Reading time: About 3 minutes
Think like a writer with four detective habits that turn foggy drafts into clear copy. No muse or elbow-patch cardigan required.
When I was in high school, teachers told me writers were born, not made. I pictured them in cardigans with leather elbow patches, blessed with a gift and, quite often, cursed with a drinking problem.
The rest of us had to make do with grammar.
Then I went to work as a journalist, and the writers I admired in the newsroom didn’t look like geniuses at all. They looked tired. They ate tuna sandwiches at their desks and produced clear copy day after day, and not one of them ever mentioned a muse.
What they had instead was a habit of mind. After 25 years of coaching writers, I’m convinced anyone can learn it, including people who still flinch at the memory of their Grade 10 English teacher.
The muse keeps union hours
Many writers treat inspiration like a bus. They stand at the stop and wait for it while the deadline pulls up and leaves without them.
In a guide for Psyche magazine, Norwegian detective Ivar Fahsing argues that the brilliance we admire in great detectives comes mostly from a learned habit of thinking about your own thinking. The same goes for writers. As for the muse, she keeps union hours and has never once shown up at my house before I’ve had my coffee.
The curse of knowing too much
In 1990, a Stanford graduate student named Elizabeth Newton asked people to tap out the rhythms of well-known songs, such as “Happy Birthday,” on a table while a listener tried to name the tune. The tappers predicted their listeners would get it right about half the time. Out of 120 songs, the listeners guessed three.
That’s 2.5 percent, a success rate that would get a weather forecaster fired.
The tappers could hear the melody playing in their heads, but the listeners heard only someone drumming on a table. (Try this at home, and your family will probably decide you’re sending Morse code.)
Psychologists call this the curse of knowledge: once you know something, you can’t remember what it felt like not to know it. Writers fall into this trap all day long, and academics (sorry, friends) are among the worst offenders. If your reader needs a glossary to get through your first paragraph, you’ve written a crossword puzzle, not a paper.
Step 1: Assume your reader knows nothing
Detectives are trained to assume nothing. Writers should make one exception: assume your reader knows nothing about your subject and is reading on a smartphone while the kettle boils.
Your reader is smart. They just aren’t inside your head, which is lucky for them, because it’s crowded in there.
Before you write, ask yourself what your reader already knows and what they need to learn next. Then jot down any terms or ideas that will need explaining, so you don’t skip over them when you draft.
Step 2: Collect far more than you’ll use
Good writers hoard details the way some people hoard twist ties and margarine tubs. They notice the chipped mug on a professor’s desk and the cracked spine on a well-loved paperback.
I tell my clients that if you use every scrap you’ve gathered, you didn’t gather enough, because good writing rests on a big pile of material that never reaches the page.
So, carry a notebook and write things down while they’re still fresh. Be specific. A note that says “the thing about the pigeon” will mean nothing to you in a week, and your future self will waste the afternoon trying to decode it.
Step 3: List every angle before you choose one
Fahsing warns that our brains love to grab the first explanation that pops up and then defend it to death. Writers do the same with angles, clinging to their first idea for an article or a chapter like a toddler with a sippy cup.
But your first idea is like the first pancake of the morning: edible, sure, but you wouldn’t serve it to company.
Before you start a draft, take 10 minutes to write down at least five possible answers to the question, “What is this piece really about?” Keep going past the obvious answers, because the interesting ones usually show up around number six.
Step 4: Find yourself a Watson
Sherlock Holmes had Dr. Watson, whose real job was to ask the obvious questions readers were dying to ask.
Every writer needs a Watson, but choose yours with care. You want someone who reads the kind of thing you write and who will tell you the truth. That rules out your mother, who thinks your grocery list deserves a national book award.
Give your Watson one job: mark the spots where they got lost or bored. Don’t ask whether they “liked it,” because the answer will be a polite yes and you’ll learn nothing. A pencil mark beside a muddled paragraph is more valuable than a dozen compliments.
Keep the detective out of the drafting room
Much of this thinking belongs outside your drafting time. When you’re drafting, just write and let the mess happen. Then save the critical squinting for a separate editing session, ideally on a different day.
Trying to write and edit at the same time is like baking bread while someone keeps opening the oven door to check on it. You end up with a doorstop.
Make it a habit
Practise this habit for five to 15 minutes a day and pay attention to the moments when your first idea starts to feel a little too comfortable.
You can skip the cardigan with the elbow patches, and please skip the drinking problem. Bring a notebook and a bit of curiosity instead. They’ll take you much further, and they’re far easier on the liver.
Thanks to my colleague George Stroubakis for having directed me to the Psyche article.
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My video podcast last week addressed the peril of waiting for inspiration. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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