James Whitaker
Why Bother Writing Without a Plan?
Most of us were taught to write the wrong way round. At school we planned, drafted, checked and redrafted — often before we had the faintest idea of what we actually wanted to say. The result is a hesitant, watchful kind of writing in which the inner editor sits on your shoulder from the very first sentence, tutting quietly. Free writing turns that process on its head. Instead of deciding what to write and then writing it, you write first and find out afterwards what you had to say.
It is a practice rather than a performance. Nothing you produce in a free writing session is meant to be finished, polished or shown to anybody. That is precisely what makes it useful.
What Free Writing Actually Involves
The method is almost embarrassingly simple. You set a timer — ten minutes is plenty to begin with — and you write without stopping until it rings. You do not plan, outline or pause to consider whether a sentence is any good. You keep the pen moving across the page, or your fingers moving across the keyboard, and you let whatever arrives arrive.
There is no subject you are supposed to be addressing and no standard you are meant to meet. If you start on one topic and end up somewhere completely unrelated, that is not a failure; it is the whole point.
The Rules That Keep You Moving
Free writing works because of a small set of constraints. They sound trivial, but each one is doing real work.
- Set a timer. A visible countdown removes the need to decide when you are finished. Ten minutes is a good starting point; fifteen or twenty is fine once the habit has settled. Knowing the end is in sight makes it far easier to keep going.
- Keep your hand moving. If you cannot think of the next word, write the last word again, or write "I don't know what to say next" until something else surfaces. Stopping is the one thing that breaks the spell.
- Don't edit, correct or cross out. Spelling, grammar, repetition and clumsy phrasing are all irrelevant here. The moment you start tidying, you hand control back to the part of your mind that is afraid of getting it wrong.
- Follow the energy. If a phrase or image pulls at you, go with it. If you drift towards something unexpected or faintly embarrassing, that is usually a sign you have found something worth exploring.
Choosing When, Where and With What
Pen and paper suit many people because the pace is slower and more physical, and because there is no temptation to delete a sentence with a single keystroke. A notebook cheap enough to ruin is ideal. If you prefer typing, use a plain document and resist the urge to scroll back up while the timer runs.
As for timing, most writers find that first thing in the morning works well, before the day's demands have crowded in. But the honest answer is that the best time is the one you will actually keep. Ten minutes after lunch, on the train, or last thing at night are all perfectly good. Choose a time you can protect rather than a time that sounds virtuous.
Try to write in the same place if you can. A particular chair, a particular café table, a particular corner of the kitchen — repetition teaches your brain that this is where the writing happens.
What to Do When Nothing Comes
It will happen, and it does not mean the practice has stopped working. Try one of these:
- Describe the room you are sitting in, in plain factual sentences, until something else takes over.
- Write about the last conversation you had, or the last thing that annoyed you.
- Begin every sentence with "I remember" or "I notice" for a page or two.
- Write a letter to someone you will never send it to.
- Copy out a line you love from a book, then keep writing from where it left you.
The point is never the prompt itself. Prompts are simply a way of getting the hand moving until your own material arrives to take over.
Reading Back, Gently
When the timer stops, stop. Stand up, make a cup of tea, leave the page alone for a while. Later, if you are curious, read back over what you wrote with a pencil in hand — not to correct it, but to mark anything that surprises you. A vivid image, an odd phrase, a sentence that seems to know more than you did: these are the seeds worth keeping.
Everything else can go on the compost heap. Nothing is wasted. The awkward pages are feeding the good ones.
Do this four or five times a week for a fortnight and you will notice two things. The first is that starting becomes easier. The second is that your ordinary, planned writing loosens up, because you have given yourself somewhere to be unguarded. That is all free writing promises, and it is quite a lot.
