Why the way you've been taught to write in school is all wrong

A lot of people imagine writing like this:

Girl sits at desk, with morning sunlight streaming in. Girl thinks for a moment, gets lightbulb moment of inspiration. Girl bends over keyboard, starts typing furiously, and an hour later she’s produced a thousand witty words.

Real life is NOTHING like that.

As I’m writing this, for instance, I’m seated at my dining table which is strewn with half-empty glasses, old Subway wrappers (don’t ask), and sheets of paper. My husband is playing Call of Duty next to me, with the occasional burst of gunfire and cursing. I get most of my writing done like this, even in my full-time job as a journalist ever since the working-from-home situation started.

Writing is gritty, unglamorous, and at times, painful. But to be fair, everyone thinks they should be writing like the inspired girl I mentioned above, because hey, that’s the way we were taught in school.

As a former English teacher, I can attest to (and apologise for) the fact that the way you’ve been taught to write an essay is, unfortunately, all wrong.

We used to recite this in school, almost like a mantra: introduction, body, conclusion. We would say it so much that every student who graduated would have had it learnt off by heart. I almost put it up on the wall as the class motto.

But that’s not how our brains work. So much of writer’s block happens because we’re staring at a sheet of paper, not knowing what to say, or how to create an introduction that will lead in to the half-formed idea that’s in our head.

Here’s the secret to overcoming writer’s block, once and for all:

Write the second sentence first. Or the third. Or the fifty-seventh.

It doesn’t matter which one exactly, as long as you write down one sentence. Then write another sentence. And another.

It’s okay to stop whenever and start a new paragraph if you suddenly think of something else. I have a habit of stopping mid-sentence and filling in the rest with ‘xxxxxxx’ before to remind myself to get back there, then moving onto a new point or writing the conclusion. Then I go back when I feel like it.

Because here’s the thing: writing is not a linear process. It’s more like stitching a quilt.

Instead of trying to start with the very first row, and becoming overwhelmed with analysis paralysis, commit to putting together a few patches for a random part of the quilt first. Then another group of patches. Then as you go along, you’ll find ways to join up the bigger patches, so at the end you’ll have a beautifully-formed quilt.

Likewise, writing is all about creating groups of sentences and then joining those groups together as you go. It’s very much a back and forth process of brainstorming, creating, and editing, which is the way our brains work.

So forgive yourself for not sitting down and writing everything in the intro-body-conclusion order. It’s simply the way we’ve learned to write in school with pen and paper, and now we need to unlearn it and make full use of the editing capabilities that modern technology now offers. Plus, the unexpected benefit of it is that you get to read and reread your work over and over to see how to connect the sentences, so your work will turn out extra polished. ■