others who come from a totally different approach. They advocate for less drafts.
Do these points of view conflict? Not really. Most of the masters have a tendency to do much of the thinking before they drafted anything. That does not mean they necessarily knew word for word what they were going to put down, just that they knew exactly what the story line was as clearly as possible.
Asimov’s Memory
Asimov viewed his memory as most important skill to develop because a stronger mememory allowed him to figure out his plot lines in advance of typing anything. When he sat down to type he already knew exactly where he was going. This allowed him to regularly write one physical draft rather than the more common process of multiple drafts.
While Asimov could be said to be the king of single drafts, he is not the only writer to advocate strengthening skills to limit the number of drafts a writer needs. Steven King talks of three drafts: a rough, a rewrite/edit and a polish. Jack London wrote several of his well known books in just a few drafts, Call of the wild was done in just a month.
Other Writers
It’s not just literary masters who have a monopoly on developing solid mental writing skills. Many reporters and other nonliterary writers advise a kind of writing that allows them to slow down to digest the information first, often they write some form of brief summation or short outline in their head or on paper.
How to Write Fast
One of my favorite books How to Write Fast (while writing well) by David Pryxell recommends just a few sentences for an article. His basic steps for writing articles can be used in most writing. They are to:
1. Resist any urge to not do outlines.
Even to save time is not a valid point. You need a clear idea of what you are going to write. Pantsers are likely to say nay, but I would offer that even for a free form effort, some idea of where you are going with your work is preferred to zero. Many pantser have some idea of what they are going to write on, maybe a couple of characters, possibly they are ripping off a well known story line from an old source like the bible.
2. Outline
Compress your story line in your outline, distill it down to remove the fluff, just the facts ma am just the facts. You want to have as crystal clear a thought in your head as possible. This makes the articles quicker to write without all the fluff running in your head.
3. Keep the story a smooth read.
Use compare and contrast for movement in the narrative. Smooth the read with transitions. A fast pace moves the writing. This holds true for all writing not just newspapers. The smoother the writing the happier the reader.
4. Deep six any material that does not actually fit into the story.
Some times this part is hard because you really like a given point or idea. Save this for after your rough draft is done, but do it. A good story is tight and on point.
Pryxell’s Point
What was different for Pryxell’s meathod to writing over than a standard news article. “Unlike most time pressured newspaper stories, it (His news story) had a narrative flow more elegant than the ‘inverted pyramid’ (common news paper form), and the points I made worked together to support and overall thesis about my subject.”
A few minutes of outlining and linking his notes was all it took to create a much more readable as well as faster written news story than many of his colleagues at the newspaper.
End Point
The thing we can easily forget in our writing is that we do need to slow down. We are all speed junkies to some degree, but slowing down in the right places not only makes for faster writing, but also allows for better writing that pulls our readers along through a solid story.
Next up try: Mental Strength and Courage Develop Committed Writers
Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash