by Jayden Harlow

Created on: December 16, 2008

In order to overcome academic writer's block, it's important to know what's behind the block. Unfortunately, the answer, while relatively simple, is one that student writers often don't want to hear. Writer's block is a symptom that the writer doesn't have a solid essay development process that includes a comprehensive planning, or pre-writing, phase. More often than not, the writer does the research and then jumps right into the first draft, and then wonders why he or she can't get past paragraph two. Another common variation is the writer who stares for long periods of time at the assignment instructions but can't think of a way to start. Both of these problems relate to deficits in the pre-writing phase.

Think of writing an essay as similar to crossing a stream by hopping from rock to rock. If you have plenty of rocks, each positioned a short distance apart, you'll have no problem getting to the other side. But if you only have a few rocks, or if you only started placing your rocks in the center of the stream (similar to starting your essay with the first draft), you'll find yourself stuck on the shore, or perhaps perched on a rock midway across, with no idea of what to do next. Some students will claim they get blocked when they aren't interested in the subject. If that's the case, chances are good that the essays they do write without trouble aren't particularly well organized. With a good plan in place, you can write about a boring topic just as easily as an interesting one. Using the stream analogy, it's not the view of the opposite bank that gets you across; it's the placement of the rocks.

With that in mind, here are 10 steps involved in creating an essay. If you follow the plan in order, you shouldn't get blocked, since each step is small and manageable and leads on to the next step.

1. Choose a topic. This will often be a smaller aspect of the assignment. For example, suppose you are being asked to write about ways that literature has influenced America. That's a huge idea, so you need to find a more manageable topic within the question (making sure you meet the guidelines of the assignment). You might choose a single book, like Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and discuss the different ways it influenced America, or you might choose an aspect of America, like race relations, and then select several books that influenced its evolution, like Uncle Tom's Cabin and To Kill A Mockingbird. If you don't know enough about the subject to choose a topic, then you

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