Writer's Block: How to overcome writer’s block and write with ease
Tips on how to plan and write excellently
Most people have of impediment of not been able to write when faced with a dateline to complete a writing assignment. This is given the name “writer’s block.”; to describe the experience faced by the writer not being able to meet dateline.
What is writer’s block? Simply, writer’s block is an organisational problem. Lets lok at this scenario, you have an idea to write about but right there, as you are about to put down your ideas on paper or on the computer screen, yu are battling with which idea comes first. You overwhelmed with the problem of editing than writing, release your impulse and the ideas will flow.
How do newspaper reporters meet their dateline to release that all-important news? Imagine they have to agonise over the way and manner the ideas will flow. It is said that experience has structure, and lets see what we can learn from their experience.
If you pick up a newspaper and read the lead paragraph of stories, editorial, feature articles opinions and columns, you will see that they follow a pattern.
In this article, I will discuss strategies that you can adopt to rid procrastination in writing and therefore deal with writer’s block. Develop an outline
It is very important to develop an outline prioe to your writing. This is to help you to focus your thought as well as your writing. Some people in some quarters put it thus:
“Tell them what you want to tell them.”
“Tell them.”
Tell them you have told them.”
This gives the idea that any writing is made of three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. In the introduction you try to capture the idea behind your thought and why the reader should listen to you. In the body you do justice to the topic thematically. allowing each paragraph to flow. In your conclusion you recap te important point, just a review of the article.
Simple formats for outlining
The key to success in any endeavour starts by careful planning. This is also true in writing. You need to plan, organise, write and then review. In this section some of the methods that can help you to overcome writer’s block are:
1. The Ask and answer your questions strategy
2. The five W’s strategy.
Remember it is a strategy and is not written in ‘stone’; hence you can make it flexible to suite your writing interest.
1. The Ask and answer your questions strategy
This technique was described by Richard Dowis in his book: “ How to make your writing reader-friendly.” You need to ask and then answer the following questions:
WHY AM I WRITING?
WHO ARE MY READERS?
WHAT DO I WANT TO HAPPEN?
WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA I WANT TO GET ACROSS?
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR SUPPORTING FACTS?
WHAT ARE THE MINOR SUPPORTING FACTS?
You can use the above ideas further by looking for evidence to support your facts.
2. The five W’s strategy.
This idea originated iin book of journalism textbook published in the 19th century (Dowis, 1990); the five W’s stands for who, what, where and why. The idea was to guide young reporters of the information that should in the opening paragraph of a new story. An addition to this idea was to include an H. You ca use them when you write letters, memos, reports and other business communications. Ask yourself.
WHO will read this communication?
WHO will be affected by the information?
WHAT is the purpose of this communication?
WHAT do I want to tell the readers?
WHAT do I want them to do?
WHEN do I want my readers to react to the communication?
WHEN did or will the activity take place?
WHERE did or will the event take place?
WHERE can the reader obtain more information?
WHY do I believe the readers will be or should be interested in the information?
Write down the answers to these and other relevant questions and you will will have most if not all the information required to complete your writing task. The Five W’s is suitable for testing your writing to determine whether it is complete.
Conclusions
In this article, I have tried to trace the reason for writer’s block and have suggested some techniques to solving it. Being an organisational problem; writer’s block is solved through careful planning which provides structure for the wring assignment.
Reference
Dowis R (1990) “How to Make your Writing Reader-Friendly” BetterWay Publications, Inc WhiteHall, Virginia
© 2011 Benjamin S C Ugoji
