“The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words, but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words. Only in the end will you know what you are saying.” —Peter Elbow
Free writing is traditionally regarded as a prewriting technique practiced in academic environments, in which a person writes continuously for a set period with limited concern for rhetoric, conventions, and mechanics, sometimes working from a specific prompt provided by a teacher. While free writing often produces raw, or even unusable material, it can help writers overcome writing blocks and build confidence by allowing them to practice text-production phases of the writing process without the fear of censure. Some writers even use the technique to collect initial thoughts and ideas on a topic, often as a preliminary to formal writing.
Unlike brainstorming, where ideas are listed or organized, a free-written paragraph is comparatively formless or unstructured.
“Don’t think; just write!” —Ray Bradbury
Freewriting, a writing strategy developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, is similar to brainstorming but is written in sentence and paragraph form without stopping. Thus, it . . .
- increases the flow of ideas and reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally censor a good idea.
- helps to increase fluency in second-language learners—i.e., the ability to produce written language easily (as opposed to accuracy, which is of course important but which is better addressed later in the process).
As in brainstorming,
- DO write down every idea you can think of about your topic, no matter how “crazy”; you can judge later! (And no one else is going to see it)
- DON’T worry about correct grammar or spelling;
Unlike brainstorming,
- DO write in sentence and paragraph form;
- DO KEEP YOUR HANDS MOVING. If you can’t think of anything, just keep repeating your subject (e.g., “busy trap, busy trap”) or something like “I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will, I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will,” over and over until they do come. (They will!);
- DO feel free to use an occasional word from your native language if you can’t think of the English word, but don’t overdo this;
- DO keep going for 15 or 20 minutes or until you feel you have enough to start to build your paper or research.
- NOTE: In Peter Elbow’s original formulation of freewriting, designed to generate not only ideas but even a topic, the writer writes for a few minutes, chooses one idea or word from that freewriting, and then free write about that new topic for several minutes, and then repeats that process again, successively refining their topic. This process can be a useful one if you are truly starting from scratch and are not even sure what you want to write your paper about.
Sample Freewrite
The following is from a free-write by a student starting a response paper on Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay “The Box Man”:
DO NOT READ (Write this at the top to start, especially if you’re going to be giving this to a teacher. You can erase it later, but do whatever is going to help you feel free and unself-conscious. Of course, you should read it again later yourself for interesting ideas!)
How to begin writing a response paper? I like to take the time to think about the article. I picked the box man. Sounds interesting. Reminds me of a story I read for talks about something with a girl who was asking around about something and getting people’s philosophies about life. One person was terrified of the “box”. Boxes everywhere people living in boxes driving in boxes always trapped in the box. That lady was probably homeless or something. I dunno. Boxman, boxman, boxman. I wonder what this article is actually about. I have no idea, really. I need to read it a few times. Right now it is a mystery. I hate this! The mystery of the box man. Maybe he’s isolated himself from society, or maybe he was isolated from society. Maybe his mind never learned the constructs of human language. Maybe his mind is free to think about feelings and emotions. True thoughts without translation! Maybe society makes a mockery out of him, or perhaps society looks up to him. The origins of the box man are simple. Put a baby in a box and let him grow up. Just Kidding.
Well, I remember this one quote about math. “No one ever learned good mathematics in a vacuum” or something like that. So what are all the things that his man never learned? He’s probably not very sociable. I still haven’t quite learned how to be a very social person. I don’t know how to use computers I don’t know how to google docs! Maybe Mr. Grunwald will look away and I can try to figure it out. But if not I dunno. I guess I can just go ahead and figure it out. There must be so many collapsing thoughts. I like thinking continuously on multiple levels. Everything is more humorous when you add another dimension. Like math. How do you get people to stop understanding? That’s it! The box man is not understood, but she’s trying to understand him by writing about him! Cool.