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Writers use critical questions to find cracks and crannies, places where they need to develop or clarify their thinking. In their relentless pursuit of clearly expressed, well-developed ideas, they find soft spots—that is, passages that need to be developed or discarded and sections that just don't feel right—that feel mushy like cereal that has been sitting for too long in sour milk.
Explore the effects of different sentence patterns on reading comprehension.
When assessing whether your sentences are too long or complex, consider your audience: Educated readers have a greater tolerance for longer sentences. Younger and less experienced writers prefer shorter sentences. When writing for an international audience or addressing a very complex topic, sentences may need to be shorter.
Use visuals to develop and organize your ideas. Understand and explore the value of diagramming and mapping strategies.
Visuals present a powerful and thought-provoking way to develop and organize ideas. Some neuroscientists "estimate that we get up to 80 percent of our information by visual means" (Horn 21). Images convey meaning just as words do. In fact, images are saturated with meanings that sometimes hit us at a subconscious level; images motivate us to act or feel strong emotion.
In A Grammar of Motives, philosopher and critic Kenneth Burke presents a model for analyzing written and spoken language to better understand and even predict human behavior. His model, the pentad, can be used to understand or interpret human behavior and to develop ideas for stories. The pentad assumes people can have ambiguous, conflicting, and complex reasons for acting. It attempts to avoid simplistic explanations.
Use talk-and-then-write strategies to jump-start writing projects.
Dialoguing, dictating, and group brainstorming all rely on talking to generate writing. Many people get their best ideas discussing issues and ideas with people.
Lawyers, doctors, and business leaders have frequently used dictation to draft documents.
