The Blank Page

Image by rita banerji via Flickr

Some people are taught to make a table of contents. You know your beginning, middle, and final thoughts so that you can then organize and see your way through to the end of the paper. Other people who love to write will just sit down and start writing and eventually the story writes itself weaving its way to the end.

I tend to be of the former theory. I have just has a knack of getting from the beginning to the end of stories I’ll go back and edit of course. Maybe make a correction here, shift a sentence there, start a new paragraph there. But it is all about writing. Some people hate writing and I feel for these people. It’s not easy to write. You have to have some kind of idea of what you want to write about. If you have no idea you can write forever but not have a clear story idea.

Sometimes I get something like that called writer’s block. I sit at a screen and for the life of me I can’t think of anything to write. But then either later that day or that week something comes to me or I start writing.

For those of you who have trouble writing or have a hard time framing the story here are a few ideas. Just start writing. You may hate what you are writing. In fact you can just write: I don’t know what to write. I don’t’ know what to write. I don’t’ know what to write. Why did our professor give us such a hard topic? If only I could make it easier. She said to do it on frogs. How am I supposed to write a story on frogs? It makes no sense. What am I supposed to write, “How to kiss a frog? “

And right then and there you have a title for your story. “How to Kiss a Frog: A Paper on the Myths Related to Frogs.”

Sometimes it takes more than just a title to get a writer going. Sometimes you need structure. So what I have learned is to sit down and write out all the issues I want to answer, Kind of like this:

1.   Introduction:

A.  Are frogs as special as myths say they are?

2.   Myths on frogs

A.  Origins

3.   Children’s tales

A.  Origins

4.   Any truth to myths?

A.  True

B.  False

5.   Science on frogs

A.  Can frogs really turn into princes?

B.  Can frogs give you warts?

6.   Conclusion

A.  Frogs are just every day creatures

B.  Frogs can jump high but are not from up high.

So you can see how it is easy to plan out your story. I personally get a headache doing this and would rather write and get in the writing zone then put together an outline. I find that the outline kind of takes away from the specialness of creating a story but hey, to each his own.

So as you can see writing a story can be easy. You may have to force it out of you by writing, writing, writing, writing and planning, planning, planning, where your story will go but once you get used to it writing can be a very powerful tool. I hope I have shown this with the outline and with my advice. So what are you waiting for? Go write something.