Writing in Shorthand

Do you sabotage your writing by getting mired in details? Does finding the just-right name for a character or struggling with the specifics of a scene keep you from moving forward? These are some of the ways I’ve sabotaged my own writing in the past. If you struggle with this too, try writing in shorthand.

I took a page from Randy Ingermanson and my friend Paul to overcome this. Paul once told me that he gave his characters placeholder names like Big Nose and The Liliputian until he could get the just-right name. Randy Ingermanson suggests using his Snowflake Method, where you start with minimal details and just keep expanding on them—turning the process of writing into a sort of activity in fractals.

So I took Paul’s idea and combined it with Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method. My writing goal for the past few months has simply been to get words on the page, regardless of things like character names or plots or other details. Some scenes have come out in pretty sharp detail, others have come out in shorthand. For example:

Jane Doe set the spitted rabbit over the fire to roast while That Guy did something with some other food stuff.

“I’m surprised to run into you out here,” he said as he did something else equally culinary.

This is zero draft material—it doesn’t need to be pretty at this stage. I’ve found that writing in shorthand short circuits my inner editor, that left-brained stickler for details who loves to stymie my right-brained writing style. By writing in shorthand, I can keep her satisfied (See, this isn’t Brenda Starr dialogue; they’re doing something. Now hush up, and let me write) and keep my pen moving on the page. You can always come back to it later. Focus on just getting words on paper (or on screen).

What stops you from writing? How do you sabotage your writing? What helps you short circuit your inner editor?

Tags: writing