3 Creative Writing Techniques
A friend of mine, Tim Dawdy, is a wonderful Dobro player (and fire chief) in a small town in the state of Washington. He told me on Facebook this morning that he is writing an article about Dobros for a magazine and is struggling to pull it all together. Below are some suggestions I gave him that might help you, too, when it comes to writing your own articles and blogs.
Ask Questions and Listen
Tim mentioned that he had already done a lot of research, so I suggested that he take a look at his notes and ask himself: “What story wants to be told here?” By this I mean that it can sometimes be helpful (as well as a fun creative exercise) to pretend that an object, or a melody, or a pile of research can speak to us.
The trick is to quiet our thoughts down, ask the object what it wants to say, and then listen carefully. As we do, we may discover that some amazing ideas, suggestions and solutions begin to occur to us that we had never thought of before!
Write to a Real Person
I also suggested that Tim choose a real person to “talk” to as he writes. What is this person’s level of knowledge about Dobros and music? Are they experts? Novices? What do they need to know in order to understand and enjoy the article?
For example, I asked Tim to pretend that he is standing in the middle of Artichoke Music, which is an acoustic instrument store, music school and concert venue in Portland, Oregon. As he looks around the store, he sees three people he wants to talk to about his Dobro article. The first person is Richard Colombo, the owner of the store. Richard is a professional musician and recording artist who can play just about any acoustic instrument and has an excellent knowledge of music theory.
The second person is one of Tim’s Dobro students, who is just learning to play the instrument, and the third person is me! I love to sing, but I don’t know anything about theory or stringed instruments, and I only play the piano (badly). The way Tim tells his story to each of us will change considerably due to our different levels of knowledge.
This is just as true in writing, which is why choosing a real person as our audience and “talking” to them when we write is so helpful. Our audience helps us choose the level of detail we provide, the examples we give, and the information we leave out! Tim is also a wonderful storyteller with a hilarious sense of humor. Pretending he is just talking to a friend when he writes can make it easier for him to bring that warmth, feeling and flow into his writing.
Turn Off the Critic and Just Play
My third suggestion to Tim was the most challenging: Sit down and write out your article as quickly as you can—without listening to the critical voice inside your head that is telling you your writing is all wrong…terrible…full of grammar errors…will never work…
The critic can keep us from expressing the fullness of our knowledge, finishing a piece of writing, or ever getting started, so try making a deal with it. Tell it that you appreciate its advice and concerns but that for now you want it to go do something else (like count the daffodils in your garden) while you just play. Then relax, take some deep breaths, and start putting your ideas down on paper.
Once you have finished, invite your critic to come back again and help you revise what you’ve written. Your goal is to turn the words on the page into a story that flows as smoothly as possible from beginning to end. The fun thing about the revision process is that it will often generate additional details and anecdotes that make your story even stronger—so put those in, too.
Once the story feels complete (but not until), work together with your critic to proofread your article for typos and errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling. Then press the publish button and pat yourself on the back for having written a great article!
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