Write, Dammit!: Another Excerpt from An Unpublished Guide to Writing by Alexander Hellene
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Chapter II: WHAT TO WRITE
Before writing, you need something to write about. This is axiomatic, and almost doesn’t need to be said, except for the fact that there are an infinite amount of things to write about. And infinity is a pretty big concept. Therefore, infinity needs to be narrowed down. Unfortunately, this can lead to another phenomenon called analysis paralysis: too many choices can make one freeze in the throes of indecision.
An important thing to note: You can’t spell “analysis” without “anal.” I am not being merely scatological here. Anal-retentiveness is an actual concept, as distasteful as the name may be, that has its origins in Freudian psychology. Not being an expert in Freudian psychology, or any other kind, I am not going to delve into the origins of this concept, and will instead move to its popular definitions.
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, anal-retentiveness (“Anal” for short”) is “often used in nontechnical contexts to describe someone as extremely or excessively neat, careful, or precise.” Our friend Google puts it as “a person who is excessively orderly and fussy.” I want to keep this book as classy and family friendly as possible, so let’s leave it at that.
Whichever definition of anal you subscribe to, the upshot is that analysis paralysis will keep you from writing. And remember the main philosophical axiom of this book: One who writes is a writer. One who does not write is not a writer.
My advice to overcome analysis paralysis when it comes to what to write about is to write the first thing that comes into your head. For some people, who plan and outline ahead of writing, this seems like strange advice. But writing the first thing that comes into your head can also help in the planning and outlining phase.
What genre should you write in? Just stop and think for a minute. What comes to mind? A dog in a spacesuit running away from gigantic squids pouring out of a nebula in deep space? Start writing about that. It doesn’t matter if it’s awful, and it doesn’t matter if you end up scrapping that idea later. And why might you scrap this idea later?
Because in writing your hypothetical astro-canine-fleeing-interstellar-cephalopod tale, you might have thought of something better.
If you thought to yourself, “He just described a warm-up!” then give yourself a pat on the back because that’s right.
In Chapter III, I describe method for getting started with this, but I would like to point out that while planning is a perfectly valid way to construct a story, there is such a thing as excessive planning (see Chapter VII), and that too much attachment to your story can also weigh down your ability to write (see Chapter XIX). And lastly, excessive anality will keep one from finishing what one is writing (see Chapter XLII).
I sincerely hope this helps, and I guarantee you will never think of analysis paralysis the same way after this.
“Hellene has a masterpiece on his hands.”
