18.9.24: Why do so many people say that writing is hard?
Do you, or does anyone you know, find writing difficult?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you said yes. To be honest, I’ve always enjoyed writing. I enjoy taking the time to really sit down and think about how to express my thoughts and ideas, how to really get across what I want to say, and even how to use the opportunity to explore my creative side. However, I’ve also encountered many people who find writing to be a daunting task, and one which they feel woefully unprepared for in their first language, much less their second.
I’ve been helping people to develop their writing for over a decade, both in their first language and in a second language, and I’ve found that people who struggle significantly with writing often share a few key qualities.
1. They want to get started too quickly.
Some people are able to get started immediately when they write, with very little planning - however, this is usually because they already know what they want to say! For most people, though, planning is an important process. It’s important to sit down, brainstorm your ideas for writing, decide which ideas you want to go with, organize them into paragraphs or sections, ensure that you have any cliche or stock phrases on hand for writing, and only then start writing.
Writing is the only form of communication we have where we have the ability to really say exactly, to the word, what we want to say. But if we don’t know what we want to say in the first place, how can we say anything in a perfect way?
Take the two examples from students of mine below. In the first, the student just started writing without really taking the planning stages we did seriously. I mean yes, he did do them - but it was clear that he couldn’t see the value in it (or, more accurately, that I hadn’t communicated it clearly enough!), and this was the result.
On the other hand, this student who took the planning stage much more seriously produced much more effective writing as a result.
He didn’t rush to the end. He focused on the process, so he got a better product.
2. They don’t think about their reader.
Very often, novice writers think a lot about what they want to say, and what’s interesting for them. But they often forget that writing is a conversation - a conversation with the reader, who has their own expectations, needs, and wants.
Case in point: look at this example from one of my classes of aspiring writers who are preparing for an intermediate (B1) level English exam. They needed to, as part of the task,
- explain where their family usually goes shopping.
- AND say if their family shops online (and why / why not).
Their text:
My favourite mall is Siam Paragon and Icon Siam. I like it because I can buy any brand I like there, like Balenciaga, Prada, Gucci, Tiffany, H&M, Zara, Hermes, Tom Ford, Uniqlo, Alexander McQueen, Dior, Givenchy.
My family doesn’t buy things online. My mom often buys things online, she’s a shopping god! But she gets really tired at work so she likes to buy everything. She really likes to buy clothes and phone cases. She just got a new one last week.
The problem is, of course, that if you’re not FROM Bangkok, the names of these malls likely mean nothing to you , and the exhaustive list of luxury brands also doesn’t give you any more information about these mystery places - meaning that you leave text without a clear understanding of what they were trying to say. Moreover, their second point launches into a tangent on his mom’s buying habits - which isn’t what his reader would expect to see.
Compare the previous text to one from a more successful student:
My family and I usually go to a small shopping center called Silom Complex. It’s the closest shopping mall to our home, so it’s very convenient. It’s not very big though, so if we need something special, we usually need to go to a big mall like Siam Paragon.
We don’t really like to shop online that much. We prefer to be able to see or test what we are buying before we leave the shop. For instance, if you’re buying clothes, you really need to try them on first, or else you have to return them later!
… which takes the reader’s background into account, and is therefore more likely to satisfy the reader.
3. They don’t check their work.
There’s a bad habit I often seen when teaching writing - students (especially younger ones) will finish writing their work, and immediately say, “Teacher, I’m done!”. They’ve made it, they’re written everything, they’ve got to the end, and they are ready to just be FINISHED and relax. Why not?
Well, the problem is that they might not have done everything they needed to do. For example, perhaps they needed to read an email at work and respond to the questions within it. Very often - especially in a second language - students miss one or two of the questions they need to ask entirely. This is especially true if the language they are studying contains indirect question forms (like English!) that may not be so straightforward as they are not always marked clearly as questions via punctuation.
4. They try to sound clever.
Granted, one amongst the most superfluous of features that a work of prose may therein contain is the employment of the most obtuse of lexical items to elucidate the thoughts of the work’s progenitor.
… Was that sentence as annoying to read as it was for me to write? (Probably!) Many aspiring writers - and even published authors! - fall into the habit of using long, complicated words to express their ideas, which are often rather straightforward in nature, and the words they choose are often employed incorrectly. Essentially, this is something close to a man using the nicest wrapping paper to give his wife an apron: it might look nice on the outside, but once you “unwrap” everything you’re left with disappointment.
Instead, effective writing does the opposite: it aims to express complex, detailed, intricate ideas in a way which is accessible for the reader. In other words, it should make the complex seem simple, not the other way around.
So, then, how can we help people to become better writers? That’s the question we’ll be answering in part 2.