Free Writing

[Marshmallow]

Free Writing

Free writing - term applied to a technique used by mainly prose writers or teachers of writing. It refers to a method by which a writer can overcome blocks of apathy and self-criticism to produce a raw but often usable material.

Rules
Here are the essential rules that are often formulated for the beginners or students, often a paraphrase of Natalie Goldberg’s “Rules for Free Writing,” often referred to as Natalie Goldberg’s first four rules of writing:

• Give yourself a time limit. Write for one or ten or twenty minutes, and then stop.
  
• Keep your hand moving until the time is up. Do not pause to stare into space or to read what you’ve written. Write quickly but not in a hurry.
  
• Pay no attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, neatness, or style. Nobody else needs to read what you produce here. The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.
  
• If you get off the topic or run out of ideas, keep writing anyway. If necessary, write nonsense or whatever comes into your head, or simply scribble: anything to keep the hand moving.
  
• If you feel bored or uncomfortable as you’re writing, ask yourself what’s bothering you—and write about that. Sometimes your creative energy is like water in a kinked hose, and before thoughts can flow on the topic at hand, you have to straighten the hose by attending to whatever is preoccupying you.
  
• When the time is up, look over what you’ve written, and mark passages that contain ideas or phrases that might be worth keeping or elaborating on in a subsequent free-writing session.
  

wikipedia.com

Has anyone ever used, or is anyone currently using this method? If so, did it result successfully?

I am currently writing therewith, and I have to admit, I am pretty productive.

[Reyn]

Interesting. I haven't tried that method - but I can see the potential in simply recording your thoughts without worrying about spelling and punctuation. I will have to give it a go (although I know myself well enough to realise not correcting work straight away will really get to me).

How did you find it when you tried it out?

[Phoenixlighter]

See, my main issue with this is my obsessiveness to wanna do everything right. If I spell "the" as "teh", I will naturally go back and break the rule to delete it. Minor OCD, I suppose. Also, this might reflect down on me being poor, but if the quality is poor, I don't see myself writing it. I don't type non-sense if it it had a good initial start because it'll only make me second guess how good the productive portion was. I might still give this a shot, but more towards being able to get over such things as writing ahead and returning to make the little easily spotted errors later. That'll be a more productive trial for me.

[epiphony]

Wow, that seems like a really interesting idea. I do that sometimes on my computer when I feel really sad or angry. I just start writing about why I'm angry, what made me angry and all that kinda stuff. It's a great way to vent but also I found that I could write 3-4 pages in about 5 minutes and alot of it was pretty decent stuff.

[simymonna]

Yesterday i tried to do it with an script i'm writting and it worked but that was much easier since it was dutch and that was better to write for me then in english. Because when i write in english i make the always stupid mistakes in every line i write

[Destined One]

It's a great idea
I used whilst producing my mini "fan-fic" called The Destined One
Thanks for the tips, they helped

[temporalcombustion]

I never tried it but I will now. I hope it will work because sometimes I just don't know what to write.

[Lexi]

I tried using this but it just didn't work for me. My way of getting over a writer's block is just walking away from whatever I'm working on and either going onto something else, or if I've got a complete writer's block on everything then going for a run or going onto my uni work.

Usually I get the ideas when I'm not meant to be working, so then I can write them down in a word doc somewhere and go back to it when I've finished my work.

[Harrison]

Definitely going to give this a try on a more random piece of writing.

As for me though, I'm too much of a planner to do anything, not to mention I can't stand grammar errors that I make myself.

Definitely an interesting concept though.

[Dark Witch.]

I practice this in school work. I am forced to write essays alot, and I dont like to plan them out. I just write and write, and I usually get the A's I want. So that method works, sometimes in writing stories it works too, but of course, I edit and edit and edit afterward. lol.

[Harrison]

That's exactly what I was thinking as well!

I remember always doing this school, even now, since so many tests and essays have time limits. You have no choice but to write the whole time. Even though you're rushed to some extent, I still feel that this can be productive though.

[Lexi]

Hmm, I do remember using it in high school but once I got to college I couldn't really do that since by using this method you end up going of topic at times or just adding anything in to stretch out what you're writing and when I was doing my A-levels and now that I'm doing my degree I can't get away with it. Now, I really have to plan out what I'm going to write first before I even start - especially for my dissertation at the moment, I've had to plan it out bit by bit first before I even contemplate writing it!

[epiphony]

I always found that sometimes when you just Free Write, the ideas can be better than planned.

I don't know about you guys, but I get all hyper and excited while I'm writing (if it's good) and I start spitting out things I never knew I could come up with.

[David]

I've been doing a bit of this recently, and it does work. Admittedly, I'm finding I have to go over ideas and the writing again just to make sure it makes sense, but I think FW as far as acting as a starting point goes is a great way to get a story off the ground.

Apr 5, 2009 23:02:49 GMT Dark Witch. said:

I practice this in school work. I am forced to write essays alot, and I dont like to plan them out. I just write and write, and I usually get the A's I want. So that method works, sometimes in writing stories it works too, but of course, I edit and edit and edit afterward. lol.

And this is exactly how I work. I do one big FW draft and then go over it, which is the same as how I write stories. I just think it gets your ideas out better.