Fighting Writer's Block - Part IV
Speed Writing: How to Master the Blank Page

by David Taylor


Speed writing is a way of thinking as well as a way of composing. Most of all, it's a state of being when you sit in front of the computer. When sitting down to write, I am convinced the very worst thing we can do is to let our hands be idle. In other words, to headwrite: when fingers sit upon the keyboard awaiting the thoughts to form themselves into acceptable sentences in our head, then transcribing them onto the screen. Ding dong, that's wrong. At least for me.

During the process of creation, our mind and fingers should work as one to produce the rough shape of the artistic vision. Our goal should be to initiate a flowing stream of thought and expression, to connect word and thought in a simultaneous oneness.

Om.

But this isn't New Agey at all. Like a painter's brush, a keyboard is a tool for creating. Like a painter, we need a process that helps us immerse our deepest selves into that passionate moment of creation. Later, we can change colors (revise). Later, we can get out the smallest brush and, like a painter, work up close until the details are in sharp relief (edit/proof). But first comes creation. Speed writing is a way of inserting into your writing process a time when passionate creation can take place.


How Speed Writing Works

Speed writing works very much like freewriting, but you focus on getting from the beginning to the end of something: a paragraph, a section, an article, a chapter, perhaps an entire book. You set a time frame, you begin writing, then you do not stop until you come to the end of the entire thing you want to write: whether a sentence, or a novel. Yes, your novel will be reduced to six pages, your feature article will be nasty lump of clay, your screenplay absent most of its dialogue. But its flaws aren't the point. After a speed draft is done, you've got something you can either work with or throw away -- a choice you didn't have before. Other rules include:


You must not interrupt the flow of words upon the screen, even if it means making up quotes and facts, or taking up space with things like "OK, I've run out of something to say, I really don't know where to go next, let me think, what if I tried..."


You must not stop to reread or edit what you've written until the speed session is over.

Some writers, including Stephen King, like to listen to loud rock music when speed writing. Some do it standing up. Some like the feel of a number two pencil, some love the sight of a yellow legal pad. Some drink coffee, some drink that miracle of modern marketing: bottled water. Whatever. Suck on a pacifier, if you wish. Just start writing and don't stop. Don't edit. Don't second guess. Don't evaluate. Don't do anything but listen to that little voice inside your head and write down everything it says.

Beyond Zero Draft

Speed writing can be useful in just about every stage of the writing process: planning, drafting, revising -- any time you need to figure something out, whether it's a sentence or a book plan. But between the end of the material gathering stage and before the completion of the first draft, writers dwell in a place I call the "zero draft." That's when this technique can be important.

The fear of beginning a first draft is legitimate. Until it is complete, we have no way of knowing for sure that the right connections will be made and salient points brought out, or how many dead ends we'll hit and "do overs" we'll have to perform. The traditional answer to this dilemma is the outline, which can be helpful, especially in highly formatted articles. But outlines have the tendency to dissolve like toilet tissue in the rain once the real writing begins and each sentence must build on the one before it.

Another solution: the speed draft. During a speed-draft session, your goal is to get from the beginning of the entire piece to its end in a single block of timed writing. No matter what short cuts you must take -- summarize entire sections in a sentence, put in XXX's to substitute for blocks of narration or main points -- your goal is to get from beginning to end in some form without stopping.

Do this for an entire screenplay, and you've got your first stab at a treatment. Do it for an entire novel and you got your first stab at chapter summaries. Do it for an article, short story, scene or a book chapter, and you've got a first draft. Very rough, but very important. This speed draft serves three distinct purposes:


It lets ideas connect to each other where it counts -- on the page in actual sentences and paragraphs.


Because several speed drafts can be done in one morning, you can play around with different organizational structures without committing serious composing time to any one.


With the work's overall structure in front of you, albeit in rough form, you have slain the monster of the blank page and the work now exists at least in some form. All you have to do now is to refine it and have fun playing with it.


Speed Writing's Other Uses

When I compose, my computer's screen has two windows open. In one large window is the actual piece in whatever form it happens to be at the time. The other window contains a "Speed Pad," which provides me a place to speed write. Any time I need to think about how to do something, instead of pausing to stare at the computer screen, I put the cursor on the Speed Pad and think by typing, whether to:


flesh out an idea
plan a dramatic scene
find out what should come next
talk through what bothers me about what I've written
write different versions of a sentence to see which works better
anything else that would make me stare at the screen instead of write
Once the speed writing is done, there are two choices: (1) cut and paste if it's good enough -- and sometimes it is; or (2) print it out, set the hard copy by the computer and refer to it. Regardless, the goal has been achieved.
Think with writing; let writing become your way of thinking on the page or screen. Let it become your way of relating to the world. Your way of being. Don't let anything get between you and the words and the world you are exploring with them.

Here is a major point I see this guy failed to mention.

In order to write well, you should write the way you talk. If you write the way you talk, your writing will always be very understandable to the reader. There will be no convoluted sentences. No $25 words, where a 50-cent offering will suffice. There will be no misunderstanding. No misinterpretation.

When you talk to friends, you don't 'put on airs' in your speech. You speak to be understood, and (with the exception of politicians) you usually are. And just about every writing instructor, agent, editor, publisher and reader will tell you that if you write the way you talk, your manuscript will be infinitely more readable, publishable and sellable. You've already mastered the art of talking. You've been doing it ever since you were a few months old, and you've been honing, practicing and developing your talking skills just about every day of your life! You have mastered the details, you have mastered the techniques, and you have mastered the process and the challenges.