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Writing Process (Other)
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| Effort | 39% | 673 votes | Total: 1732 votes | |
| Insight | 61% | 1059 votes |
Effort
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Add to FavoritesThe best literary achievements are a culmination of the writer's insight combined with concentrated effort to bring those insights to fruition in print. Even great writers with genius ideas have to put in the same basic effort as a novice for their insight to materialize into the written word.
If we are paying attention and observing, ideas abound on what to write about. Every time we engage another person in a conversation, we have an opportunity for new insights. Sometimes a writer is expounding on someone else's insights. This brings me to the conclusion writers rely more on effort to produce the message they want to convey, and the result they want to achieve.
It takes huge effort to educate oneself on the art of writing. It also takes huge effort and discipline to sit down and put ideas on paper. A writer could have great insight into a subject, but until it is actualized in the form of a written piece, it remains imprisoned in the writer's mind and never sees the light of day.
It only takes a moment to think of a great idea to write about. It is a very lengthy process to bring that insight to print. Presentation is everything. Much effort must go into writing style, format, using proper grammar and punctuation, to insure an insight is conveyed to the reader with good written communication skills. Writers want to present their premise, or insight, in the best possible way to insure their work is received and understood by the reader.
The writer is often self employed. He does not punch a clock, or answer to others about time spent and he is often faced with handicaps regarding his time and efforts. He has to overcome such difficulties as interruptions, procrastination and the ever intimidating "writer's block". A writer has to put forth great effort to avoid these stumbling blocks.
The very essence of a writer's personality is the need to write. Great insights can be verbalized, however, the writer has a passion for seeing his insights imparted in the form of the printed word. In order to accomplish this, he will put as much effort into the act of writing as he will into examining the insight that made him want to write in the first place.
I looked at the title of this debate. With little effort, I felt I had some insight to share on this subject. Then I realized I had to find the time, the materials, the proper presentation to complete this article. If I wanted to finish in a timely manner it would take effort.
All writers rely more on effort in order to accomplish their goals.
Learn more about this author, Carol Gioia.
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Insight
Great writers rely on effort and insight, but different authors use different ratios of each - maybe that's what makes them such a diverse and illuminating group. The insight of Emily Bronte would have been of no benefit to readers had she not gone to the trouble of writing her imaginative thoughts down as novels and poems. But first, she had to have the ideas and this is where 'insight' comes in.
What is "insight?" One definition reads:
"the act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner"
(thefreedicti onary.com)
This definition chimes with my own reflections that investing the effort of writing twenty four hours a day for a seven days in one week may not produce either a great article or aid in the development of a great writer. In other words all the effort in the world might be useless if the writing is boring, uninformative, illegible, grammatically incorrect, incoherent or misleading.
A great writer usually engages both insight and effort but it is the question of the ratio which interests us here. Let us take an example. I do not think anyone would deny that Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, was a great writer. Inspiration, insight, imagination she certainly had. But effort? She had to submit to the discipline of committing herself to writing regularly in order to get the chapters of her novel written.
She wrote "Wuthering Heights" a little at a time, as a hobby, part-time and to earn a little extra money - like most of the rest of us struggling and aspiring writers. She did not lock herself up 24/7 in her room laboriously hunched over a little writing desk, burning the midnight oil. No, she wrote it mostly, with her sisters, gathered around the family dining table.
Her sisters were busy writing too. They had fun. They read their excerpts to each other. They laughed and made suggestions. (We call it feedback!) They even went for walks around the room, linked arm in arm. This was not work to them. It was entertainment - they had no television or computer or music player in the evenings. These activities were liberating for their minds, their insight and their imaginations. Too much effort can have the opposite effect - it can be stultifying and impoverishing to the mind which may be locked out of society and starved of stimulation and original thought.
The girls also continued on with their normal lives, each taking her share of the chores required to contribute to the running of their crowded home - The Parsonage at Haworth. They helped to peel potatoes for the Boiled Beef And Dumplings. They may have trotted down to the village on their pattens (wooden clogs) to fetch the shopping, Emily walked and trained and fed her beloved dogs. They pored over the little reading material they had - borrowed newspapers and journals such as The Illustrated London News and Blackwoods Magazine and of course they wrote letters and walked on the moors, drinking in the exquisite sweep of its landscape. All of this was enriching to their insight.
Emily was aware of this herself, and even expressed her appreciation and gratitude for her gift in her poem "To Imagination"....
"Yet , still, in evening's quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, Benignant Power; Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!"
Effort is all very well, but without imagination or insight, it will most likely come to nothing as no-one will read it. Ask the most demanding and ruthless readership of all - children. A child takes no prisoners when it comes to writing - when he is bored, he says so, switches off and walks away. Nothing in the world will bring back his genuine interest. Perhaps we can look to J K Rowling and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows; a combination of effort and insight.
But the question is "Is effort really effort if you enjoy it?"
Helpful Resources:
Book - Portable MFA in Creative Writing (New York Writers Workshop) - Amazon.com
Learn more about this author, InspiredWritingResearch.
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