why are writing essays so hard

9 Writers on Why Writing Is So Hard

Best-selling authors talk to Shondaland about what makes their craft so difficult and special.

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There are few things as magical as reading a book that fully immerses you in a new world. Poetic and profound prose can evoke emotions that can remain with you for your entire life, transforming how you see the world. With that in mind, this month, Shondaland is exploring the world of books, from authors discussing their favorite reads and a publisher explaining the need for more transparency in the industry to a nearly published author sharing what it’s like to be on the brink of putting her first book out into the world. Happy reading!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “If writing were easy, everyone would do it!” You’ve likely read it a million times, right? Well, there’s a reason for that. You see, everybody has a story to tell. But it’s the actual telling of those stories that separates writers from everyone else yearning to share their tales. That being said, even the most seasoned and celebrated writers will quickly let you know that writing is just downright hard!

So, what is it that actually makes putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) so daunting, and how do you combat that difficulty when trying to write your story? Shondaland caught up with some of our favorite authors to find out. And what they have to say just might surprise you.

Why is writing so hard?

The solitariness of it, the elusiveness of it. If forced, we could generate words, sentences, paragraphs, but it would be meaningless. So, the thing that makes it a story, the words that etch out a character that the reader can see and feel and hear … there’s plenty of tricks to get there. You can create the conditions for that element to come forward, and do what you can to push yourself into that state that makes it happen … but part of it remains mysterious.

Alex Aster (author of Curse of the Forgotten City ) @alex.aster

Writing is so hard because we put so many expectations on our writing, and those expectations weigh down not only our fingers while typing, but also our words. I started writing books when I was 12, which I think saved me from a lot of the fretting about writing that I see so many people struggle with. When you’re a kid, you do what you love just because you love it. You don’t think to yourself, “Will these words be worth the time and effort? Will they turn into a book that will sell for enough money to allow me to pay my rent?” You just … write. As an adult, there are so many constraints on our time, so it’s natural for us not to want to waste it. We don’t have time to simply play the way we used to. Writing is hard because it’s a fluid, organic, almost magical form of creation that we often try so hard to bottle up or cookie-cut so it can be monetized.

Brandy Colbert (author of Black Birds in the Sky ) @brandycolbert

For me, not writing is often harder than writing. I don’t believe you need to write every day, but when I’m in the middle of a project, I either need to be actively thinking about it — working out plots and character arcs in my head — or getting words down on the page. I start to feel antsy and a bit anxious when I’ve taken too much time away from a project, to the point where it’s actually a relief to get back to work.

Sarah Gerard (author of True Love ) @sarahnumber4

It can be hard. It can also be easy and fun. Or fun and hard. Or hard but important, exciting, and fulfilling. We wouldn’t keep doing it otherwise. It’s hard because doing it well matters, because stories matter, and the details matter, and there are often a lot of details. Sometimes they take years to organize. The feelings and ideas and memories that we put into the writing also matter, and are layered, and we can’t force an understanding of them. We can only try to approach them with words, and, as many words as there are to choose from, or create, and despite their myriad iterations, they’re never enough.

John Green (author of The Anthropocene Reviewed ) @johngreen

I think writing is easier than many other things. For me, anyway, it is much easier than talking. But still, writing is difficult for me. Sometimes it is difficult because I do not know what I want to say, but usually it is difficult because I know exactly what I want to say but what I want to say has not yet taken the shape of language. When I’m writing, I’m trying to translate ideas and feelings and wild abstractions into language, and that translation is complicated and challenging work. (But it is also — in moments, anyway — fun.)

Kosoko Jackson (author of Yesterday Is History ) @kosokojackson

For me, the hardest part of writing is deciding what to write about. I have a lot of ideas, but not every idea is a viable idea. Is there a character? Is there a plot? Is there a through line? Is this something I want to spend 18 to 36 months on? Do I know enough to walk through the forest, but not so much that it feels boring to tell the story to myself? Writing is a journey for me that is as much writing a story that will appeal to readers (and my agent and editor) as much as telling a story to myself. What “lesson” am I trying to teach myself? What skill am I trying to sharpen? These are just a few of the questions I ask myself when making a novel, and not every novel has the answers — yet.

Morgan Jerkins (author of Caul Baby ) @morganjerkins

Writing is hard because sometimes — or perhaps many times — the words do not match the imagery of a specific scene that you have in your mind. It feels like there is always something that’s lost in translation as soon as it’s immortalized on the page.

Jonny Sun (author of Goodbye, Again ) @jonnysun

Writing is hard because you are dealing with the infinite. Out of a blank page, there is an unlimited number of possibilities of what to write. And at every scale of writing, this limitlessness exists — it feels like every word is an impossible choice. Every sentence can be written in endless different ways. And the ways those build to say something also exist in a million different permutations. The ideas and the way you structure those ideas are endless — the endlessness multiplies itself.

Chuck Wendig (author of The Book of Accidents ) @chuckwendig

I don’t know. Why is it hard digging ditches? Why is it hard being a god? Writing is somewhere in between both of those. You’re the god of digging ditches. You’re navigating this interstitial terrain between art and craft, between self-actualization and commerce, between empathy and evil. It has all these rules, and almost none of them are true. The work is the work, and the work is sometimes hard. It’s supposed to be easy, and some days it is — ironically, the easy days don’t mean the work was good, and the hard days don’t mean the work was bad. The short answer is, again, I don’t know. Maybe it’s hard because it needs to be hard, because if it were too easy, it wouldn’t really matter.

What do you do when writing gets most difficult?

Megan Abbott (author of The Turnout ) @meganeabbott

Go to a matinee. Take a walk. Read a writer I love. Main thing for me: Step away from the computer.

When writing gets really difficult, I stop writing. But just for a few hours. When words are hard to wrangle, I don’t try to force them onto the page. I have tried before, and the result was just more food for my computer’s trash bin! That being said, when I’m on deadline, I treat writing like any other job that has to be done, regardless of my mood. So, I’ll take a walk, reread something I’ve written that I particularly like (almost to show myself, see, you can make something good; you’ve done it before! ), or watch a movie. Once I’m out of the writing chair for a while, I’m often itching to get back in it to try again.

I do write every day when I’m on a tight deadline, and some days it takes hours just to squeeze out a few words. Sometimes I have to power through and remind myself I can fix whatever is not working in edits, either the next day or down the road. But it’s also important to realize when you need breaks. I’m a big fan of taking in other forms of storytelling, like watching television and films, reading graphic novels, newspapers, and magazines, or even rereading a favorite author’s work. Getting outside for some fresh air or a walk or hike usually helps. Cooking and yoga are also soothing ways for me to reset. Just engaging in activities that don’t require you to stare at a computer screen or notebook are all helpful.

Look at one piece of it at a time, rather than trying to apprehend the entire project. Alternatively, take 10 steps back and apprehend the entire project. Look at a different piece of it. Look at a different piece of writing altogether. Make dinner. Read. Hang out with my partner.

I get so frustrated. I cry. I take a walk. I get really angry at myself for being such a terrible writer. This is stupid! Why am I even attempting this when I am so hopelessly inept at storytelling? And then eventually, I get over myself and write. If there is a way to write without at least occasional weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have not yet found it.

I try to take a step back and evaluate “Is the issue I’m facing difficult or something that I truly don’t know how to solve?” If it’s the former, then that means I’m learning, and I’ve learned to be comfortable in the discomfort and trust my skills. If it’s the latter, then there’s something missing. Maybe I’m not at the skill level I need to be. Maybe I need to read more in the genre or more examples of what I’m trying to accomplish. Writing is as much pen-to-paper as it is refilling the well and learning from those who came before you.

I like to tell myself that it’s only a draft. I have to build a foundation first no matter how bad it is because it’s not meant to be perfect. Other times, I take breaks in between writing sessions. It may be a day, or four. I also have been okay with knowing that not every writing session is going to be easy. There are good days and bad days.

I try to establish rules and boundaries so that the limitlessness feels like a puzzle. Instead of a blank everythingness, defining a container helps to figure out how to use those bounds to express things that feel outside of those bounds, and also helps to figure out when I can break those rules for specific purposes. I also — when faced with indecision — just try to write the bad version, and then revisit later. It’s always easier to edit and have something in front of you that you can improve as opposed to coming up with something when nothing is in front of you.

It depends on when, and why, it’s difficult. If it’s difficult toward the end of a writing day, I give up and go do something else for the day. If it’s at the start, I try to push through. Sometimes it’s a problem in the work, sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s, I dunno, a Thursday on a full moon with a high pollen count. Sometimes the thing to do is go take a walk, get the blood moving. The blood carries oxygen, and the brain needs oxygen, so churn that red stuff, get the idea bubbles bubblin’.

Do you have any advice for fellow writers struggling with their work?

Write badly. Give yourself permission to write badly. We’re always trying so hard to make it good, vivid, real, faithful to the vision in our head … and that’s a lot of pressure. If we give ourselves permission to write one bad page, two bad pages, we can forget all the rest and just churn out words, ideas … and, in the best circumstances, get to see that beautiful unconscious place that leads to good stuff!

The times when writing is most difficult is when I don’t have a plan. Anyone is going to look at an empty page and think, what am I supposed to do to fill it?! So, I recommend always working with some sort of outline. Some might believe it takes the magic out of writing, but what it really does is just gives a writer a place to start … and a direction to go when they’re a little lost. Almost like a map.

I also recommend writing for yourself first. When I began writing at 12, I was just writing the type of book that I wanted to read. Pretend you’re the only one who will ever read it. At least in the drafting stages. That way, you won’t be afraid to take risks.

I think writers could stop being so hard on themselves — myself included. It’s irrational but easy to compare works in progress to finished books on our shelves, and it helps to remember that no piece of writing comes out fully formed. And that every project is different, so it’s best to go into it without expectations and know that you might have to figure out new ways to shape the piece into what you want it to be.

Talk to other writers about it. Meditate on what brings you to the work in the first place, what is important to you at the core of it.

Try to be nice to yourself!

Your journey won’t match anyone else’s, and you should embrace that. Find what works for you and what doesn’t, but don’t be ashamed. I’m a writer who bounces around a lot, but when I settle? I settle. I write so many hundreds of pages of books that will never become real. That’s okay because that’s me. I’m also a messy drafter; that works for me. Don’t be ashamed of what works for you, and embrace what makes you unique.

Write it down. Just write it all down. Set the foundation first before you start sculpting. Who knows? Even the pieces you inevitably discard may help to propel the next plot point or character development. All can be useful if you allow it.

Figure out what you enjoy writing about and the ways you write that make you enjoy writing. It’s less about “write what you know” but more “write what you know you like.” So much is already difficult in this world — it doesn’t help to also make writing something a struggle too. I think it helps to find the topics and structures and ideas that make writing feel exciting and joyful — the writing will still be hard, of course, but if there’s something there that makes you keep wanting to revisit it, over and over, that you still feel excited about trying to figure out, then I feel like that means you’ve found something to continue following.

Write a lot. That’s it, really. Iterate as often as you can. Part of this is, obviously, doing the thing helps you learn the thing, but more specifically it also helps you learn your process and your voice, and in knowing those things, you come to recognize when a difficult writing day is normal — meaning, it’s part of your process, your pattern — and when it is abnormal. Abnormal difficulty can mean you’re not dealing with a writing problem, but rather anxiety or depression or some other neurodivergence, and those are normal and okay but can’t be solved the same way you’d solve an average writing block — you can’t “write your way through” depression. You’ll only sink deeper, like with quicksand. You have to be able to see clearly the difficulties in front of you and see when they belong to your writing process or exist outside of it. Writing a lot helps you get to that kind of clarity.

Scott Neumyer is a writer from central New Jersey whose work has been published by The New York Times , The Washington Post , Rolling Stone , The Wall Street Journal , ESPN , GQ , Esquire , Parade magazine , and many other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @ scottneumyer .

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Is Writing Hard: The Top Reasons Why Writing Is Hard, With Tips

Is writing hard? It can be difficult if you have been told to re-write or revise after the first draft. Learn more in this article.

If you find the process of writing to be challenging, try not to get frustrated. The goal is to become a better writer, and even a good writer can have a hard time from time to time. For example, Ernest Hemingway is widely considered one of the greatest writers of all time. However, even he had some struggles with creative writing occasionally.

Becoming a professional writer can be hard, and good writing should be an interactive experience. Yes, writing is difficult, but it is also enjoyable. If you want to overcome writer’s block, you need to identify some of the biggest challenges. Then, you can use your writing skills to overcome them.

1. Writing Is Hard Because It Requires Your Undivided Attention

2. writing is a long process, 3. writing requires bravery, 4. writing takes a lot of practice, 5. writing caters to perfectionists, 6. writing has an inconsistent schedule, how to overcome these challenges, final word on is writing hard, why is writing so hard, if i want to become a better writer, what should i do.

One of the biggest reasons writing is so hard is that it requires your undivided attention. Have you ever taken a job where you were doing a bunch of mindless tasks? For example, you might have had a job where you had to copy information from one spreadsheet into another. Or, you might have had a job where you had to watch videos and then give your thoughts at the end. You do not necessarily need to pay attention to these tasks the entire time. Instead, you can tune in and out, still getting the job done.

When it comes to writing, this is not an option. If you do not focus on the task at hand, your writing will not be very good. Laziness cannot creep into your writing, or your work will suffer. There is no way you can put your brain on autopilot and end up with a good result. You need to focus on the task at hand if you want your writing to come out well.

If you aren’t focused on your work, it is better to take a break and do something else. Then, come back to your writing when you can truly focus on it. 

Another reason writing is hard is that it does not lead to instant gratification. If you want to see the fruits of your labor at the end of the day, writing may not deliver. It takes a long time to write a good story. Regardless of whether you are writing a poem, a short story, or a novel, the process is lengthy. Some of the greatest poets in the world have spent a month crafting a single poem. 

Therefore, you might not see the results of your hard work for days, weeks, or months. Sure, at the end of the day, you might have a bunch of pages written, but this does not necessarily mean they are any good. You won’t truly feel satisfied with your work until the entire story is finished.

Because there is a long time before you experience that feeling of fulfillment, writing can be hard. You might even start a story only to scrap it at the end because you do not like it. Most people do not have the patience to deal with the full scope of the writing processing. 

Do you want to go through life anonymously? Do you want to sit in the background where nobody will bother you? Taking risks is hard, and being a writer is brave. However, virtually everything you write will eventually be reviewed by somebody else. Are you a professional writer? If so, then a client or an editor will review your work. Do you work for a large firm? If so, a manager will review your work at the end. Do you want to publish a book? If so, your reader base will have an opinion on your work.

Someone else is going to read your work eventually. It can be nerve-racking to wait for them to give their opinion. After all, you might have spent months, or even years, writing that story. If the other person doesn’t like it, it could mean that all of your work has been for nothing. Or, if they don’t like your work, it could make you angry. It is your work, not theirs! Who are they to criticize it?

It takes a lot of courage to put all of your work on display. Unfortunately, many people are not willing to make themselves vulnerable like this, which is why writing is so hard. 

If you want to be a good writer, you need to practice repeatedly. The only way you will ever get better at writing is by practicing it daily. Even when you don’t want to write, you should let your fingers flow to put words on the page. Then, you can come back and organize them later.

If you play a musical instrument, you need to practice every day. Otherwise, your skills are going to rust over. Likewise, if you play a sport, you need to practice daily. If you take a lot of time off, you might get out of shape, causing you to fall short when you come back. Writing is the same way. If you don’t write regularly, your writing skills will get rusty. Then, when you are ready to write again, you might fall behind.

Because writing takes a lot of practice, it can be incredibly challenging. 

If you are a perfectionist, you might embrace the challenge of writing. But, unfortunately, it is not unusual for writers to expect themselves to be perfect. “Good enough” is never really good enough for a writer. Now, you might think that the endless drive for perfectionism brings out the best in a writer. Expecting yourself to do better can indeed be a positive quality in a writer; however, it can also be a tremendous challenge. 

Think about it like this. If you are running a book for someone, you may have a deadline to meet. The deadline is coming up, and you aren’t anywhere close to being finished. Why is that the case? You may have spent a long time writing the first chapter because you always felt like there was a better version. Therefore, that chapter was never perfect, causing you to fall behind on the rest of the book.

This is what they call crippling perfectionism. It is true that you need to go back and edit, proofread, and review your work. Then, you might be able to make it better. On the other hand, it takes a lot of practice to learn when to put down the chapter and move on to the next area. If you expect everything to be perfect, you will spend endless hours agonizing over a single word choice. This is another reason why you need to practice regularly. You need to learn when to make changes and when to let it go.

If you enjoy a routine, you may have a difficult time sticking to one as a writer. For example, you might be someone who likes to write early in the morning. You might be someone who likes to write during business hours only. You might even be someone who likes the right in the middle of the night.

You will quickly learn that you do not have a lot of control over when you write. If you don’t have a pen and paper, you might think that you can stay away from writing; however, if a moment of inspiration strikes you, you will probably pull out your phone and start to type into a notepad.

The point is that you will write when inspiration strikes you. You never know when you will feel like writing, and you don’t want to miss that critical moment of “eureka.” As a result, it is easy to let your writing seep into other areas of your life. It can be difficult for you to stick to a routine, and it can impact your relationships. It takes a lot of discipline to learn how to contain your writing while still getting the most out of your skills.

These are a few of the biggest challenges you will face if you would like to get better at writing. Fortunately, there are some ways you can overcome these challenges as well. These include: 

• Learn when to take breaks. It is okay to take breaks from time to time. If you are sitting there and nothing is coming out, put down the pencil and do something else. You may find that spending time outside gives you the moment of inspiration you’ve been looking for.
• Make sure you designate time for family members and friends. If you just assume you will spend time with those closest to you, you may not spend as much time with them as you would like. Instead, block off time to be with other people. This could help you improve your writing as well.
• Invest in a tool that can help you stay organized. For example, if you have multiple projects going on simultaneously, make sure you have a calendar of when they are due. That way, nothing will fall through the cracks.
• You may feel like you don’t have enough confidence in yourself. If that is the case, remember that vulnerability can be a valuable asset. You might want to try meditation or positive affirmations that can make you feel better about yourself. Then, remember to stay humble when you present your work to other people.
• Finally, you need to make sure you get enough sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep at night, you won’t give your brain a chance to recharge. This could cause you to fall behind on your work. You might even want to set alarms for yourself that tell you when to go to bed.

Everyone has a different strategy for overcoming these challenges. Of course, you will learn more about yourself as you go, but consider putting a few of these tips to use if you want to overcome some of the biggest challenges facing writers. 

So, is writing hard? It is highly unusual for someone to say that writing is easy, but everyone has their own talents. If you want to be a professional writer, you need to practice regularly. Then, make sure you give other people the chance to review your work. Listen to what they have to say.

Everyone has a different opinion, so make sure you put their opinion in the context of your work. Finally, remember to take breaks. There is a light outside of writing, and spending time with other people away from your work can help you improve your assignments when you go back to them.

FAQs About Is Writing Hard

Writing is hard because it requires a tremendous amount of patience and focus. It also requires a lot of vulnerability, as other people will be reviewing your work. You also have to be critical of yourself as you review your assignments, which can be a challenge for many people.

If you want to be a better writer, you need to practice regularly. Most importantly, you should try to practice different forms of writing. That way, you can improve different writing skills, apply additional writing tips, and get better at expressing your ideas through the act of writing. Freewriting is critical for exploring different styles of writing

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Essay Writing Tips: 10 Steps to Writing a Great Essay (And Have Fun Doing It!)

by Joe Bunting | 118 comments

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Do you dread essay writing? Are you looking for some essay tips that will help you write an amazing essay—and have fun doing it?

Lots of students, young and old, dread essay writing. It's a daunting assignment, one that takes research, time, and concentration.

It's also an assignment that you can break up into simple steps that make writing an essay manageable and, yes, even enjoyable.

These ten essay tips completely changed my writing process—and I hope that they can do the same for you.

Essay Writing Can Be Fun

Honestly, throughout most of high school and college, I was a mediocre essay writer.

Every once in a while, I would write a really good essay, but mostly I skated by with B's and A-minuses.

I know personally how boring writing an essay can be, and also, how hard it can be to write a good one.

However, toward the end of my time as a student, I made a breakthrough. I figured out how to not only write a great essay, I learned how to have fun while doing it . 

And since then, I've become a professional writer and have written more than a dozen books. I'm not saying that these essay writing tips are going to magically turn you into a writer, but at least they can help you enjoy the process more.

I'm excited to share these ten essay writing tips with you today! But first, we need to talk about why writing an essay is so hard.

Why Writing an Essay Is So Hard

When it comes to essay writing, a lot of students find a reason to put it off. And when they tackle it, they find it difficult to string sentences together that sound like a decent stance on the assigned subject.

Here are a few reasons why essay writing is hard:

• You'd rather be scrolling through Facebook
• You're trying to write something your teacher or professor will like
• You're trying to get an A instead of writing something that's actually good
• You want to do the least amount of work possible

The biggest reason writing an essay is so hard is because we mostly focus on those external  rewards like getting a passing grade, winning our teacher's approval, or just avoiding accusations of plagiarism.

The problem is that when you focus on external approval it not only makes writing much less fun, it also makes it significantly harder.

Because when you focus on external approval, you shut down your subconscious, and the subconscious is the source of your creativity.

The subconscious is the source of your creativity.

What this means practically is that when you're trying to write that perfect, A-plus-worthy sentence, you're turning off most of your best resources and writing skills.

So stop. Stop trying to write a good essay (or even a “good-enough” essay). Instead, write an interesting  essay, write an essay you think is fascinating. And when you're finished, go back and edit it until it's “good” according to your teacher's standards.

Yes, you need to follow the guidelines in your assignment. If your teacher tells you to write a five-paragraph essay, then write a five-paragraph essay! If your teacher asks for a specific type of essay, like an analysis, argument, or research essay, then make sure you write that type of essay!

However, within those guidelines, find room to express something that is uniquely you .

I can't guarantee you'll get a higher grade (although, you almost certainly will), but I can absolutely promise you'll have a lot more fun writing.

The Step-by-Step Process to Writing a Great Essay: Your 10 Essay Writing Tips

Ready to get writing? You can read my ten best tips for having fun while writing an essay that earns you the top grade, or check out this presentation designed by our friends at Canva Presentations .

1. Remember your essay is just a story.

Every story is about conflict and change, and the truth is that essays are about conflict and change, too! The difference is that in an essay, the conflict is between different ideas , and the change is in the way we should perceive those ideas.

That means that the best essays are about surprise: “You probably think it's one way, but in reality, you should think of it this other way.” See tip #3 for more on this.

How do you know what story you're telling? The prompt should tell you.

Any list of essay prompts includes various topics and tasks associated with them. Within those topics are characters (historical, fictional, or topical) faced with difficult choices. Your job is to work with those choices, usually by analyzing them, arguing about them, researching them, or describing them in detail.

2. Before you start writing, ask yourself, “How can I have the most fun writing this?”

It's normal to feel unmotivated when writing an academic essay. I'm a writer, and honestly, I feel unmotivated to write all the time. But I have a super-ninja, judo-mind trick I like to use to help motivate myself.

Here's the secret trick: One of the interesting things about your subconscious is that it will answer any question you ask yourself. So whenever you feel unmotivated to write your essay, ask yourself the following question:

“How much fun can I have writing this?”

Your subconscious will immediately start thinking of strategies to make the writing process more fun.

The best time to have your fun is the first draft. Since you're just brainstorming within the topic, and exploring the possible ways of approaching it, the first draft is the perfect place to get creative and even a little scandalous. Here are some wild suggestions to make your next essay a load of fun:

• Research the most surprising or outrageous fact about the topic and use it as your hook.
• Use a thesaurus to research the topic's key words. Get crazy with your vocabulary as you write, working in each key word synonym as much as possible.
• Play devil's advocate and take the opposing or immoral side of the issue. See where the discussion takes you as you write.

3. As you research, ask yourself, “What surprises me about this subject?”

The temptation, when you're writing an essay, is to write what you think your teacher or professor wants to read.

Don't do this .

Instead, ask yourself, “What do I find interesting about this subject? What surprises me?”

If you can't think of anything that surprises you, anything you find interesting, then you're not searching well enough, because history, science, and literature are all brimming   over with surprises. When you look at how great ideas actually happen, the story is always, “We used  to think the world was this way. We found out we were completely wrong, and that the world is actually quite different from what we thought.”

These pieces of surprising information often make for the best topic sentences as well. Use them to outline your essay and build your body paragraphs off of each unique fact or idea. These will function as excellent hooks for your reader as you transition from one topic to the next.

(By the way, what sources should you use for research? Check out tip #10 below.)

4. Overwhelmed? Write five original sentences.

The standard three-point essay is really made up of just five original sentences surrounded by supporting paragraphs that back up those five sentences. If you're feeling overwhelmed, just write five sentences covering your most basic main points.

Here's what they might look like for this article:

• Introductory Paragraph:  While most students consider writing an essay a boring task, with the right mindset, it can actually be an enjoyable experience.
• Body #1: Most students think writing an essay is tedious because they focus on external rewards.
• Body #2: Students should instead focus on internal fulfillment when writing an essay.
• Body #3: Not only will focusing on internal fulfillment allow students to have more fun, it will also result in better essays.
• Conclusion: Writing an essay doesn't have to be simply a way to earn a good grade. Instead, it can be a means of finding fulfillment.

After you write your five sentences, it's easy to fill in the paragraphs for each one.

Now, you give it a shot!

5. Be “source heavy.”

In college, I discovered a trick that helped me go from a B-average student to an A-student, but before I explain how it works, let me warn you. This technique is powerful , but it might not work for all teachers or professors. Use with caution.

As I was writing a paper for a literature class, I realized that the articles and books I was reading said what I was trying to say much better than I ever could. So what did I do? I quoted them liberally throughout my paper. When I wasn't quoting, I re-phrased what they said in my own words, giving proper credit, of course. I found that not only did this formula create a well-written essay, it took about half the time to write.

It's good to keep in mind that using anyone else's words, even when morphed into your own phrasing, requires citation. While the definition of plagiarism is shifting with the rise of online collaboration and cooperative learning environments, always  err on the side of excessive citation to be safe.

When I used this technique, my professors sometimes mentioned that my papers were very “source” heavy. However, at the same time, they always gave me A's.

To keep yourself safe, I recommend using a 60/40 approach with your body paragraphs: Make sure 60% of the words are your own analysis and argumentation, while 40% can be quoted (or text you paraphrase) from your sources.

Like the five sentence trick, this technique makes the writing process simpler. Instead of putting the main focus on writing well, it instead forces you to research  well, which some students find easier.

6. Write the body first, the introduction second, and the conclusion last.

Introductions are often the hardest part to write because you're trying to summarize your entire essay before you've even written it yet. Instead, try writing your introduction last, giving yourself the body of the paper to figure out the main point of your essay.

This is especially important with an essay topic you are not personally interested in. I definitely recommend this in classes you either don't excel in or care much for. Take plenty of time to draft and revise your body paragraphs before  attempting to craft a meaningful introductory paragraph.

Otherwise your opening may sound awkward, wooden, and bland.

7. Most essays answer the question, “What?” Good essays answer the “Why?” The best essays answer the “How?”

If you get stuck trying to make your argument, or you're struggling to reach the required word count, try focusing on the question, “How?”

For example:

• How did J.D. Salinger convey the theme of inauthenticity in  The Catcher In the Rye ?
• How did Napoleon restore stability in France after the French Revolution?
• How does the research prove girls really do rule and boys really do drool?

If you focus on how, you'll always have enough to write about.

8. Don't be afraid to jump around.

Essay writing can be a dance. You don't have to stay in one place and write from beginning to end.

For the same reasons listed in point #6, give yourself the freedom to write as if you're circling around your topic rather than making a single, straightforward argument. Then, when you edit and proofread, you can make sure everything lines up correctly.

In fact, now is the perfect time to mention that proofreading your essay isn't just about spelling and commas.

It's about making sure your analysis or argument flows smoothly from one idea to another. (Okay, technically this comprises editing, but most students writing a high school or college essay don't take the time to complete every step of the writing process. Let's be honest.)

So as you clean up your mechanics and sentence structure, make sure your ideas flow smoothly, logically, and naturally from one to the next as you finish proofreading.

9. Here are some words and phrases you don't want to use.

• You  (You'll notice I use a lot of you's, which is great for a blog post. However, in an academic essay, it's better to omit the second-person.)
• To Be verbs (is, are, was, were, am)

Don't have time to edit? Here's a lightning-quick editing technique .

A note about “I”: Some teachers say you shouldn't use “I” statements in your writing, but the truth is that professional, academic papers often use phrases like “I believe” and “in my opinion,” especially in their introductions.

10. It's okay to use Wikipedia, if…

Wikipedia is one of the top five websites in the world for a reason: it can be a great tool for research. However, most teachers and professors don't consider Wikipedia a valid source for use in essays.

Don't totally discount it, though! Here are two ways you can use Wikipedia in your essay writing:

• Background research. If you don't know enough about your topic, Wikipedia can be a great resource to quickly learn everything you need to know to get started.
• Find sources . Check the reference section of Wikipedia's articles on your topic. While you may not be able to cite Wikipedia itself, you can often find those original sources and cite them . You can locate the links to primary and secondary sources at the bottom of any Wikipedia page under the headings “Further Reading” and “References.”

You Can Enjoy Essay Writing

The thing I regret most about high school and college is that I treated it like something I had  to do rather than something I wanted  to do.

The truth is, education is an opportunity many people in the world don't have access to.

It's a gift, not just something that makes your life more difficult. I don't want you to make the mistake of just “getting by” through school, waiting desperately for summer breaks and, eventually, graduation.

How would your life be better if you actively enjoyed writing an essay? What would school look like if you wanted to suck it dry of all the gifts it has to give you?

All I'm saying is, don't miss out!

Looking for More Essay Writing Tips?

Looking for more essay tips to strengthen your essay writing? Try some of these resources:

• 7 Tips on Writing an Effective Essay
• Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

How about you? Do you have any tips for writing an essay?  Let us know in the  comments .

Need more grammar help?  My favorite tool that helps find grammar problems and even generates reports to help improve my writing is ProWritingAid . Works with Word, Scrivener, Google Docs, and web browsers. Also, be sure to use my coupon code to get 20 percent off: WritePractice20

Coupon Code:WritePractice20 »

Ready to try out these ten essay tips to make your essay assignment fun? Spend fifteen minutes using tip #4 and write five original sentences that could be turned into an essay.

When you're finished, share your five sentences in the comments section. And don't forget to give feedback to your fellow writers!

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing

A new movement strives for simplicity.

“Persistence is one of the great characteristics of a pitbull, and I guess owners take after their dogs,” says Annetta Cheek, the co-founder of the D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Plain Language. Cheek, an anthropologist by training who left academia in the early 1980s to work for the Federal Aviation Commission, is responsible for something few people realize exists: the 2010 Plain Writing Act. In fact, Cheek was among the first government employees to champion the use of clear, concise language. Once she retired in 2007 from the FAA and gained the freedom to lobby, she leveraged her hatred for gobbledygook to create an actual law. Take a look at recent information put out by many government agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—if it lacks needlessly complex sentences or bizarre bureaucratic jargon, it’s largely because of Cheek and her colleagues.

The idea that writing should be clear, concise, and low-jargon isn’t a new one—and it isn’t limited to government agencies, of course. The problem of needlessly complex writing—sometimes referred to as an “opaque writing style ”—has been explored in fields ranging from law to science. Yet in academia, unwieldy writing has become something of a protected tradition. Take this example:

The work of the text is to literalize the signifiers of the first encounter, dismantling the ideal as an idol. In this literalization, the idolatrous deception of the first moment becomes readable. The ideal will reveal itself to be an idol. Step by step, the ideal is pursued by a devouring doppelganger, tearing apart all transcendence. This de-idealization follows the path of reification, or, to invoke Augustine, the path of carnalization of the spiritual. Rhetorically, this is effected through literalization. A Sentimental Education does little more than elaborate the progressive literalization of the Annunciation.

That little doozy appears in Barbara Vinken’s Flaubert Postsecular: Modernity Crossed Out , published by Stanford University Press, and was recently posted to a listserv used by clear-language zealots—many of whom are highly qualified academics who are willing to call their colleagues out for being habitual offenders of opaque writing. Yet the battle to make clear and elegant prose the new status quo is far from won.

Last year, Harvard’s Steven Pinker (who’s also written about his grammar peeves for The Atlantic ) authored an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he used adjectives like “turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand” to describe academic writing. In an email, Pinker told me that the reaction to his article “has been completely positive, which is not the typical reaction to articles I write, and particularly surprising given my deliberately impolite tone.” (He didn’t, however, read all of the 360-plus comments, many of which were anything but warm and fuzzy.) A couple of weeks later, The Chronicle had a little fun with with a follow-up to Pinker’s article, inviting researchers to tweet an explanation of their research using only emoji :

I 🔬new 🐰acting and 🐢acting 💉 for diabetes. They are tested on 🐭🐷🐶 and 👨👩 to make them 🎯 and ✅ before we ship 🌍 to help🙍be 🙆. I used 💎ography to 🔍 at the molecular 🔪🔫💣 of a 🌱 pathogen, which destroys 💷💵💶 of 🍟 and 🍅 around the 🌍.

In 2006, Daniel Oppenheimer, then a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, published research arguing that the use of clear, simple words over needlessly complex ones can actually make authors appear more intelligent. The research garnered him the Ig Nobel Prize in literature—a parody of the Nobel Prize that, according to a Slate article by the awards’ creator, Marc Abrahams, and several academics I consulted, is always given to improbable research and sometimes serves as a de facto criticism or satire in the academic world. (Oppenheimer for his part believes he got the award because of the paper’s title: “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.” The title made readers laugh, he told me—and then think.) Ultimately, Oppenheimer says the attention the Ig Nobel brought to his research means it’s now being used to improve the work of students in academic writing centers around the country.

A disconnect between researchers and their audiences fuels the problem, according to Deborah S. Bosley, a clear-writing consultant and former University of North Carolina English professor. “Academics, in general, don’t think about the public; they don't think about the average person, and they don't even think about their students when they write,” she says. “Their intended audience is always their peers. That’s who they have to impress to get tenure.” But Bosley, who has a doctorate in rhetoric and writing, says that academic prose is often so riddled with professional jargon and needlessly complex syntax that even someone with a Ph.D. can’t understand a fellow Ph.D.’s work unless he or she comes from the very same discipline.

A nonacademic might think the campaign against opaque writing is a no-brainer; of course, researchers should want to maximize comprehension of their work. Cynics charge , however, that academics play an elitist game with their words: They want to exclude interlopers. Others say that academics have traditionally been forced to write in an opaque style to be taken seriously by the gatekeepers—academic journal editors, for example. The main reason, though, may not be as sinister or calculated. Pinker, a cognitive scientist, says it boils down to “brain training”: the years of deep study required of academics to become specialists in their chosen fields actually work against them being able to unpack their complicated ideas in a coherent, concrete manner suitable for average folks. Translation: Experts find it really hard to be simple and straightforward when writing about their expertise. He calls this the “curse of knowledge” and says academics aren’t aware they’re doing it or properly trained to identify their blindspots—when they know too much and struggle to ascertain what others don’t know. In other words, sometimes it’s simply more intellectually challenging to write clearly. “It’s easy to be complex, it’s harder to be simple,” Bosley said. “It would make academics better researchers and better writers, though, if they had to translate their thinking into plain language.” It would probably also mean more people, including colleagues, would read their work.

Some research funders, such as National Institutes of Health and The Wellcome Trust, have mandated in recent years that studies they finance be published in open-access journals, but they’ve given little attention to ensuring those studies include accessible writing. “NIH has no policies for grantees that dictate the style of writing they use in their research publications,” a spokesperson told me in an emailed statement. “We do advise applicants about the importance of using plain language in sections of the application that, if funded, will become public on the RePORT website.”

Bosley is ever so slightly optimistic for a future of clear academic writing, though. “Professors hate rules for themselves,” she says. “They become academics because it’s almost like being an entrepreneur. So academia isn’t like government or private business where laws or mandates work. But if we get more people like Pinker taking a stand on this, the culture could change.”

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Indeed, there are an increasing number of academics taking it upon themselves to blog, tweet or try other means to convey their research to wider audiences. The news site TheConversation.com , for example, sources authors and stories from the academic and research communities. Academics get the byline but are edited by journalists adept at making complex research clear and writing palatable, according to the outlet’s managing editor, Maria Balinska. “We see a real interest among academics across the board in what we’re doing,” Balinska says. “Our editing process is rigorous, but they still want to learn how to communicate their research and reach more people.” She says The Conversation, which is being piloted in the U.S. and currently features articles by 1,500 academics from 300 institutions, is already getting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month mostly through word of mouth and social media.

Will this kind of interest in communicating about research by some academics help change status-quo academic writing? “Believe it or not,” when compared to their peers in other parts of the world, “U.S. academics are probably the most open to the idea of accessible language,” says Bosley. “I gave a presentation in France and academics there flat out told me that academics shouldn’t write to express, they should write to impress.” Bosley says bucking tradition and championing the clear-writing cause would be to an academic’s advantage, to a university’s advantage, and certainly to the public’s advantage. “Here in the U.S. at least we’re seeing some academics acknowledge this reality.”

But don’t look for the clear-writing pitbull Cheek to solve this problem. She’s working on one more bil l that calls for government regulations—not just info put out by agencies—to be written in clear language. Another try at getting that legislation passed and she’s truly retiring.“I think the government is easier to change than academics,” says Cheek. “I’m not going to get into a battle with academia.”

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Advice on writing from The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates

Why Is Writing So Hard? (And What to Do About It)

Do you ever find yourself asking why is writing so hard?

When people picture the working process of a writer, they often picture a carefree, fun, and creative situation. 

Perhaps that’s how you imagined being a writer would be. Often, our earliest experiences with writing lead to us discovering we enjoy writing or have a talent for it in a way that isn’t the case for other creative pursuits. 

Often, this discovery of something we love to do leads us to imagine that it will be easy and enjoyable. Yet, when we begin our writing life, the process of sitting down and getting words onto the page ends up being harder than expected. 

Finding writing hard isn’t a reason to stop. Writing is something the world needs and it changes lives for the better. 

Instead of focusing on the fact that writing is and can be hard, it’s better to focus on the solution. Here are some of the main reasons you find writing hard and what to do about it. 

You need motivation 

Often, the experience of finding writing hard stems from not having the proper motivation to sit down and get it done.

For a lot of writers, wanting to write is part of their identity and something they truly believe. Perhaps that’s the case for you. But have you ever taken the time to go deeper and explore where that motivation comes from?

Making progress with your writing, and feeling committed to seeing it through to completion, is a lot easier when you have a clear and powerful reason for wanting to write. 

Only you know what that reason is. 

Perhaps you enjoy the activity of writing more than almost anything else out there. If that’s the case, you can always justify taking the time to write . Remind yourself that even though it’s difficult at times, deciding to write is deciding to do the thing you enjoy the most.

Or maybe writing goes beyond enjoyment for you. It might even feel like a compulsion. You might find writing to be your best form of self-expression and a way of making sense of the world around you.

You can also think in terms of what your writing brings to the world. As well as being something you love doing, think about how it helps people. Whether that’s by showing other writers that it’s possible to succeed at something you dream about, or giving readers the enjoyment of your work, the impact of your writing goes beyond yourself.

Having a clear understanding of the deeper motivation behind your writing is one of the best ways to maintain your drive. When you feel writing is particularly hard, focus on the reason you do it. Let that focus reinspire you to keep going.

You’re overthinking instead of writing

Sometimes, writing is hard because of the way we think and the story we tell ourselves about our work.

One of the major manifestations of this problem is judging instead of creating. Think back to a time when your writing flowed and you were able to make progress without feeling too negative or stuck . You weren’t stuck in your head or thinking critically about your efforts. 

To avoid letting negative thoughts and judgment interrupt your writing, it’s important to be vigilant about the problem, so you can stop it in its tracks. As soon as you start to find yourself thinking about how hard writing is, stop. Focus on breathing. Focus on anything but your thought process. Remove that negative mental chatter and then return to the creative process itself.

Losing a sense of perspective can also be a major mental cause of finding writing difficult. This can take different forms. One is when you put too much importance on your writing. It’s easy to slip into this state of mind when following a solitary creative pursuit. When you lose sight of the world around you, and writing becomes your be-all and end-all, the level of mental pressure you experience is often difficult to cope with.

If you feel like your challenges with writing are down to an unhealthy focus on its importance, permit yourself to regain perspective . Take some time to do something purely for pleasure unrelated to writing. This will often refresh your mentality and give you the energy you need to write successfully again. 

Another effective remedy is to stop focusing on the fact that you’re finding writing hard and instead offer some time and attention to others. When we move our focus away from our own challenges and instead seek to help others, we often end up regaining the cognitive calm and emotional state needed to write well. 

You need to adjust your writing approach 

Finding writing hard is often down to a lack of motivation or a suboptimal state of mind. But not always. The practical approach we take to writing can often make it a lot easier.

Many different practical factors impact the way we write. Taking the time to find the best mix for you is worthwhile and a good way to focus on solving your difficulty with writing rather than wallowing in it. 

One aspect to experiment with is the time of day when you write. Sometimes, it’s a case of squeezing in a writing session whenever your schedule allows . However, if you have the freedom to write at different times, it’s worth experimenting to find the time when your writing flows most easily.

If you’ve always written at a particular time, it may be the case that you’ve found your ideal time by default. But what if you haven’t? You’ll never know if there’s a better time to write until you experiment. Sometimes the novelty of writing at a different time of day or night is also enough to give your brain a boost and make writing easier again.

As well as the time of day, think about experimenting with both the location you write in and the tool you use. Some writers find writing easier in a solitary environment no matter what. Others need the stimulation of a busy environment such as a cafe to stay stimulated and focused . Finding your optimal writing location can make writing easier and more enjoyable. 

Writing apps are great, but when was the last time you tried to write by hand? If you’re finding it difficult to make progress, try writing using a comfortable pen and a notepad. Changing the physical way you write often lessens the frustration you’re feeling. 

Finally, the way you fuel your mind and body plays a big part in making your writing life easier. Eating in a way that energizes you and staying hydrated can make a big difference. Plenty of writers consume coffee like the world’s about to run out of it, but drinking water as well can really help.

Nothing worthwhile is easy

One final thought is the idea that writing shouldn’t always feel easy. The times when it does, and the words flow freely, are amazing and to be embraced.

Nothing worth doing is totally free from difficulty. By experiencing the challenge of writing, and pushing through the times when it’s tough, you grow both as a writer and a person.

By all means, take the time to find ways to make your writing life easier. But, no matter what, don’t give up. Keep going. You have a unique contribution to make as a writer and you should never lose sight of that. 

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Writing Anxiety

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses the situational nature of writer’s block and other writing anxiety and suggests things you can try to feel more confident and optimistic about yourself as a writer.

What are writing anxiety and writer’s block?

“Writing anxiety” and “writer’s block” are informal terms for a wide variety of apprehensive and pessimistic feelings about writing. These feelings may not be pervasive in a person’s writing life. For example, you might feel perfectly fine writing a biology lab report but apprehensive about writing a paper on a novel. You may confidently tackle a paper about the sociology of gender but delete and start over twenty times when composing an email to a cute classmate to suggest a coffee date. In other words, writing anxiety and writers’ block are situational (Hjortshoj 7). These terms do NOT describe psychological attributes. People aren’t born anxious writers; rather, they become anxious or blocked through negative or difficult experiences with writing.

When do these negative feelings arise?

Although there is a great deal of variation among individuals, there are also some common experiences that writers in general find stressful.

For example, you may struggle when you are:

• adjusting to a new form of writing—for example, first year college writing, papers in a new field of study, or longer forms than you are used to (a long research paper, a senior thesis, a master’s thesis, a dissertation) (Hjortshoj 56-76).
• writing for a reader or readers who have been overly critical or demanding in the past.
• remembering negative criticism received in the past—even if the reader who criticized your work won’t be reading your writing this time.
• working with limited time or with a lot of unstructured time.
• responding to an assignment that seems unrelated to academic or life goals.
• dealing with troubling events outside of school.

What are some strategies for handling these feelings?

Get support.

Choose a writing buddy, someone you trust to encourage you in your writing life. Your writing buddy might be a friend or family member, a classmate, a teacher, a colleague, or a Writing Center tutor. Talk to your writing buddy about your ideas, your writing process, your worries, and your successes. Share pieces of your writing. Make checking in with your writing buddy a regular part of your schedule. When you share pieces of writing with your buddy, use our handout on asking for feedback .

In his book Understanding Writing Blocks, Keith Hjortshoj describes how isolation can harm writers, particularly students who are working on long projects not connected with coursework (134-135). He suggests that in addition to connecting with supportive individuals, such students can benefit from forming or joining a writing group, which functions in much the same way as a writing buddy. A group can provide readers, deadlines, support, praise, and constructive criticism. For help starting one, see our handout about writing groups .

Identify your strengths

Often, writers who are experiencing block or anxiety have a worse opinion of their own writing than anyone else! Make a list of the things you do well. You might ask a friend or colleague to help you generate such a list. Here are some possibilities to get you started:

• I explain things well to people.
• I get people’s interest.
• I have strong opinions.
• I listen well.
• I am critical of what I read.
• I see connections.

Choose at least one strength as your starting point. Instead of saying “I can’t write,” say “I am a writer who can …”

Recognize that writing is a complex process

Writing is an attempt to fix meaning on the page, but you know, and your readers know, that there is always more to be said on a topic. The best writers can do is to contribute what they know and feel about a topic at a particular point in time.

Writers often seek “flow,” which usually entails some sort of breakthrough followed by a beautifully coherent outpouring of knowledge. Flow is both a possibility—most people experience it at some point in their writing lives—and a myth. Inevitably, if you write over a long period of time and for many different situations, you will encounter obstacles. As Hjortshoj explains, obstacles are particularly common during times of transition—transitions to new writing roles or to new kinds of writing.

Think of yourself as an apprentice.

If block or apprehension is new for you, take time to understand the situations you are writing in. In particular, try to figure out what has changed in your writing life. Here are some possibilities:

• You are writing in a new format.
• You are writing longer papers than before.
• You are writing for new audiences.
• You are writing about new subject matter.
• You are turning in writing from different stages of the writing process—for example, planning stages or early drafts.

It makes sense to have trouble when dealing with a situation for the first time. It’s also likely that when you confront these new situations, you will learn and grow. Writing in new situations can be rewarding. Not every format or audience will be right for you, but you won’t know which ones might be right until you try them. Think of new writing situations as apprenticeships. When you’re doing a new kind of writing, learn as much as you can about it, gain as many skills in that area as you can, and when you finish the apprenticeship, decide which of the skills you learned will serve you well later on. You might be surprised.

Below are some suggestions for how to learn about new kinds of writing:

• Ask a lot of questions of people who are more experienced with this kind of writing. Here are some of the questions you might ask: What’s the purpose of this kind of writing? Who’s the audience? What are the most important elements to include? What’s not as important? How do you get started? How do you know when what you’ve written is good enough? How did you learn to write this way?
• Ask a lot of questions of the person who assigned you a piece of writing. If you have a paper, the best place to start is with the written assignment itself. For help with this, see our handout on understanding assignments .
• Look for examples of this kind of writing. (You can ask your instructor for a recommended example). Look, especially, for variation. There are often many different ways to write within a particular form. Look for ways that feel familiar to you, approaches that you like. You might want to look for published models or, if this seems too intimidating, look at your classmates’ writing. In either case, ask yourself questions about what these writers are doing, and take notes. How does the writer begin and end? In what order does the writer tell things? How and when does the writer convey their main point? How does the writer bring in other people’s ideas? What is the writer’s purpose? How is that purpose achieved?
• Read our handouts about how to write in specific fields or how to handle specific writing assignments.
• Listen critically to your readers. Before you dismiss or wholeheartedly accept what they say, try to understand them. If a reader has given you written comments, ask yourself questions to figure out the reader’s experience of your paper: What is this reader looking for? What am I doing that satisfies this reader? In what ways is this reader still unsatisfied? If you can’t answer these questions from the reader’s comments, then talk to the reader, or ask someone else to help you interpret the comments.
• Most importantly, don’t try to do everything at once. Start with reasonable expectations. You can’t write like an expert your first time out. Nobody does! Use the criticism you get.

Once you understand what readers want, you are in a better position to decide what to do with their criticisms. There are two extreme possibilities—dismissing the criticisms and accepting them all—but there is also a lot of middle ground. Figure out which criticisms are consistent with your own purposes, and do the hard work of engaging with them. Again, don’t expect an overnight turn-around; recognize that changing writing habits is a process and that papers are steps in the process.

Chances are that at some point in your writing life you will encounter readers who seem to dislike, disagree with, or miss the point of your work. Figuring out what to do with criticism from such readers is an important part of a writer’s growth.

Try new tactics when you get stuck

Often, writing blocks occur at particular stages of the writing process. The writing process is cyclical and variable. For different writers, the process may include reading, brainstorming, drafting, getting feedback, revising, and editing. These stages do not always happen in this order, and once a writer has been through a particular stage, chances are they haven’t seen the last of that stage. For example, brainstorming may occur all along the way.

Figure out what your writing process looks like and whether there’s a particular stage where you tend to get stuck. Perhaps you love researching and taking notes on what you read, and you have a hard time moving from that work to getting started on your own first draft. Or once you have a draft, it seems set in stone and even though readers are asking you questions and making suggestions, you don’t know how to go back in and change it. Or just the opposite may be true; you revise and revise and don’t want to let the paper go.

Wherever you have trouble, take a longer look at what you do and what you might try. Sometimes what you do is working for you; it’s just a slow and difficult process. Other times, what you do may not be working; these are the times when you can look around for other approaches to try:

• Talk to your writing buddy and to other colleagues about what they do at the particular stage that gets you stuck.
• Read about possible new approaches in our handouts on brainstorming and revising .
• Try thinking of yourself as an apprentice to a stage of the writing process and give different strategies a shot.
• Cut your paper into pieces and tape them to the wall, use eight different colors of highlighters, draw a picture of your paper, read your paper out loud in the voice of your favorite movie star….

Okay, we’re kind of kidding with some of those last few suggestions, but there is no limit to what you can try (for some fun writing strategies, check out our online animated demos ). When it comes to conquering a block, give yourself permission to fall flat on your face. Trying and failing will you help you arrive at the thing that works for you.

Celebrate your successes

Start storing up positive experiences with writing. Whatever obstacles you’ve faced, celebrate the occasions when you overcome them. This could be something as simple as getting started, sharing your work with someone besides a teacher, revising a paper for the first time, trying out a new brainstorming strategy, or turning in a paper that has been particularly challenging for you. You define what a success is for you. Keep a log or journal of your writing successes and breakthroughs, how you did it, how you felt. This log can serve as a boost later in your writing life when you face new challenges.

Wait a minute, didn’t we already say that? Yes. It’s worth repeating. Most people find relief for various kinds of anxieties by getting support from others. Sometimes the best person to help you through a spell of worry is someone who’s done that for you before—a family member, a friend, a mentor. Maybe you don’t even need to talk with this person about writing; maybe you just need to be reminded to believe in yourself, that you can do it.

If you don’t know anyone on campus yet whom you have this kind of relationship with, reach out to someone who seems like they could be a good listener and supportive. There are a number of professional resources for you on campus, people you can talk through your ideas or your worries with. A great place to start is the UNC Writing Center. If you know you have a problem with writing anxiety, make an appointment well before the paper is due. You can come to the Writing Center with a draft or even before you’ve started writing. You can also approach your instructor with questions about your writing assignment. If you’re an undergraduate, your academic advisor and your residence hall advisor are other possible resources. Counselors at Counseling and Wellness Services are also available to talk with you about anxieties and concerns that extend beyond writing.

Apprehension about writing is a common condition on college campuses. Because writing is the most common means of sharing our knowledge, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we write. This handout has given some suggestions for how to relieve that pressure. Talk with others; realize we’re all learning; take an occasional risk; turn to the people who believe in you. Counter negative experiences by actively creating positive ones.

Even after you have tried all of these strategies and read every Writing Center handout, invariably you will still have negative experiences in your writing life. When you get a paper back with a bad grade on it or when you get a rejection letter from a journal, fend off the negative aspects of that experience. Try not to let them sink in; try not to let your disappointment fester. Instead, jump right back in to some area of the writing process: choose one suggestion the evaluator has made and work on it, or read and discuss the paper with a friend or colleague, or do some writing or revising—on this or any paper—as quickly as possible.

Failures of various kinds are an inevitable part of the writing process. Without them, it would be difficult if not impossible to grow as a writer. Learning often occurs in the wake of a startling event, something that stirs you up, something that makes you wonder. Use your failures to keep moving.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Hjortshoj, Keith. 2001. Understanding Writing Blocks . New York: Oxford University Press.

This is a particularly excellent resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Hjortshoj writes about his experiences working with university students experiencing block. He explains the transitional nature of most writing blocks and the importance of finding support from others when working on long projects.

Rose, Mike. 1985. When a Writer Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing-Process Problems . New York: Guilford.

This collection of empirical studies is written primarily for writing teachers, researchers, and tutors. Studies focus on writers of various ages, including young children, high school students, and college students.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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7 Things to Try When Writing Is Hard

Often, the difficulty lies simply in the unwieldy story—and the need for an ever-evolving understanding and ability in order to manage it. According to my estimate, as much as 75% of what is referenced as “writer’s block” is really just “plot block.” Something in the storyform is out of balance and/or the story’s problem is temporarily outpacing the author’s skill level. With enough persistence, these plot blocks give way sooner than later—and usually with the reward of either a  better story or, at least, a greater awareness in the writer.

But then there are the difficulties that fall under the heading of that other 25%. This is when the writing is hard in ways that aren’t so easy to bull our way through.

These are often deeper issues, arising from our life beyond the page. They might include illness (our own or someone else’s), exhaustion, stress, fear or other unresolved emotions, burnout, or any other number of things. Sometimes the cause seems to be something as simple (and vague) as a mood.

And it’s infuriating. Unlike with plot blocks, solving the problem isn’t always as simple as finding the right mental thread to pull. Sometimes, it’s a matter of putting things  other than writing first for a while (and coming to peace with that). Other times, it’s a matter of using the writing difficulties to help us work through what’s  really causing the block.

Writing Is Hard Right Now: My Story

Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration (Amazon affiliate link)

Until recently, I’d never experienced that second type of writer’s block. Plot block, sure. But I’ve spent my creative life building a skill set that helps me efficiently and effectively deal with that . (Indeed, it’s not really an exaggeration to say “avoiding plot block” is the entire reason I write this blog!)

But real live life-induced writer’s block? Not so much.

However, as I mentioned in the podcast intro a couple weeks ago, I now find myself somewhat bemused to be experiencing a definite (if not quite definitive) case of writer’s block. I am objectively aware it’s not the end of the world. There’s a part of me that is genuinely rolling my eyes at and passing the coffee to the other part of me that is getting really grumpy. And as I say, it’s not  definitive ; I’m still writing; there are still words.

It’s just that the writing is hard right now. Harder than I ever remember it being. It’s hard in a different way.

Dreamlander (Amazon affiliate link)

Part of this surprises me, since I’ve been incredibly eager to start the outline for the third book in my Dreamlander trilogy. But on the other hand, it makes sense. I moved last year, so I’m in a new place, figuring out a new routine. There’s also some heavy family stuff that knocked me for a loop when it first arose a few weeks ago. Also thrown in there were several layers of personal growth that decided to peak all at the same time.

And… then there’s the story itself. This is my first attempt at a series, so even though this book will be my eleventh rodeo, it’s still brand new ground. This is the first time I’ve ever had to tie off a multi-book story arc in a single volume. I started Book 3’s outline with the realization that I’d generously bequeathed myself dozens of little plot blocks—ideas I’d set up in Book 2 with vague ideas of their payoff in Book 3, but not enough info (yet) about how to get there.

Anyway, altogether it’s made for a potent mix that is allowing me the opportunity to learn new things about myself as a writer and a person. Some of those lessons are the tactics that have inspired this post—tactics that have already helped me move forward positively both in working on my story and working past the difficulties.

7 Things You Can Try When Writing Is Hard

For me, realizing I am most definitely not the first author to experience the whole “writing is hard” thing has helped me draw on the compassionate (and incredibly  tough ) wisdom of the many authors whose legacies permeate my life.

Today, I want to, in turn, reach out to those of you who may currently be finding that your writing is hard (whether normal hard or  hard hard). Here are a few practicable steps I hope will give you comfort and/or help you start moving toward a solution for your own unique writing challenges.

1. Just Admit the Writing Is Hard

In my experience as a writing mentor, I find writers tend to have two different kinds of relationships with writer’s block. The first kind uses writing difficulties as a comfy excuse to embrace the drama:

“Woe is me! I simply  can’t write! I have WRITER’S BLOCK!!!”

The second approach, however, denies there’s any problem at all:

“I  can’t have writer’s block! I never get writer’s block!! I don’t  believe in writer’s block!!!”

That was me for a while there. And then it was like:

“Wow, I have writer’s block…”

My first step was accepting that the difficulties I was facing on the page weren’t just plot blocks, but something bigger. That knowledge then provided me what is always the foundational key to problem-solving: correctly identifying the problem.

How did I know I was facing down something bigger than just your normal, ordinary, everyday, garden-variety plot block? Because the normal solutions to plot block (asking plot questions and looking for the right “thread” to pull) weren’t getting me anywhere. I was scribbling furiously; I just wasn’t advancing.

2. Identify the Cause

I suppose it’s possible serious writer’s block could be caused by a single issue (e.g., the death of a loved one). But for most of us, it’s a condition arising out of a unique cocktail of convergences. For me, the catalyst was a shaken-not-stirred mix of diverse ingredients that included everything from January ennui to unprecedented storytelling challenges to exhaustion/recovery from a big move last year to stressful current events—and more.

Most of these things, I had no control over and little to no recourse for “fixing.” Winter’s gonna end when winter’s gonna end. My emotional processing of life events is gonna take as long as it’s gonna take. Other people are gonna do what other people are gonna do.

After accepting that, I dialed in on the causes I  could do something about. First, I figured out what I believed were my main problems:

a)  Having a hard time sticking with a daily writing routine.

b)  Struggling with ideas that just weren’t flowing.

From there, I started implementing strategies to see if I could unblock the dam.

3. Take Care of  Yourself Before You Take Care of Your Writing

A truth that has become increasingly clear to me is that art and life are synergistic. If I’m not taking care of myself on basic personal levels—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually— then my creative pursuits will necessarily suffer . In the artistic life, discipline extends far beyond the desk.

Since I knew many of the reasons for my writer’s block had nothing to do with the actual writing, my initial strategies also had little to do with writing. For starters, I completely restructured my daily schedule in recognition of the fact that I’m slowest in the mornings, with my motivation consistently climbing throughout the day.

Another thing I did was set my phone to “Do Not Disturb.” This allowed me to check it in between projects, rather than taking the risk that my focus and energy would be disrupted in the middle of flow.

4. Trust the Process

So there I was, sitting with pen in hand, scribbling along, face scrunched in determination—and it’s  just not working . No matter what question I asked myself, I couldn’t find the right answer. No matter what idea I tried to chase, it never seemed to be the one that set my imagination on fire.

While this was happening, the one thought that kept me grounded was:  Trust the process .

I would take a deep breath and return to the basics that, by now, are second nature . On my iPad, I would open up Helping Writers Become Authors and review my own posts—every one of them inspired by some challenge I had faced on a previous story. I would remember the specific steps I needed to take:

• Ask “ what if ” questions.
• Identify your characters’ thematic Truths .
• Find the antagonist’s motive and goal .
• Look for the structural plot points .

None of these things “cured” my writer’s block. But like familiar road signs popping into view on a snowy night, they kept me grounded, reminding me I knew where I was going because I’d been here before.

The process never fails me. If I stick with it, it will see me through.

5. Go Back to Basics: Daydreaming and Dreamzoning

Outlining Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)

Even though my writing process is built around intensive causal outlining , I don’t “make up stories.” I will sit down and brainstorm things that need to happen to move a story from Point A to Point B, but I never “create” the A and the B. They come me— spontaneous gifts from my subconscious imagination .

And that, I realized, was one of the reasons I just  couldn’t move forward  with this outline. I didn’t have enough “As” and “Bs” yet. I knew the bare bones of what needed to happen. But I couldn’t  see it. I couldn’t  feel it.

From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler (affiliate link)

So I went back to basics. For me, the hotline to my imagination is what I call “ dreamzoning ” (a term I got from Robert Olen Butler’s excellent From Where You Dream ). Basically, this is just intensified daydreaming. I’ll put on an appropriate playlist in the background, use something mindless but moving as a visual focal point (firelight is perfect, though a lava lamp isn’t bad either), and then just sit back and watch the show. I realized the other night that, really, it’s an almost meditative exercise. I’m trying to zone out of my surroundings and go deep into my head, dreaming vivid visual dreams fraught with emotional consequence.

All I get are snippets, flashes, photographs, and sometimes slow-mo movies. But these are the seedlings of my stories. If I gather enough, the story will write itself. Buh-bye, writer’s block. And in the meantime, spending my writing sessions chilling with a candle and some tunes is both productive and seriously low-stress.

6. Find the Right (Guilt-Free) Routine

Ironically, writer’s block often seems to come with a fair-sized dose of guilt. We  can’t write, and yet we self-flagellate because we  should be writing.

Depending on the root cause making our writing so hard for the moment, the best choice might be giving ourselves permission to  not write for a while (as I am—more or less—by allowing myself to focus solely on “dreamzoning” for a while). Other times, just tweaking a writing routine or schedule can do wonders.

Once I realized that outside drama and other factors were wreaking havoc with my ability to stay focused during a morning or afternoon writing session, I switched things around. I moved my writing session to the evening, when my energy is always most reliable. This gave me the ability to once again  consistently show up for writing time—which removed the useless poison of guilt from my already complicated cocktail of problematic catalysts.

7. Inhale Information and Inspiration

Often, writer’s block is simply the result of an empty well. As I discovered in #5, above, if I have no inspiration, how can I honestly expect myself to have anything to write about?

This goes for more than just imaginative bursts. It also goes for information—of all sorts. Any story is ultimately a reconstruction of things the writer has either experienced or learned. If you find yourself with nothing to write about, it could be as simple as that: you have nothing to write about.

Start filling your well. If you haven’t been reading faithfully, start a daily routine. If you’ve been reading the same  type of thing for years, try something new. Get out. Do new things. Watch new movies. Listen to new songs. Go to a museum. Fill your inner eye with wonders.

And read about writing. My success last year with a host of  amazing writing-related books has prompted me to make sure I read something powerful and inspiring about writing, or art in general, every single day.

Writing is hard for everyone. Some days are harder for some of us than for others. But the wheel keeps on rolling, and we all get our turn sooner than later. I feel certain that when it is time for me to return to the page, after a couple weeks of dreamzoning, I will find most of my challenges fulfilled. If not, I know further solutions will await me as long as I seek them with patience and discipline. In the meantime, I offer my encouragement to those of you who might be experiencing a similar trial, and I am thankful we get to walk together on this road—in all its many terrains and weathers!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What’s the first thing you do when your writing is hard? Tell me in the comments!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in iTunes ).

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Thank you for this. Lately, events outside my control have made it really hard to have any kind of consistent writing time or energy. (My mom’s been sick. It’s not fatal since we caught it in time, but hanging out in doctor’s waiting rooms is mentally and emotionally exhausting.) Sometimes just giving yourself permission to be struggling is a big thing. And reminding yourself that the outside events really are not going to last forever.

Very sorry to hear about your mom. That kind of thing comes first. Although writing can often be cathartic in painful situations, it can also be an energy drain when other things should be priority.

I really should keep reading. It might help me with my story.

Totally. Information is a writer’s greatest currency.

When the heck will you open a Patreon account?

It’s down there on my to-do list. 😉

Again, so timely! I’ve been thinking how awesome it is when a big life change happens…but you have advance warning. I have one rolling down the pike right now. I’m retiring from full-time go-to-work work on 3/29/19. Just around the corner it is. And I’m thinking, now I’ll have exactly 24 hours to play with for my optimal writing routine, instead of having to parcel some of those hours to a time clock. And I’ve been thinking, ahead, of the pitfalls of retirement that I’ve heard about from those who’ve gone before. One of the monsters is: shedding a routine because I can. I’ve been counseled to structure my day instead of just letting it “happen”, otherwise nothing important or vital will happen.

But, Kate, can I just live that way for a week-please, please, please? I’ve been punching a clock for 51 years now, and now I’d like to punch it just once, literally.! Bwahaha!

I think you deserve at least *two* weeks off. 😉

Terrific information, Katie! I am in the same space too. I think it’s partly due to the angst in the world that I am sensitive to. I recently wrote a post on “A Time to Write and a Time to Not Write” that says much of the same. We need to honor those seasons when the writing isn’t there. Thank you!

Another tactic I’ve been practicing long-term, for several years now, is tuning out the media. If something doesn’t add value to my life (or allow me to add quantitative value in return) and is, instead, feeding off my energy, I don’t want it in my day. I haven’t regretted it once. The news that filters around the edges is often more pertinent, clearer, and more thought-provoking.

>due to the angst in the world that I am sensitive to.

Same here. I can’t resist reading the news, even though I try. Apparently, I can’t go more than a day without clicking on a newsreader app. I tried to deal with this through my writing (Democracy’s Thief), but it didn’t work.

Find a replacement for the addiction. IMDb is my nicotine replacement. 😉 I still get to browse a news feed a couple times (and one that actually does still feed me most of the big stories) but without as much of a negative barrage.

This article was very timely for me. Over the last year, a cascade of hard changes, both good and horribly bad, have left me staring at my laptop unable to feel my story. Words come by force, and some of them are very good, but I feel detached from the process.

Like you, this is not my first round (I’m drafting my 11th book as well), but never in my more than 2 decades of writing has it ever been THIS hard.

As you said, many of the problems influencing my writer’s block are out of my control, but you’ve encouraged me to identify the ones I can control and make those changes.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. But every day I ask myself, “A few years down the road, will I feel better having written this story–or having not written it?” That answer, at least, remains clear.

All of these points are spot on! Whether or not we readers were/are already aware of them, these make a good reminder for us to stop and take a deep breath, to gather ourselves for the coming fray.

When I’m stuck, I either begin random stream-of-conscious noodling – usually pencil to reams of scrap paper – asking every question about the issue that comes to mind, allowing absurdity without self-censorship. Sometimes the gem we seek is in the response to that crazy what-if.

Or I go work on something else entirely, maybe or maybe not related to writing.

Two years ago I was caught in that “beyond the author’s skill” morass, and after isolating what I needed to do (in which I recognized my inadequacies and the need to consult with others), I began reaching out to those with experience in my trouble areas. It took about a year to gather the information, let it sink into my heart and soul, and then use that infusion to inform the chapters I needed to write. Even with the advance work of interviews, analysis, and self-examination, that was the hardest writing I’ve ever done. But I had to do it. The integrity of the story would have been compromised without it. My characters’ respect for me would have been damaged without it. And the work, as hard as it was, strengthened my skills massively. I truly enjoyed the challenge.

The real bonus was after it was done, with publication a couple months away, when the story sent me a definitive message about my next writing project. A work of non-fiction, that will be the hardest writing I’ve ever done. Now I realize that my previous challenge was an apprenticeship, or boot camp, for the next book.

I love connections like that!

This whole comment is great, but especially this:

“When I’m stuck, I either begin random stream-of-conscious noodling – usually pencil to reams of scrap paper – asking every question about the issue that comes to mind, allowing absurdity without self-censorship. Sometimes the gem we seek is in the response to that crazy what-if.”

This came in the nick of time XD Thanks!!

Yay for good timing! 🙂

As someone with ADHD, writers block is a tremendous pain. BUT… I draw, keep notes going on ideas, and just read for inspiration when it clobbers me

I’m always happy when life gives me any excuse to read and call it work. :p

KM, I believe your article speaks to every writer. When writing is especially hard for me, I literally write down everything that’s bugging me and sort out what I can impact and what I can’t. Then I try to take by the horns the things I can control. It helps to see that many of my annoyances are actually under my power to impact. Thanks!

Yes, love this! Brain dumping on the page is great way to get a more objective perspective within the messiness of whatever is going on.

All of the above comments ring true.

Sometimes I try a different approach. Good writing comes from the right side of the brain where my inner child lives. My blocks occur when the left brain is just overwhelmed with life’s demands. My child is ignored and can’t get any attention. When I switched careers and became a patent attorney I had no right brain time left at the end of the day. That lasted 12 years!

These days I let the negative take over. I tell myself, fine, you’re done, burned out and it’s time to quit. Get a job at Home Depot and sweep floors. (I treat some of my characters this way). Of course, my inner child who loves to tell stories doesn’t like the adult actually agreeing that he has nothing to say and should quit. So the rebellion in my head starts with an agreement that I won’t write very often and, of course, that the book I’m working on will never be finished. Sooner or later, the inner child misses writing so much that the time increases, the energy returns and the right brain takes over once again. Doesn’t always work but sometimes it’s just about letting your various personas clear the air.

Hah. Love this. Reverse psychology on yourself. 🙂

I go back and tweak earlier chapters of my draft in easy ways, like searching for vague verbs like “went” and replacing them with more vivid ones, or adding sensory details. That’s a gentle way of reawakening my interest in the story and characters or “getting my head back into it.”

Glad you brought this up. I’ve been doing this as well, with the book I just finished. It’s cathartic and helps with impostor syndrome (usually 😉 ).

Thank you very much for this – a great help on many different levels.

What I do is write free flow for twenty minutes or so. I scribble about anything and everything – whatever is in my overloaded yet tired brain. No editing – just rambling forth. No one will ever see it so there is no pressure – just a warm up for the muscles and the mind. Then comes the important part of the exercise – into the kitchen for a rewarding cup of tea. Cheers.

Yes, I’m remiss not to mention my muse: Coffee. :p

Yeah. I used to get terrible problems with January. I’ve helped it a lot by taking a holiday at that time of year in the sun. Sometimes I’ve even gone away for the whole winter, which can be amazingly cheap if you go to out of season resorts. For example I went to Malta for 3 months and paid as little as £4 a night. Mediterranean or desert places are a good choice, the weather is cool but there is still sunshine. It helps with mood and energy. The other thing is to take vitamin D in the winter. I don’t use a SAD lamp, but I’ve heard they can help. Before, I used to get murderous rages in the winter and I never felt properly awake. Exercise, particularly dancing, is good to boost the serotonin levels. Plot blocks can eat away at your motivation to write, but the worst things are what I call existential blocks where nothing in life seems to have any meaning, and writing seems futile. Remind yourself what makes writing sexy to you- the slant, strange, absurd or beautiful things that compelled you to write in the first place. Then aim to mine that spooky hair-raising feeling. I think that Julia Cameron has the right idea when she tells you to go on an Artist’s Date every week (for me that is once a fortnight) to fill the well. The other thing I do is to write something more indulgent like some poetry and leave the heavy novel project alone for an afternoon. Going to a Writers’ Group and showing off a bit can help to light a fire under you again. Perform something great you wrote in the past and let people fawn over you : )

Now that it’s finally gotten a little warmer, I’ve been walking every afternoon. That helps a lot.

I got a better understanding of my humanity through reading Eric Barker’s posts. He suggests if you’re blocked give yourself one tiny task. Go to your writing area and put one thing that’s out of place away. Or create the word processor document and enter the title. One thing leads to another. Thirty minutes later you’re still fixing “just one more thing…”

I like that!

Thank you KM, this was very helpful. I struggle with depression, so most of the time it’s really hard for me to write (or doing anything, for that matter), but the feeling of accomplishment I get when I CAN do it, even if just a little, is worth fighting for.

Totally agree with this. Focusing on the feeling we get after we do something, rather than when we’re doing it can be tremendously helpful.

Another eye-opening post. I realized that it’s not enough for me to admit that it’s not working or I’m just not up to it today (at which point I go out for a walk or something, which has its own rewards). But identifying the reason, even if it’s nothing to do with the work, is key to moving forward. When I’m stuck on the writing, I usually write out the supposed problem in my notebook, I just let the ink fly, no worries about spelling or grammar. At the very least, it gets the problem out of my head. I also love point 7. It reminds me of a Hemingway quote; “You have to stand up and live before you can sit down and write.” Thanks for sharing this!

Love that Hemingway quote!

1: To get started, write one true sentence.

Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer’s block. In a memorable passage in A Moveable Feast, he writes:

“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_ernest_hemingway_on_how_to_write_fiction.html

I’ve always liked that anecdote.

Hemingway’s stuff is enigmatic. It’s like he has to play a game with you before he lets you in on his secrets. And then sometimes, he just plays games (Hills Like White Elephants). When he talks about squeezing the orange peel and squirting the little droplets of oil into the fire or just looking out over the rooftops, I believe he was encouraging himself to have faith *in himself*. “Take your mind off things. The words will come. They always have. They always will. You can’t rush them.” All we can do is fix our thoughts on the one fact we know is true and not speculate on things we know nothing about.

In the “Old Man and the Sea,” he starts out with the old man going 84 days without catching a fish. Yet, Santiago doesn’t whine or worry. He doesn’t control when the fish will bite. I think that was another one of Hemingway’s ways of saying, “Don’t worry. Be Happy.” The one true fact in that scene is that you can’t control when the fish will bite. But you sure won’t catch anything by worrying.

Just my $0.02.

You know, Old Man and the Sea is actually a perfect analogy for writer’s block.

For me, “writer’s block” vanished two years ago. I’d read James Scott Bell’s “Voice” and found a huge gold nugget: the 300-word sentence. Here it is. 1) Get a yellow legal pad and a good black-ink pen. 2) Isolate yourself. Be in quiet, staring, still mode for 10 minutes. 3) Speculate on two or three scenes that might work. Pick one. 4) Write a 300-word sentence, using only commas, ABOUT that scene.

(For example, “this scene is about Julia, and she just saw her ex in the grocery store, behind the cabbages, and she hunkers down but, damn it, Jake saw her and he is smiling so she just leaves the basket on the floor and makes it to the exit, but instead of going to her car she tucks into the drug store and heads down the shampoo aisle, accidentally bumping into two elderly women, and takes refuge next to the reading glasses display, wondering why the hell she is avoiding him in the first place, why couldn’t she face him because it had been over a year now, and just when she felt calm and collected there he was, looking for her, and when she turned to leave she knocked the entire display case over, spilling glasses everywhere and in her panic to pick them up Jake shows up, just stands there with that smart*ss grin and she could have smacked him hard for it but, no, that would reek of unfinished business, and all she could do was accept his help and apologize to the employee who had already up righted the display case, and she knew that after they picked up all the readers she’d gather her wits and tongue and do the infuriating mature thing and act surprised to see him, this non-committal, video-gaming hot mess that moved to Chicago, leaving her behind.”)

Works every single time.

This is a great exercise for blocks in the drafting stage. My outlining process isn’t so much about getting words on paper as it is working through causal relations for scenes. Essentially, however, what I’m doing in the “dreamzoning” phase is a stream-of-conscious equivalent for a different part of the process.

Yes, the different kinds of writing . . . for me it’s the Post-it outlining stage, the 300-word sentence stage, the getting it on the laptop stage, then tweaking the chronology and lastly, the revision stage. Don’t know why we call it writing. It should just be called ‘re-writing.’

Yes, even for someone like me who prefers to do most of the heavy lifting upfront in an outline, rather than in revisions (when all goes well), the process is still a long procession of tweaking and refining.

“In the artistic life, discipline extends far beyond the desk.” I shall write this above my desk as it is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Working it out may take some time but that doesn’t negate the truth behind it. Thanks for that, Katie.

I’ve been mulling on this concept quite a lot lately. I will be doing posts on in it in the future. Basically, I find myself more and more interested in something I’m currently calling “whole-life art.”

I sometimes deal with this, especially in the summer. I need to be outside in the sun, in the wind, listen to the ocean breaking a block away from me. Being stuck inside is the worst! So I bought a table for the deck, and some chairs. I sit in the sun and write whatever I feel at the moment. It’s nothing that will be published, that’s not the point, it’s just for me. It doesn’t feel like spinning my wheels, and sometimes, something good comes out and moves one of my plots forward. I always have more than one book on the go, because I run myself into plot problems and need to let them stew until they figure themselves out. Mostly, I take time for me, with a long walk through the waves, or sitting and reading a book or a series I love. I get a good tan (and the much-needed Vitamin D I’m chronically short on), and I get some space for whatever I’m needing. We have 9 months of rain here on the Oregon Coast, so those three or four months of sun are precious and much needed. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, but you’re doing it right. Hang in there.

Generally, winter is the more difficult writing season for me. But summer certainly presents its own challenges. Somehow I’m always surprised by how much busier I tend to be in the warmer months.

Personally, I write best when it’s cold and dreary, when I’m stuck inside comforted by the wood stove. I think of everyone reading good books in wintertime – it allows me to envision my reader, to capture her attention. I can edit well in the sublime days of summer, but right now is my planting season and I damn the crocus. (Go Ducks! My alma mater.)

I do like writing by candlelight!

I always find it funny how similar the minds of creative people work. Going through a similar valley myself for a while now, I appreciate someone else speaking the same truths, and especially, coming to similar solutions! Everything in this post hits with me, but especially #5. I don’t know when I realized this as a creative writer, but whenever I did (a few years back), it opened a whole new understanding as how to nurture my subconscious. And the thing is, I felt like I’ve barely scratched the surface. Ugh, I wish I had a fire place ;-p. But yeah, you’re so right. And if I can encourage you any more, just remember that each season or chapter of your life gives you (creative) tools that you don’t even know were instructive. Whatever happens in your personal difficulties, it *will* influence your art for better. I have no doubt about it.

Fire places (and pits) are awesome. But just get a big candle. I found a big three-wick soy candle at TJ Maxx. It does the trick admirably–and with far less mess.

That’s a good idea. We have some candles, guess I should confiscate them under the guise of “writing necessities.”

Just keep them away from the dog. 😉

When getting to the page is the problem, I try to forgive myself. There are so many reasons why writing seems to take last place in life some days. But often I WANT to get to the page, even when life is throwing me curveballs.

When I don’t want to write because I’m fretting over a plot problem, I force myself to sit down. One technique I use to get past the block is to bring another character into the scene I don’t know how to write, typically a know-it-all who tells the other characters what to do. It might be good advice or it might be bad, but whichever it is, the new character acts as a catalyst. Whether the advice is good or bad, the protagonist then responds — he or she may do what the catalyst says to do, or may not, but SOMETHING will happen.

Once something has happened, and the scene is written, then I can edit it. It’s the blank page that’s most frightening.

Similarly, I used to have a list of prompts on the bulletin board by my desk. One was: “Have somebody shoot a gun at somebody else.” I never literally used it, but just glancing at it always got my creative mind going.

WOW! I am impressed. I’m a new subscriber and so this is the first time I’ve been here. The way you have designed this website is great. A moment after I clicked on the email you sent, I was here reading your fact filled blog, with no beating around the bush like some places do. The amount of useful information you have packed into this one article is amazing. I know I’ll have to go back and read it again several times just to absorb everything.

I’m not an author like you in the true sense of the word because I’ve never published anything yet, though I do enjoy playing with words. About four years ago, I completed a short, creative writing course sponsored by the University of Iowa. From three of the assignments, I’ve slowly, yes sadly to say, very gradually, been developing a story. Lately I’ve found that I can’t seem to get back to it, though after having written about 30,000 words, I’d like to see it finished. My tired fingers have punched out about the same number on another tale that’s unrelated to the first one. It too has come to a screeching halt. In my defense, I will admit that for awhile my work occupied every waking moment. I’m hoping some of the ideas presented here will get me going again. If nothing else, you have given me lots to think about.

I wanted to stop in to say ‘HI’ and to let you know I think you are doing a marvelous job here. THANK YOU for sharing some of your experiences with us. It is helpful to learn about how other people that have ‘been there and done that’ have worked their way through similar problems. Your fan club just grew by one because I know, I will be back.

I’m glad you stopped by. Great to hear you found the article useful!

And let me just say that, if you write, you’re a writer. Being published may offer official validation, but we’re all writers long before that happens. 🙂

Hear, hear! Indeed quite so!

When I get to that place that the flow for that day is not starting. I start writing a part that might or might not fall in place in this book. I have to pretend that it will be a part of one of the next scenes. Mostly it will fit in…but it gives me a next point to go to or to go from.

Thinking outside the box is huge in breaking through blocks. Usually, I find it’s not so much about a solution as it is simply rephrasing the problem. One of my favorite approaches is to work backwards. I’ll jump forward to a scene I know about, then start working my way backwards toward another known point, until I’ve filled in the blanks.

I have sometimes found that delays (like writer’s block) are a signal to me that I’m not ready yet for what I am attempting to accomplish. As difficult as it is for me to do it, I step away for a season (of varying lengths) and just wait. Often I will sense a small nudge when it’s time to return to the task. And when I do, usually I discover what was evading me before is now waiting patiently for me to come back and get reacquainted. I once heard Neil Gaiman say that it was ten years from the time he had the idea for The Graveyard Book until he was ready to write it. That is very encouraging to me!

Truth. And I’m considering this for myself at the moment. As much as I love order (and schedules), art and creativity don’t always play by the rules.

For the last few months, I’ve been struggling to find out how to get one sentence on the page, without deleting two. After sitting down to write every single day and only and only ending up with a page of decent writing, I knew that something wasn’t working. I needed to learn how to write fast, and be satisfied with terrible writing the first time around, just to get something on the page. This was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, but it works, and if I can accomplish this, it will be the greatest writing victory I will ever score.

Hear, hear. Writing fast is one of the best ways to beat perfectionism in the drafting phase. Sometimes, when I’m really struggling with this, I will force myself to write 300 every 15 minutes. This always gets my fingers typing and the words flowing.

I wish I could join you in commiserating about the hard-hard moments, but I never showed up for them. Instead, I just put the stories on the side.

Do any of you face things that need to be done and you realize that you’ve refused to do what needed to be done because your real goals weren’t the service of the story. Like last week, I knew that I needed to put more focus on the danger posed by the antagonist. In order to do that, I had to have these thoughts elbow out the MC’s rhapsodizing crushy feelings for an ally. I wept at the prospect. I was able to do it, this time–I don’t yet know how successfully.

It is like, these people are a lot more to me than figures in a story. So I wonder if it will even be possible for me to persevere until the story happens.

Sounds like you’re faced with “killing some darlings.” This is always hard, but if it’s in the story’s best interest, it can open up a lot of avenues that were previously blocked.

Yes, there are days when writing is harder than usual. Conversely, there are days when it flows easily. Thanks for the roadmap for the tough writing days.

Truth! Nothing beats those days when we’re in the zone.

Thanks for this excellent list of strategies.

I have found some clues to help me overcome one of my current writer blocks: I haven’t been able to write my daily prayer blog for a while, and I am also having trouble keeping to the schedule for my writer blog. I will be praying about how to use your list to get me moving again )i(

So while I have been pushing aside the guilt associated with not fulfilling my promise to myself, I have picked up a pen and started taking notes on real paper. A while ago, I swapped the real ink and paper method for the faster typing of my ideas directly onto the computer page (which also allows me to hit delete because I don’t like what I discover). I chose a journal that was a gift, so ripping out a page is impossible, and each time I start writing a sentence, I feel a sense of privilege because I know that the book was given because the giver knew I want to be an author.

I have also subscribed to lots of reader-writer pages and newsletters, so that I don’t feel so isolated. Nothing beats filling my journal with notes and comments about how other writers deal with the BIG issues.

The one area where my writer’s block isn’t having a catastrophic outcome (ie blank page) is the Romantic Suspense series of novels I am writing. I am privileged to have three manuscripts, in different stages of pre-publication. When I get stalled with manuscript four, I can do some more work for the others. I set up a closed discussion group on facebook with friends who have already demonstrated that they are sensitive to my emotional state and make the appropriate comments that push me back into a more positive frame of mind. To let them know what is going on, I keep them updated with the project, and any other big issues relating to this writing journey. So far, their feedback has been helpful in moving me forward.

From the sounds of that last paragraph, I’d say you’re still being awfully productive for someone experiencing a block. Good for you! 🙂

“1. Just Admit the Writing Is Hard”

This actually works, holy cow! I just said those words to myself and all the tension in my mind just went away.

Hah! That’s awesome. 😀

Thank you for this post! I am actually struggling with an idea I like very much but don’t know how to make compelling enough! And with the tendency I have to over-complicate mi plot *sighs*

If you’re trying to make the story more compelling, take a good hard look at what it is *you* love most about this story. Try to add more of that.

I find that, sometimes, if I just start writing stream of consciousness, writing without thinking about it, whatever pops into my head, at some point in time it will dislodge the boulder that’s in the way and I can go back to thoughtful writing on the story I’m working on. I learned how to do this by reading Jack Kerouac and other “beat generation” writers, plus William Faulkner. I am told this is how these people wrote everything. Stream of consciousness, no revision, just wrap it up and send it to the publisher. I’m not recommending that, but the practice does often work to get the muse unstuck. Then I take the drivel and send it to electron heaven. Certainlywouldn’t want to foist it on anyone else.

Stream of conscious techniques are excellent ways of tapping the subconscious creativity. This is basically what I’m talking about (sans the actual writing of sentences) when I’m “dreamzoning.”

Wonderful and timely article. LOVED it. I read through my outline and take notes. Right now I am struggling with the sequence for ACT2b. I know what should be there, I know what my ending is. I am struggling with what organically should be in this sequence without cliche stuff. I also write the Cliche stuff and then Mind map how to make it non-cliche. And then there are times where I call it out and say I am resisting writing. Once I say that, then I become determined to overcome the resistance. A great book on that is The War On Art by Steven Pressfield. Once I recognize the resistance, I pull out my outline notes and just read and before I know it I am working on my story again and breaking through the Plot Block and the resistance.

One thing I like to do in situations like this is ask myself two questions: What will the readers expect to happen here? And-What won’t they expect?

I’ll write lists of answers for both questions and usually somewhere in there I’ll find a unique solution.

I have hit this several times since taking up writing more seriously a few years ago. Like you said, sometimes it’s just “plot block”. but for me, many times it’s actually something else that is sucking me dry (parenting, homeschooling, commitments to friends or other groups), leaving me feeling like I have nothing left to create with. I’ve tried a lot of things, but consistently I find that planning ahead in everyday life (meal planning, making a double batch of food, ordering things from amazon rather than running to the store) and taking the time to do the little things I enjoy (getting a nice smelling bar of soap, starting a fire, or enjoying a new kind of tea) help me to feel a little more relaxed and ready to try. maybe the words will be few, maybe they will be awful. but overall I will feel better when I start trying and will feel better when I end because I tried.

“I will feel better when I start trying and will feel better when I end because I tried.”

Love this. Sometimes even just making the time to write a sentence makes the day better. And one sentence often leads to two…

Another great article, KM!

I just got out of a long writer’s “funk” a couple days back, but I know these tips will prove useful in the future when I get stuck again.

This time, for me, it was mostly about distractions – shiny object syndrome, which feeds my self-proclaimed “useful procrastination.” It’s so easy to give in to chasing after a tool or skill that at the time seems to offer exactly what I think I need to move on, scale up, or just plain improve momentously. There’s always something, and they almost never deliver the injection of super-mojo I was hoping for. In some ways this is the curse of the internet – TMGP (too many green pastures).

At any rate, I got some life-changing news recently and it made me reevaluate all this arm-flapping activity. I realize now that, while some of that stuff is important to follow up on (there is good stuff to be learned), it is not as important as doing the hardest and most rewarding work I’ve ever known: writing.

Here’s hoping you come out of your current “funk” with colors flying and your hair on fire! KC

Glad to hear you made it to the other side!

This post came at just the right time for me! My main character is in prison and some fellow prisoners are working with him to escape. He then chooses not to escape but the escaped prisoners see him as a friend and ally. I have been stuck on this for days! I have bought your book on writer’s block (a very fair price). And being rewarded with a solution following your ‘what if’ scenario which came to me as I was writing this. It’s blindingly obvious really. He does escape but then he is caught and put back into prison. Yes! Yes! Thank you

That’s great! The “what if” exercises is one of my all-time favorites.

Hi. I was interested with the fact that your problems are arising from the fact that your current WIP is the last in a series. This is exactly tha situation that I am in. The first two books are ready to self publish but I don’t want to do that until I’ve got a fair idea of how Book 3 will pan out. There’s plenty of foreshadowing in the first two books that I can use (or not), but they are all looking a tad contrived as I’ve been thinking about them for so long. And then there’s the self-inflicted time pressure to finish it that I’ve put on myself!

Yes, as I’m discovering, writing sequels is a whole new ballgame. Usually, when I finish a book, I’m able to put it and its problems aside for a while as I move on to outlining the next one. But not so with this one! The problems came right along with me. 😉

This podcast confirmed what I’ve been going through with writer’s block. Life hits and we need to be settled again. Thank you for your insights.

Sorry to hear that. Here’s to all of us moving forward!

My problem is usually motivation. I’ll get as far as sitting in front of the keyboard and will start typing. But then whatever I type seems wrong and I can’t figure out what it is. I end up walking away from the keyboard.

The solution I use when facing this problem is writing in timed bursts. I tell myself I have to write 300 words in 15 minutes. Once I get going, I’m almost always surprised that what writing isn’t that bad after all.

Where does self-doubt fall under types of writer’s block? Does it have the same cures, or different? To me it feels like a different beast, but maybe not!

Yeah, self-doubt is a huge factor in blocks. I go through (at least) one bout of impostor’s syndrome with every book I write. That’s part of my “cocktail of convergences” right now, actually. :p The only solution I know of is to ignore the nay-saying inner voice and just keep moving forward.

I decided that since I was still waking up at the same time (cats 😂) but going in to work later, I should schedule that extra time for writing, or at least thinking about what I need to write. Haven’t got perfect with that – I’m very distractible. But it’s helped me realize that the problem I was having was that my story’s premise didn’t fit the main character. I’m rethinking the premise. Haven’t done any more actual writing yet, but starting to understand what I need to write once I’m ready.

Good for you. I’m all about hacking life.

Thank you so much for writing this! It has really shed some light on why writing has been so hard for me lately, and what I can do about it. You rock, K.M.!

That’s great. We’re all going to conquer this together. 🙂

I’m currently writing and finding that my words just don’t sound the way I want them to. I’ve set a small daily word count that so far I’m on track with but I think that I’m going to have to go back and rewrite it to the style and sound that I’d like. But as the saying goes, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

Truer words never written. Perfectionism is often a chief cause of writer’s block.

Thanks for this post! I can relay on that 🙂

I find myself with the hard, hard writer’s block over a month now, and it still doesn’t works. I know, what I want to write. I think I know enough about the outline. I found a good beginning a few days ago, but the flow just don’t want to come. The thing is, sometimes I prefer dreamzoning instead of real writing, and the problem with that is, that you could get addicted to it. On the other hand, if you don’t write… then what sense does it have? My main characters are surprisingly cooperative. Too cooperative. This may sound strange to some people, but though it’s annoying if the characters don’t want to go along with my definer outline, I get easier into that writing flow when they aren’t.

I will try a new writing routine next week, that includes more less, but hopefully more focused and productive writing. I’m also up to resolve the biggest problem in my life outside writing, so I hope I can start writing regulary at the end of next month. Or earlier.

Again, thanks for the post, I think it helps me to be more efficient in trying to accomplish my goal and, therefore: Solving that damn writer’s block problem 😀

Creativity is messy, and that’s just part of the deal. But I’m a fan of efficiency. It never fails to help me. Best of luck!

Hey, KM, you mentioned in an article a few weeks that you researched keywords for Wayfarer. I’ve a reference to that elsewhere, but I don’t know where to look or research. Do you have any tips? Thanks

I used KDP Rocket . I’m planning to do a review and more in-depth post about it in a few months.

I come to writing novels after having first written screenplays, only to discover how much more difficult it is to write a novel than a screenplay. A screenplay is a kind of blueprint for a movie. The emphasis is on clear direction to the actors and director, and snappy dialogue. Flowery descriptions don’t work as screen direction, so the whole game is a concise capturing of dialogue and actions.

One technique in writing for the screen that may be helpful to novel writers derives from this more simplified structure. In “Television and Screen Writing From Concept to Contract” by Richard A. Blum, Mr. Blum suggests the idea of a step-outline, which is a very simple numerical listing of the events of the story, usually in chronological order, including snippets of dialogue. I bought this book when I experienced another form of writer’s block; I sat down to write a screenplay and realized I had no idea how to write a screenplay.

I have found writing these outlines are so free from critical concerns about structure that they devolve into a brainstorming effort where the creative side of the brain is completely free. I wrote these outlines longhand with a glass of wine while at some relatively quiet tavern, or while on vacation on a boat somewhere. I am the type that is typically alone in crowd, which is a little better for me than being alone in my room.

I found at times I would have to rearrange events and make other revisions when writing the script, but this technique definitely helped sketch out the overall flow of the story. Moving to a novel from the script involved a lot of decisions about POV and such that I never considered, and the excruciatingly painful search for different and interesting ways to say things like “walked” and “looked”. In screen direction, actors typically walk and look, rather than “saunter” or “peruse.” Novel descriptions may actually confuse actors, especially those with lighter hair. Oh, snap! I didn’t just say that!

Once I had the step outline worked out, the script was just “scribbling and bibbling,” as Mozart said in Amadeus. Getting a novel is trickier from the step outline, but you will have the ammunition for completing a more formal outline, and the confidence that you have the backbone of the story worked out.

Anyway, if anyone gets stuck, this simple technique might help. If you are stuck trying to figure out how to tie details together, it might help to step back and focus on the simple steps that make a story, then work the details in later. Don’t worry so much about what the story “needs” and focus on sketching how the dominoes fail, and let them fall where they may. You can always pick them up and rearrange them later.

Bit of a late commenter, but just wanted to say I really appreciated this post. Ever since self-publishing my first novel back in December of 2016 (which is also when I found out I was expecting my first child), I’ve been battling the “hard-hard” blocks almost consistently. I had to come to peace with the fact that my life was changing in a seriously HUGE way, and that I needed to give myself time and space to process and do what was best for myself first.

I still haven’t found my writing flow…and here I am, now with 2 kids and a third on the way. I’m not sure I will ever write as much as I used to, but there is a flame of passion in me that refuses to go out. So I will keep journaling (as that’s about the only writing I’m consistently able to do) and let my story ideas keep percolating.

There are moments here and there where I have a few ideas ready to put on paper for safe keeping, and I relish those moments. But to your point of taking care of yourself FIRST, that is truly essential to the process. I just have to trust that I WILL write again, and not guilt myself for putting myself and my growing family as top priority, for however long it needs to be that way.

I’m a writer who deals with recurring depression and I often forget how important and legitimate self-care is. Some days are just not going to be writing days. Some days, I need to re-charge my brain with yoga or a long walk or even a nostalgic marathon of a favorite kids’ TV show. I’m often surprised by the ideas I get while doing seemingly unproductive tasks.

My case of plotter’s block right now consists of me being unsure of which story I should ACTUALLY be working on right now. I’ve been dabbling on The Woodsman lately, and have multiple scenes written out. I even have some of the ending written!

But then I was thinking of Arrows today…and argh, I just have a hard time focusing in general!

Of course, I could try to get up early before work to write…but I’m sort of a night owl, so I never end up in bed on time to do that.

Something I should work on the next few months…

I’ve taken the plunge to choose an editor for my manuscript. I found it always hard to take time out to rest and recuperate but I did. I gave myself permission. We’d had a horrific time of a family member’s illness over Christmas so it was encouraging to know that I could take the pressure off. I didn’t write for weeks knowing that the assessment was coming and I’d be rested. Gave myself guilt-free time off to do other things and as you said, fill up the well. Movies, books, people, keep my fitness up. Now I’m reading the report, fresher and looking forward to tackling the issues. It’s not going to be easy as I have to move plot points and do a lot of fixing work. Thank you for your input. It’s very helpful.

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Why Is Writing So Difficult?

Writing is hard - really hard, and it’s no wonder writers can end up feeling infuriated demotivated and generally fed up with the whole process.

We’ve all been there - when we can’t find the inspiration, the right words, or where our once great idea suddenly dries up and trails off, where we get rejections, bad reviews or just radio silence, and it all just seems too difficult.

It’s no wonder that so many people who start out trying to write a book never get to the end. It's even less surprising that writers who do manage to finish their manuscript end up never doing anything with it because they’ve been told time and time again just how tough it is to get anywhere in the writing business.

But just what is it about writing that makes it so difficult? Why do writers all suffer from times where, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they will it, their stories, their words, just won’t come out they way they want them to, if at all?

Writing is hard because:

It asks for total focus

Writing isn’t something that just happens; it takes real focus. Writers need to be able to create whole new worlds, new people and stories that grip the hearts and imaginations of their readers. This is no easy task, and without being able to entirely focus, to truly immerse ourselves in our writing, it is impossible to realize our vision fully.

It demands discipline

You can’t just sit down one day and write out a bestselling novel the first time. Writing is an art, it’s a skill, and you need to practice if you want to get any good at it. Having the time, the motivation and the dedication to keep writing even when you don’t feel like it is not something that everyone has the discipline to do.

It requires huge courage

Writers write regardless of the terrible odds of actually getting published; they write stories that are personal to them and share them with the world, the pour their heart and soul into their work only to be told time and time again that it’s not good enough. To be a writer you have to be brave, to be persistent, to be able to take knocks and get back up and keep going regardless. That kind of bravery isn’t going to come easy.

It takes sacrifice

There may be exceptions, but most writers find that they have to sacrifice something if they want to keep writing. It might be time spent with family and friends; it might be not earning much money - whatever the sacrifice, being truly committed to writing means making choices that are not always easy to make.

Writing takes a lot from a person, and even if you are willing to do all the above, let’s face it, you also need to have some talent too.

However, the writer that can commit to writing in such a way, to make those sacrifices and to keep pushing forward is the one who will get better and better, and the one who is so much more likely to achieve their writing goals.

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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How do we plan on accomplishing this? Easy, instead of focusing 110% of our efforts on meaningless things such as correct spelling, proper grammar and fancy words...

...We'll give you solid information, that you'll get solid results with when tested in the real world ;-)

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Consider the mis-spellings, grammatical mistakes and lack of $1000.00 words that you may or may not find on this site a reminder to you to focus on the things that will "really" prompt publishers to become interested in your book or potential fans of your writing to want more and more and more..

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What Makes Writing So Hard?

MAY 9, 2022

Many students struggle with writing—but what makes it so hard? And why do so many students hate to write? Writing is a task with a very high cognitive load. Giving students meaningful practice and clear structures for writing helps them move their thoughts out of their heads and onto the page.

Who Needs to Write? Everyone.  

Based on the most recent NAEP writing assessment , only about one in four students at any grade level is proficient in writing—and that number hasn’t shifted meaningfully in decades. One in five students scored at the lowest proficiency level, Below Basic, at each tested grade level. Clearly, the traditional English Language Arts (ELA) programs used to teach writing are not, on their own, enough to move the needle for most students. 

At the same time, writing is more important than ever in our knowledge economy. Writing is a “gatekeeper” skill for many higher-paying professions. Most white-collar and technical jobs require at least basic writing skills, whether for creating formal reports or simply communicating through email. In blue-collar and service jobs, people are often expected to be able to write clearly to communicate with customers. And writing will almost certainly be required to advance beyond the entry levels. In fact, a survey of business leaders put written communication skills at the top of the list of sought-after attributes. 

Beyond the workforce, writing, like reading, is a skill that enables full participation in our modern world. Good writing skills allow people to participate in democracy by writing letters to the editor or expressing their views to a representative. Writing also allows people to participate in, rather than simply watch, all of the discourse and entertainment happening online. Writing can empower people to self-advocate in a variety of contexts, from healthcare to consumer interactions to legal proceedings. Writing skills are essential for anyone who wants a seat at the table in today’s complex political, consumer and personal realms. 

The High Cognitive Load of Writing

By some metrics, today’s kids and teens are writing more than ever—that is, if you count texting, commenting on online content, and interacting in multiplayer games. But these interactions do not rise to the level of writing required to be successful on state assessments, college assignments, or workplace tasks. When students are faced with an authentic writing task—such as responding to a piece of text, writing a research paper, or developing an original narrative—the majority struggle. 

In part, that may be because students don’t have much practice with formal writing, especially in extended form. There is some evidence that students today spend less time on writing than in the past, especially on argumentative writing and writing in the content areas. The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) recommends that students have 60 minutes of writing time each school day , including a mix of direct writing instruction and writing assignments that span different purposes and content areas. However, only about 25% of middle schoolers and 30% of high schoolers meet the standard, and many students are only spending about 15 minutes each day on writing. 

But even with ample time and instruction, writing is hard —in fact, it is arguably the hardest thing we ask our students to do. Natalie Wexler, the author of The Knowledge Gap , explains that writing has an even higher cognitive load than reading . That’s because, in addition to processing information, students also have to figure out how to get their own thoughts on the page. 

Writing is a highly complex skill that involves many discrete sub-skills at both the “macro” and “micro” levels. 

• At the “macro” level, students have to figure out what to say: what is the point they are trying to make or the story they are trying to tell? What is the best way to organize their ideas and structure their piece? What are the big ideas and conclusions they want to get across? What kind of supporting evidence or details are needed? 
• At the “micro” level, students must apply a myriad of foundational writing skills, from the motor skills involved with keyboarding or handwriting to decisions about word choice, syntax and grammar. 

All of these writing processes are happening at the same time , adding to the overall cognitive load of the task. To lower the cognitive load, students must achieve proficiency and fluency at both the macro and micro levels. When students struggle with foundational skills such as letter formation and word selection, they may not have enough cognitive resources left to focus on the “big picture” of what they want to say. On the flip side, students who don’t know how to organize their ideas will not have much energy to focus on developing their writing style and editing and polishing their work.

The Hardest Part of Writing is Thinking

For most students, the hardest part of writing isn’t writing out individual words or forming a complete sentence. It is simply figuring out what to say . In fact, the Writing Center of Princeton says: 

Writing is ninety-nine percent thinking, one percent writing. In other words, when you know what you want to say and how you want to say it, writing becomes easier and more successful.

Writing is, fundamentally, thinking made visible. If you can’t think, you can’t write. One of the best ways of lowering the cognitive load of writing is to give students a structure for organizing their ideas and thinking through the flow and structure of their piece. 

That’s where Thinking Maps come in. Thinking Maps provide the structure for thinking through a writing task and organizing ideas prior to writing.

It starts with understanding the task itself. Students in a Thinking Maps school learn to use “signal words” that indicate what kind of thinking is required for a task. Then, they know what kind of Map to use to start their thinking process. For example, if the prompt asks them to explain the similarities and differences between two historical eras, they know immediately that this will be a “compare-and-contrast” task. The Double Bubble Map provides the structure they need to organize their ideas, whether from their existing knowledge, in-depth research, or a text provided with the prompt. Once they have fleshed out their ideas, students can use a writing Flow Map to develop their piece section by section. Having this kind of structure helps students move through the planning and organizing phases of writing more quickly so they have more time to spend on other parts of the writing process, including revising and editing. It also leads to clearer, more organized writing. 

At Pace Brantley Preparatory, a Florida school serving students with learning disabilities in grades 1-12, adding some dedicated Thinking Maps planning time prior to writing led to better writing products on their benchmark assessments. Read the Pace Brantley story .   

In our Write from the Beginning…and Beyond training , teachers learn how writing develops across the grade levels and how to use Thinking Maps to support student writing, including using the Maps to process thinking before writing and using the writing Flow Map to plan writing. Advanced training includes specific strategies for different genres, including Narrative, Expository/Informative, Argumentative, and Response to Text.

When students can think, they are ready to write. And when students can write, they are ready for anything. 

Want to know more about Thinking Maps and writing?

• Download the recording: Building a Deep Structure for Writing

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Scientific thinking empowers students to ask good questions about the world around them, become flexible and adaptable problem solvers, and engage in effective decision making in a variety of domains. Thinking Maps can help teachers nurture a scientific mindset in students and support mastery of important STEM skills and content.

February 15, 2024

A majority of teachers believe that students are finally catching up from pandemic learning losses. But those gains are far from evenly distributed—and too many students were already behind before the pandemic. To close these achievement gaps, schools and districts need to focus on the underlying issue: the critical thinking gap.

January 16, 2024

Student engagement is a critical factor in the learning process and has a significant impact on educational outcomes. Thinking Maps enhance engagement by encouraging active participation in the learning process, facilitating collaboration, and providing students with structure and support for academic success.

November 15, 2023

Project-based learning (PBL) immerses students in engaging, real-world challenges and problems. Thinking Maps can give students a framework for thinking, planning and organizing their ideas in the PBL classroom.

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11 Reasons Why College Essays Are So Hard

If you’ve ever applied for college admission, then you know that the essay can be a very tough aspect of the application, and after you get into college. The techniques associated with college essays are often learned by experience, not by time in the classroom, and this can often pose a few problems. But why are they so hard?

Here are 11 reasons why college essays are so hard:

• Writing essays create anxiety.
• College essays differ greatly from high school papers.
• College essays have strict guidelines.
• Competition between students can lead to stress.
• Freedom and unstructured time lead to procrastination.
• Essay-writing is often not taught in high school.
• Critical thinking can be difficult.
• There is more than one way to write.
• College essays require expert levels of grammar.
• A blank page can be intimidating.
• Writing an essay often feels like a big commitment.

In the rest of this article, I’ll go through all the reasons why college essays are so tricky and why these problems are often so challenging to overcome. Everyone’s experiences are different, but problems with writing tend to be universal.

1. Writing Essays Create Anxiety

So many people suffer from some form of anxiety, which can hit college students especially hard. It can come in so many different formats and can be produced as a response to specific triggers. 

Writing an essay is sometimes one of the biggest triggers.

Anxiety related to essay-writing hits everyone at one point or another, often regardless of perceived writing skills. It is the biggest mental health barrier to college students, with around 41.6% of college students suffering from it at some stage in their academic careers ( source ). 

There are so many times when essay-writing seems almost impossible, especially when negative thoughts are coming at the forefront of that. 

Worrying about your writing skills, being paranoid about criticism from other students and professors, and waiting until the last minute to finish up those last few paragraphs can all lead to anxiety.

Negative criticism can be an essay-killer, and lacking the confidence to write an essay to the highest standard is one of the biggest problems facing college students. 

Unfortunately, learning to deal with these thoughts is the only way to overcome them.

2. College Essays Differ Greatly From High School Papers

Once you’re thrown into your first year of college, you might be surprised at the standards set for college essays. 

Academia in the world of higher education is much more subject to scrutiny, and all of a sudden, you’re writing papers that are 5-10 pages in length, rather than smaller 2-page essays you’re used to writing in high school. 

College essays differ significantly from high school papers mainly because of the length. 

A typical high school essay is 300 – 1000 words, but an undergraduate essay at college is around 1500 – 5000 words in length. This is a huge difference and can take a while to get used to.

Additionally, a graduate essay is even more significant in word length, averaging between 2500 – 6000 words. With each level of education, the word length increases, and so do the standards set for the essays ( source ). 

Getting used to this extra word count, and dealing with it without any sympathy from strict professors, can take a while. Many students struggle with college essays because the word counts are so extensive.

3. College Essays Have Strict Guidelines.

Thinking back to your high school years, the guidelines were probably quite flexible. You probably only had to fill up one page worth of material, and there weren’t too many rules relating to content and sources.

Guidelines for writing college essays are strict because the type of writing required is much more extensive. Specific formats must be adhered to, and only certain sources are allowed. In addition, proper citation and referencing procedures are often very rigid. 

Using specific sources can be difficult since the allowed sources are often graduate-level academic papers that can sometimes be difficult to understand. Coming from a place where your usual reference standard was Wikipedia, researching and analyzing these materials can be challenging for a college student.

Additionally, these guidelines can make writing an essay feel unnatural. You’re writing a paper that an invisible entity will read, and it’s inevitably a one-sided discussion that leaves you sometimes not knowing where or how to begin ( source ). 

4. Competition Between Students Can Lead to Stress

Writing a top-shelf essay can be hard in itself, but competition often makes that more stressful. If you have a class that’s open about grades and feedback, you might feel embarrassed if you didn’t quite hit the mark the first time, which can lead to clashes between students.

Competition between students can lead to stress, leading to college essays being more complex. Having the confidence to sit down and write to the best of your ability can get difficult if you feel like the other students are doing better or struggling less than you.

Stiffer competition can lead to more significant struggles, especially if students struggle with confidence. Confidence is vital for academic writing and acknowledging this is the only way to move forward with your academic career.

Statistics have suggested that up to 64% of college students lack the confidence to use statistics in college essays, which is a necessary skill in a higher education environment. 

Confidence is one of the biggest setbacks in writing essays, so without it, you might struggle.

5. Freedom and Unstructured Time Lead To Procrastination

For a new college student, the concept of freedom is fantastic. 

Finally being able to make your own decisions, create your own schedule, sleep when you want, and generally have more control over your lifestyle is an incredible feeling.

However, freedom and unstructured time can lead to problems when writing college essays. If you have too much freedom, the idea of being tied to your desk for many hours isn’t exactly appealing. 

Being forced to write an essay that you may not be interested in impedes your personal freedom. Finally having a small taste of freedom won’t make you want to write a college essay, especially if the article has a complicated topic or you have no particular interest in the subject.

Additionally, having unstructured time and vague goals can inevitably lead to a greater level of procrastination. Unfortunately, procrastination is a vicious cycle, and cleaning, sleeping, or going out to avoid writing that essay will make it seem an even more uphill task than it was before. 

6. Essay-Writing Is Often Not Taught In High School

Most people have never really been taught how to write an essay. While the essential skill of putting coherent thoughts down on paper is something we learn passively over time, it isn’t generally a class subject.

The fact that essay writing isn’t a taught skill is one of the reasons that college essays are so tricky to write. Unless you have taken extra study skills courses at high school, structuring a paper is based on your own intuition rather than something actively learned over time.

Unfortunately, nobody ever tells you exactly how to write an essay. 

Understanding how to write takes many years of trial and error, and many people say that writing isn’t something you can be taught. It’s something that you learn passively.

Knowing how to gather relevant academic sources and organize them appropriately is also a skill nobody is ever actively taught. You learn over time what works best for you, rather than being told what to do, which is one of the reasons why college essays are so difficult ( source ). 

7. Critical Thinking Can Be Difficult

Critical thinking, just like essay writing as a whole, is a learned skill. Using your cognitive abilities to analyze a piece of academic material requires a whole lot more than common sense, and it’s much harder for some than it is for others.

This can be difficult, especially in college, because higher standards of analytical evaluation are required to get higher marks. Regurgitating what you’ve read onto paper in your own words is more complicated than just writing what others have written.

Using your intellect to create an efficient piece of writing is hard, especially when considering how many academic sources you are using. 

Knowing how to critically analyze something and putting that down on paper in your own words can pose its own challenge, especially if you aren’t great at written communication ( source ).

8. There Is More Than One Way To Write

As the old adage goes, there isn’t just one way to put pen to paper. 

If you’re writing something requiring some level of academic analysis, knowing exactly how to write what you want to say can make writing a challenging task for college essay writing.

There’s more than one way to write, which can be a considerable problem for college-level students. Since writing can’t necessarily be taught because everybody works in different ways, and there are many different writing styles to adhere to in college, writing essays is even more difficult.

Knowing how to use appropriate writing styles for different essays is a learned skill that’s not easy to learn. Breaking down what you want to say into digestible chunks can make it easier, but sometimes college students will find this difficult because of the amount of information they have to process.

Nobody is born with an innate skill for essay-writing, so comparing yourself with other students in this way is counterproductive. Understanding that there are many different ways to get your point across is a step in the right direction.

9. College Essays Require Expert Levels of Grammar

Grammar is a difficult thing to learn, especially in academic learning. 

Using grammar efficiently can be a complicated task, especially when combined with complex sentence structures that need to be understood from various educational resources.

The fact that college essays require expert levels of grammar and lexicon is one of the reasons why college essays are so incredibly hard. Putting your thoughts into words on a page is one thing, but structuring it in a grammatically-sound fashion is more complicated than it might appear.

A solid foundation in complex sentence structures, basic style construction, and putting punctuation in all the correct places is something that many college students don’t yet fully understand when they first arrive at college. 

Unless you’ve taken extensive grammar courses throughout your high school time, you’ll likely find this particular part of essay writing difficult. Only with time, trial and error, and experience will you find that it begins to come naturally.

10. A Blank Page Can Be Intimidating

Staring at a blank page before you start work on your college essay can be terrifying. That blank page can cause higher levels of procrastination, and you may find yourself a bit intimidated by the idea of even beginning your essay.

A blank page can be intimidating because it’s often difficult to know where to start. 

Knowing what you want to put down on paper requires a certain level of prior planning and a complete understanding of the essay question. If you don’t have a solid plan, it might stop you from even beginning. 

Knowing where to start can be an issue related to anxiety, or perhaps you just don’t understand the subject well enough to dive in straight away. 

Looking at a blank page can often cause problems.

Additionally, if you’ve left your essay until the last minute and you have a deadline looming, this can also be a problem. That blank page looks even more terrifying because there are anxieties associated with meeting that deadline, which is one of the reasons college essays can be so hard ( source ).

See 17 Common College Essay Cliches To Avoid at All Costs

11. Writing an Essay Often Feels Like a Big Commitment

If you have a college essay with a big word count, this can lead to performance-related anxieties. Therefore, college essays sometimes feel like something you have to commit yourself to fully, and alongside the pressures of meeting a deadline, this can cause problems in itself.

Writing an essay often feels like a big commitment because it’s precisely that: a big commitment. If your essay is over 3,000 words, it can take a lot of time to complete. This is time that you’d rather be spending on social activities with your friends or even catching up on sleep .

College papers are a bit like writing for an audience, which can be a scary feat. 

Committing to writing something that may or may not get good marks might feel a bit intimidating, and it might be one of the biggest reasons you don’t want to start writing in the first place.

Good communication, proper sentencing, appropriate referencing and citation, and getting your point across in an academic fashion can all make the essay seem like too big of a commitment ( source ). 

Recommended Reading:

• What To Do When School Makes You Want To Cry
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Emily is an engineer at a Fortune 100 company. Her degree is in Chemical Engineering with minors in Mathematics and Chemistry. She completed 4 internships in college and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2020. She is from Texas and currently lives in Seattle, WA. Emily loves hiking, traveling, and playing guitar. She is a very proud dog mom to her fur baby, Oliver.

Why Learning to Write Well in College Is Difficult

Bill cerbin, assistant to the provost, uw-la crosse terry beck, department of english, uw-la crosse.

The following list is not, of course, meant to rationalize sub-par writing by college students. Nor can one course instructor address all the challenges listed below. We can, though, learn from this list and push ourselves, for example, to teach explicitly the genres we assign or—when we confer with students about their papers—ask them about the previous writing advice they’ve received. By understanding why writing is difficult for some of our students, we can work to help students develop as more confident and able writers.

• Variations from discipline to discipline. Disciplines are discourse communities with their own methods of developing and communicating knowledge. However, students take classes in several disciplines (i.e., several discourse communities) at the same time and often have difficulty mastering the different forms of inquiry and the different stylistic conventions that apply. It takes a long time to develop writing proficiency in one discipline, let alone several.
• Lack of uniform criteria and standards. Criteria, standards, and definitions of good writing differ from course to course (even within the same department). Students develop the idea that these are arbitrary and a matter of instructors’ personal preferences. This prompts them to search out “what you’re looking for” or “what you want” in their assignments.
• Lack of explicit criteria and standards. In some courses, students have little or no information about what constitutes appropriate writing and no clear sense of the goal they are supposed to work toward.
• Undeveloped writing processes. In many classes students are expected to write well, but are not taught to do so. Courses do not try to develop students’ writing: they simply require it. And students are left to use whatever strategies and competencies they have. But unless they are given feedback and helped with their composing processes, students will not get better by simply writing a lot.
• Misleading or incomplete writing instruction. In some classes, formal writing may be treated solely as a list of rules governing the use of language (grammar, spelling, punctuation) rather than as purposeful communication of ideas. If this is done, mechanical aspects of language are emphasized to the exclusion of important conceptual abilities. Often key writing concepts are never addressed in courses. For example, how to adapt one’s knowledge to the audience and the situation (i.e., rhetorical thinking) is extremely important but rarely taught. Similarly, how to develop a coherent train of thought is crucial to good writing—but rarely taught.
• Incomplete understanding of the subject matter. Students very often have to write about subjects that are unfamiliar to them. And, typical of novices in any subject area, their understanding as they write tends to be incomplete and naïve. Thus, it is very common that their writing lacks coherence and structure—reflecting their fragmented understanding of the topic, not necessarily their incompetence as writers.
• Lack of experience with and failure to understand genres. Most assignments are academic writing exercises: “tests” in which students demonstrate their knowledge to the teacher (e.g., essays, library research papers). These are genres that are rhetorically difficult and confusing—and poor preparation for the writing they will do after their university careers. Students have fewer opportunities to develop knowledge of other forms of writing and to write to different audiences.
• Lack of consistent coaching. As students go from class to class, they experience writing as a hodgepodge of activities, assignments, advice, etc. It is unlikely that these unrelated, discrete experiences promote cumulative learning and develop writing expertise.
• Non-reflective writing experiences. Students probably do not treat writing as a deliberate skill to develop. For the most part, they do not analyze their own writing or reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, and development as writers.
• Students do not care about what they write. Often students perceive academic writing as a chore rather than as a meaningful learning experience. While this is part of current student culture, it is not inevitable. Students are more likely to be invested in their work when they have some control over the selection of the topic and the work has an “authentic purpose” beyond getting a grade.

©2001, Bill Cerbin and Terry Beck.

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I Can’t Write Essays: Tips to Overcome Struggle Writing Essays

overcome Struggle Writing Essays

Picture this; you want to write an essay, and you switch your computer and hold your pen and paper. But wait a minute, you freeze in your tracks, you don’t know how and where to begin. Does this sound like you? If so, say, ‘I can’t write my essay’, then you are struggling writing essays, and you need to solve the situation fast.

Don’t worry yourself; it’s a struggle that many students face trying to write an essay. At Grade Bees, we have practical solutions for students with the problems of writing essays. Apart from offering you essay writing help , we have this guide to help you do it yourself.

Here are a number of tips and guides on how to overcome the common difficulties and struggles that students have when writing essays. You will learn how to write essays like a pro and sometimes force yourself into it.

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Problems Why you Can’t Write your Essay

If you are struggling to write an essay, chances are you are not having a problem with all aspects of essay writing but just a few of them. You cannot have issues with all the areas.

Most probably, you are struggling with either the structuring or the idea parts of the academic writing process. Below are some of the areas that students struggle with.

Fear of Failing the Essay

Success and failure are twins; missing that mark in your essay should not depress you and cause psychological tension. All you have to do is to relax, concentrate, put pen to paper, and focus on your writing.

Poor Punctuation of the Essay

Stuffing your essay with unnecessary commas, full stops in a sentence, and other grammatical errors, makes your article look unorganized.

Many students compromise the content and quality of their essays by making this mistake.

Being Unaware of your Targeted Audience

When writing your essay, focus on your target audience. Missing to understand your audience will give you more problems than you can imagine. You will not be able to achieve the quality you intend while writing your essay.

Unorganized Essay structure

Essay writing follows a specific structure, ranging from sentence structure, introduction, body of the essay, and the conclusion. Do you want your audience to read and understand your essay? Then follow the laid down structure when writing. You can check our guide on how to write good paragraphs and learn how to organize points for short essays.

Problems students have with writing their essays

Knowing the problems students face when writing an essay, why is it so hard to write an essay? 

1. Many Students Fail to Read Widely

Reading opens your mind, and a lot of information is gathered on a variety of topics when it comes to essay writing. It is no surprise that Stephen King was quoted saying that,

“You have to read widely, constantly refining your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true.” Stephen King

It’s the only way one can be able to sharpen the writing skills intended.

2. Lack of Focus

As much as you have read widely and want to show your professionalism when it comes to writing, you cannot write everything that comes into your mind. Focusing on the essay assigned is your ultimate goal.

3. Lack of Concentration when writing the essay

Many students are struggling to write essays because they handle several issues while writing. Being busy on the phone, listening to music, attending to a friend, and other distractions make writing difficult.

But here’s something exciting. Did you know you can force yourself to write an essay? Allow me to share these tips with you.

Also Read : Is Academic Ghostwriting Illegal? The Truth from the Myths

How to Write an Essay Like a Pro

Well, I’ll walk you through the whole process. Remember, each essay has its purpose, but they have a standard structure.

1. Decide on your Essay Topic

What do you intend to write? How well do you understand your topic? Can you write without getting stuck? Therefore, choose an item that you can quickly and comfortably handle.

2. Write Down your Thesis

Communicate to your readers what you intend to put forward, your points, and what you plan to argue about in your essay.

3. Outline your Essay

Always ensure you have an outline of your ideas. Put everything on paper, even if it means having diagrams to help you write efficiently, then do so. An overview of your work will help you remember everything when you get down to writing.

4. Have your Essay Structure

As mentioned earlier, essays have a standard structure, but it is crucial to put your structure down to make it easier to follow while writing. Usually, the structure of your essay should entail the following:

• An introduction, which makes your readers more encouraged and interested in reading your essay.
• The body of an essay; the shape of your piece should have main points and sub-points. This helps your readers follow a specific flow while reading your essay.
• Essay conclusion; always keep your readers glued to your essay by summing up all the points in your end. Give your essay a perfect closure.

What to do when Struggling to Write an Essay

Having known all the above information, and you still find yourself struggling? Here is what you should do:

• Always read and read a lot. You won’t improve unless you are reading what others have written. Don’t forget; the best writers are good readers.
• Share your work with other writers who have gone through the same. They will be able to correct your work and also offer encouragement.
• Practice a lot. You have heard people say practice makes perfect, and yes, this is the ideal time to apply that. Write as many essays as you can.

How to force yourself to write an essay

• Keep a tight timetable and schedule your writing time and ensure you stick to it. 
• Have a place set aside for writing. Establish your workstation or even an office where you can concentrate on your essay.
• Shut out the world from your working environment. If it means not having your phone around your place of work or even not having the internet, then so be it.
• Limit your movement during writing. In most cases, when you fear you are struggling writing essays, make sure that you remain seated and write.

Also Read : Are Essay Titles italicized: How to Italicize Words in essays

How do you Begin Writing an Essay?

Beginning an essay shouldn’t be a daunting task; you can always start by:

• Having a perfect introduction that captures readers’ attention. It builds the reader’s trust in your work, which translates into quality.
• That first paragraph that welcomes your reader is all you have to give a sneak preview of your essay.
• Draft a strong thesis statement. Communicate openly about what you are putting forward in your essay. Your thesis statement is your selling point and should convince your readers of what you are writing. 
• Never undermine the power of those catchy strong opening statements and sentences. These statements build the reader’s confidence in your work and you. Use these sentences as a hook that holds your readers to your work.
• Know about your topic of choice. How do you prove that you know about the topic? Support your work by quoting the points of reference and supporting your ideas.

Tips if you don’t know how to Write an Essay

• Decide on your essay topic. It’s a huddle that many faces when writing the essay, making an informed judgment on the item you are comfortable with, propels you quickly when you start writing.
• Have a proper understanding of your topic. Do proper research and try to know everything on the item you want to write on.
• Proper knowledge will enable you to have authority and enjoy your work.

Parts of an Essay and their Meaning

• Have an outline of your essay. As mentioned earlier, an essay follows a specific structure. Therefore, putting down the framework basing on the fabric will make your work easier. Put the following structure in mind:
• Have an introduction paragraph. Invite your readers with a persuasive introduction that will automatically keep them glued to your work.
• Have the body of your essay. Your essay body should have information on the topic, research about the problem, and also give statistics, if any.
• Have a conclusion on your subject. Like the introduction, the end provides a summary of your essay and must be given a perfect touch as the introduction.
• Write a thesis statement. Tell your readers why you are writing your essay. Stating your topic and proving your argument is what you include in your thesis. For instance, when writing an essay on animal testing thesis , you will need to take a stand on the ethics of animal testing.
• Get down to work and start writing. Remember to follow the outline structure that you have drafted.

Also Read : The 5 Best Essay Writing Services as per Reddit reviews

Where to get help Writing an Essay

But again, if you are struggling to write essays, then look for help. Some sites are resourceful when it comes to essay writing. Here at Grade Bees, we have proven essay writing services that will help you earn that grade if you cannot write your essays for one reason or another. Take advantage of the resources in such sites.

Order an Excellent Essay today!

Let us help you get that A in your next assignment. Place your order today, and you will enjoy the benefits.

With over 10 years in academia and academic assistance, Alicia Smart is the epitome of excellence in the writing industry. She is our managing editor and is in charge of the writing operations at Grade Bees.

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• Why is writing an essay so hard

Why is writing an essay so hard: strategies to make writing easier

Writing an essay might seem simple enough at first glance, yet many students find themselves struggling with it. Although its rules may seem straightforward - write succinctly and stay on topic - students still often encounter obstacles and seek assistance, even with just their thoughts and the ability to structure them. Why is writing an essay so hard? In this article, we delve into some of the challenges students encounter while writing essays and offer strategies for overcoming them.

Challenges when writing an essay

Few people manage to write an essay perfectly the first time. Challenges when writing an essay can be for various reasons. Typically, students do not know how to work with sources of information in order to write an essay competently and structured. Since the essay is not a small work, it is important to highlight the main thing from all the available information to present it in the best possible way. This strategy will help when you are having a hard time writing an essay.

In fact, students have experience writing essays. They write this type of work frequently, and they may encounter it when writing exams at a college or university. The more practice you have, the easier it is to write a high-quality essay.

Lack of preparation

Colleges and universities regularly assign essays throughout the academic year, with timely submission being obligatory. Yet, not every student excels in crafting these papers, and many lack the time needed for the task. Instead of struggling to write an essay, some opt for extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, or leisure with friends. Insufficient preparation compounds the issue, as students may have difficulty writing essays due to limited research, brainstorming, and drafting efforts, leaving them feeling overwhelmed by essay assignments.

Fear of taking the first step: struggling to write

Students often doubt whether they should take the first step when writing an essay. They may often think about additional help. This is all due to a lack of experience and confidence in the quality of their work. Despite this, students should try to practice their writing skills, thereby learning on how to avoid mistakes when writing essays. Struggling to write an essay, students can submit their assignments to qualified specialists.

Procrastination and struggling to write an essay

Postponing everything until the last moment before starting an important task, doing unimportant things, being lazy, and being dissatisfied with one's productivity. These are symptoms that often occur in students. What does it testify about? Procrastination is the word that can be used to combine these symptoms. And this problem frequently worries those who wonder: "Why is writing an essay so hard?" What to do? In short, work on yourself and find a balance between "pleasant," "useful," and "necessary." Students should be happy to deal with all the tasks they receive from their educators. Persistence and desire to learn will help dispel doubts about writing quality essays on any topic. No procrastination, only efficiency! Struggling to write will balance gradually as soon as the motivation for writing appears among students.

Fear of criticism when writing an essay

Many students are afraid to make mistakes, which is typical for them. They are often concerned about avoiding these mistakes when struggling to write. In fact, they shouldn't be afraid of criticism from teachers and peers. Preliminary preparation and detailed study of the topic and material are necessary to write an excellent essay. So, don’t be afraid to send your work to the mentors to get final results. The more you revise the task before submitting it, the better results are expected without being criticized. You will see that your answer to the question: "Why is it so hard for me to write an essay?" will simply lose its meaning. Stop worrying and being afraid of criticism and condemnation!

Smart tips for writing an essay

Students often think: “Why is it so hard to write an essay?”. Embarking on an essay-writing journey can be daunting, but with the right strategies, you can navigate it with confidence and finesse. Below, we present a collection of tips for writing an essay tailored to enhance your essay-writing skills and elevate your academic output.

Divide essay tasks into stages

Break the task down into several stages. It will simplify the process when struggling to write an essay:

• Choose a topic you like . The crucial first step in the essay-writing process is to select a topic that resonates with you. When facing challenges when writing an essay, choosing a subject that interests you will motivate you to research and write about it. Consider your passions, interests, and areas of expertise when narrowing down potential topics.
• Research . Do research not only to explain but also to support your main point.
• Introduction : An intro that grabs the reader and draws him into the paper. A well-formulated thesis statement will present the main idea and related points discussed in the body paragraphs.
• Body : Well-written body paragraphs that continue to support the main idea, with each paragraph presenting and explaining new supporting evidence.
• Conclusion : A conclusion that comes full circle confirms the main point and leaves the reader with more to think about.

Utilize additional help when writing an essay

Don't hesitate to get extra help if you have a question: “Why is it so hard to write an essay?” There are several working options that will serve as effective help in writing a quality essay:

• Find a tutor . Tutoring is a great option because a tutor will give you full attention and review your writing, especially if you're experiencing difficulty writing essays. A tutor who knows your strengths and weaknesses will help you improve your writing skills.
• Work with a friend or group . Essay writing is difficult, so you probably know someone who is also trying to get better at essay writing. It might be helpful to get together and encourage each other to write. You can also help edit each other's posts and provide feedback. When you work with a friend or group of friends, it's easier to focus and feel motivated to write.
• Writing center on campus . Most colleges and universities have a free writing center on campus for students. These writing centers are staffed by faculty and graduate students who can help students struggling to write essays for their classes.
• Writing services . Access professional assistance from essay writing services such as writepaperfor.me to fulfill your academic requirements. These services employ skilled writers who can provide customized assistance tailored to your specific assignment guidelines. Whether you need help brainstorming ideas, organizing your thoughts, or refining your writing, such services can help you achieve your academic goals effectively and efficiently. Read essay writing services reviews to choose the most reliable service to help you with your academic assignments.

Make priorities in writing essays

Organization is an integral part of any process, including essay writing. It allows learners to structure and organize the material to achieve their goals and prioritize tasks successfully. This is especially important in the educational process because the potential of future specialists depends on it. Students must be able to prioritize those tasks that are of paramount importance.

Mandatory break in writing a structured essay

Don't write the entire text in one breath. It's better to take several approaches to writing an essay of high quality and correctness. Take breaks as often as possible, at least every half hour. It is necessary to allow the brain to restore its energy reserves to make the learning process more effective. This will refresh your mind and give free rein to new thoughts. It's better to write a text with a fresh head than to be surprised: "Why are essays so hard?"

Make an essay completely revised

At the final stage, you should carefully check and re-read the entire text. Editing is important to understand how an essay is written correctly. Essay editing and revision are good forms of quality control: they can correct spelling or formatting mistakes and ensure that evidence and arguments are reasonable and logical. In addition, when editing an essay, it is very important to check the logic of the structure of the work. Pay attention to essay editing if you want to produce excellent writing assignments.

Every student has encountered essay writing as something challenging. There are good reasons why students are increasingly asking the question: “Why is writing essays so hard?” To avoid mistakes in writing and produce high-quality work, listen to the sensible advice mentioned above. By avoiding these mistakes and paying attention to the quality of writing, you can create an essay that is clear, persuasive, and effectively expresses your ideas and arguments.

Students often struggle with essay writing due to various factors such as lack of organization, difficulty in generating ideas, poor time management, and fear of criticism or failure.

To overcome the challenges of essay writing, students can employ several effective strategies. These include breaking down the writing process into manageable steps, brainstorming and outlining ideas before writing, seeking feedback from peers or instructors, managing time effectively by setting deadlines and sticking to them, and practicing regularly to improve writing skills.

By following strategies like breaking tasks into smaller parts, brainstorming, seeking feedback, managing time, and practicing regularly, students can simplify the essay-writing process, making it less daunting and more manageable.

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Why Students Struggle With Essay Writing

Published by Alaxendra Bets at August 19th, 2021 , Revised On August 23, 2023

Writing comes naturally for some of us. Students with good essay writing skills have words flow into  sentences , sentences,  paragraphs , and paragraphs into an essay  or  dissertation . However, for many students, writing is tedious work they want to avoid.

If you are struggling with  essay  or  dissertation writing , rest assured you are not the only student facing this problem. But it’s important to understand the reasons for your essay, coursework, exams, or dissertation writing failures to put your academic life back on track.

Here, we discuss and attempt to figure out the causes as to why are so many students struggling with essay writing.

In the unfortunate event that you have already failed coursework, dissertation, essay, or exam, we have compiled comprehensive guidelines  on what you could do to improve your situation.

Reasons Why Students Struggle with Essay Writing

Before we shed light on the obscure causes of students finding it hard to deal with essay and  coursework writing , let us look into the more apparent causes. Research studies have confirmed that writing and reading are reciprocal processes. Apart from providing professional writing guidelines to students, we also provide professional writing services , i.e. essay services , coursework writing services and dissertation writing services .

If you read regularly enough, your writing will improve by leaps and bounds. Likewise, your writing improves your reading significantly. Many students apprehend the importance of this relationship as they read complicated transcripts and texts to improve their writing abilities.

But not all students can comprehend this relationship between reading and writing, and eventually, writing becomes a continuous struggle for them. Debbie Lee, in her article published on Educator Community (2017), states that;

“To write, we use many parts of our brain at the same time as well as the kinesthetic process of writing. For many students, especially those with language or fine motor skill delays, the task of writing is challenging.”

Poor Mechanical & Content Skills

In the same article, Debbie argued that students with poor processing and poor content and mechanical skills often struggle with essay writing. The most notable processing skills that many students would often lack include fluent development of ideas, language formulation and ideation, and active working memory.

Content and mechanical skills that are essential for any student to be good at writing are as follows;

• Expressing ideas
• Organising ideas
• Punctuation
• Capitalisation
• Basic Spelling & Vocabulary
• Automatic Letter Formation
• Clarity of Expression
• Use of appropriate grammar in essay
• Different styles of essay writing
• Flexibility in the writing process
• Understanding the viewpoint from the text in books
• Lack of enthusiasm and passion

Want to know what essay structure and style will work best for your assignment?

Problem fixed! We can write any type of essay in any referencing style. We ensure every essay written is beyond your expectations.

When you consider all of the above underlying skills that students should master to become proficient writers, you can understand how frustrating it can be. Perhaps, it also explains why most students prefer not to write their papers and  get experienced writers to write .

No Right Answers When You Are Inexperienced

Unable to find what the right answer to a particular  problem question is? Many students end up scratching their heads around the basic question they must answer as part of their essay  or  dissertation  assignment.

While every other skill student learns the right way to do it, it can be hard to figure out the correct way to write an essay  because most of us approach writing naturally and emotionally.

But let it be clearly stated here that the right or correct way of writing an essay does exist if your supervisor or tutor is not teaching the  essay writing structures for different types of essays , dissertations, and research papers, you are not getting the help you deserve, and the confidence needed to jump into an assignment writing task.

To produce a high-quality essay paper, you need to learn to be good at brainstorming, writing the essay outline, and developing the rough draft and the final copy because that is how you will improve your writing skills.

ResearchProspect provides the tools, and they help students need to have their essays written to the highest possible academic standard.

Fear of Failure

Have so many questions in mind before writing even a word of your assignment? What is the  question I need to address ? What is the objective of this assignment? Which academic sources should I use as reference material? What should be the structure of the essay ? What abilities and skills will I be graded on? What writing style must I follow?

These questions and many more could swarm around in your mind. Don’t worry, Don’t Panic. Don’t Be Overwhelmed! It’s normal to have so many questions. It’s completely normal to fear failure, especially if you haven’t had much writing experience in your previous academic years.

If you haven’t been taught about the writing and structuring processes (yes, a range of writing structures and styles exist), it can be pretty hard to get going. The fear of failure will stay with students if they do not provide help on creative writing rules and the  different types of essay writing structures .

For example, this is an article on how you structure a dissertation paper.

Also read: Sociology Essay Writing Service .

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Helping Students Who Struggle with Essay Writing

The world we are living in is changing rapidly. With texts, tweets, posts, snaps, and Insta around us, it’s no wonder students don’t want to get in struggle with writing. This is particularly frustrating for teachers and students alike, as students scrap to express their thoughts and views clearly in the traditional fashion their schools expect them to.

But the world of academia has remained pretty much unchanged over centuries, with universities expecting students to become good researchers and capable writers . We will never replace essays , assignments, research , dissertation , and analysis with tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook stories in universities.

Your teachers will not be delighted with you if you eagerly indulge in social media postings but struggle with basic essay writing tasks. A study conducted by ResearchProspect concluded that as many as 3 of every 5 students lack proficiency in writing – a number that cannot be ignored.

Our Essay Writers

ResearchProspect writers  know the writing rules and are proficient in all types of writing structures and styles.

Our essay writers understand that essays aren’t going anywhere, and so they have mastered the art of presenting their expression, arguments, and analysis through their writing. They love sentence diagrams and grammar drills because it is their job to do so.

Contact us via telecom, email, or mail to discuss anything regarding your essay. Our staff is always there to help!

Have a last-minute essay to finish? Don’t panic! Please fill out  our online order form  and get your essay paper delivered to your email address promptly. Any subject, any deadline, any complexity – we promise 100% plagiarism free and 100% confidential service.

The essay writing tips in this blog post aim to help readers establish why they struggle to write a first-class essay or dissertation paper that meets academic expectations. The post directly aims to help students experiencing writing difficulties in achieving the grade they desire despite their writing limitations.

View some  essay writing samples  here!

Learn  how to write an essay with a bang!

Helping Students Succeed Since 2011!

ResearchProspect is the UK registered essay writing website helping students across the globe since 2011. Our writers hold master’s to Ph.D. degrees from reputed educational institutes. No matter how urgent or complex your requirements are, our services have helped thousands of students over the years at a time when they needed them the most. So stop struggling with essay writing and get essay writing help from our professional essay writers . View our essay services here  or view our  full range of services here.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many students struggle with essay writing.

Many students face challenges with essay writing due to various factors such as lack of effective strategies, time management issues, language barriers, and unfamiliarity with academic conventions. Support and guidance can help mitigate these struggles.

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‘Education has definitely been impacted’: Hoax bomb threats plague Nebo school after ‘furry’ outrage

The threats started april 19, two days after video of mt. nebo middle schoolers protesting “furries” began spreading in conservative social media circles..

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Nebo School District spokesperson Seth Sorensen speaks during a news conference at the Payson Police Department to address recent hoax bomb threats targeting Mt. Nebo Middle School in Payson on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.

In the two weeks since video of a student-led “furry” protest at Mt. Nebo Middle School spread in conservative social media circles , the school has received multiple hoax bomb threats that officials believe are tied to viral “furry outrage” stoked by the posts.

“Students’ education has definitely been impacted,” said Nebo School District spokesperson Seth Sorenson during a joint news conference Wednesday with Payson police. “However, we’re committed as a district to maintain a stable situation for all of our students.”

That’s why district officials announced Wednesday that they intend to keep the school open for the remainder of the academic year, despite the significant learning disruptions.

The bogus threats started April 19, two days after video depicting Mt. Nebo middle schoolers walking out of school began to circulate on far-right social media, with posts claiming the students were protesting because the district was allowing student “furries” to “terrorize” other students.

“Students claim that the furries bite them, bark at them, and pounce on them without repercussion,” one post read from Libs of TikTok , an account on X that shares anti-LGBTQ posts and other clips geared at generating right-wing outrage. “However, if they defend themselves in any way, they get in trouble.”

Sorenson asserted those claims were false, explaining that the student protest seemed to be organized after a message the school sent to families was misinterpreted. Sorenson has also said students at the middle school are not wearing full-body animal costumes to class, as “furries” — part of a subculture of people who sometimes dress up like animal characters but act like humans — are known to do.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mt. Nebo Middle School in Payson on Thursday, April 18, 2024.

Two other subsequent hoax threats came to the school on April 23 and April 30, police said Wednesday. The Payson Police Department canvased the school with bomb detection dogs but found no devices or other materials.

After the April 30 threat was cleared, school officials allowed families to pick up their children early from Mt. Nebo. About 70% of students were picked up early that day, Sorenson said.

Payson police alongside federal law enforcement continue to investigate the hoax threats but have not yet identified who may be behind them.

“If we identify suspects, they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Payson police Sgt. Scott Hall said Wednesday.

That could include charging perpetrators with a second-degree felony after HB14 passed during this year’s legislative session, making falsely reporting an emergency at school a felony. If the perpetrator is found to be a public school student, the law mandates that they be suspended or expelled.

The district in the meantime has employed additional counseling resources for students who may be experiencing increased anxiety due to the threats, Sorenson said. More adult supervisors are also patrolling the school’s hallways, and extra police will remain on campus for the rest of the school year.

“Student safety is our top priority,” Sorenson said. “We want students to be safe and secure. And we want parents to feel confident sending their students to our schools, knowing that they’re going to be safe and protected.”

What led to the ‘furry’ protest, outrage

The message that Sorenson believes led to the April 17 student protest came after a group of students had been targeting another group of students at the school, saying things “that were overheard by others that the administration felt were inappropriate and shouldn’t be said,” Sorenson has said.

The group of students being targeted, he said, sometimes come to school wearing headbands “that may have ears on them.” He said he doesn’t think the targeted students necessarily refer to themselves as “furries.”

In one specific instance, the targeted students “were sitting in a corner of the lunchroom, eating as a group of friends” when others began calling them names and throwing food at them “because they were dressed differently,” Sorenson told The Salt Lake Tribune.

After word of the altercation spread, the initial message sent to families stated, “We expect ALL students to be respectful towards each other while we are here at school.”

“We hope you will treat others how you would like to be treated,” the message stated. “Outstanding behavior might demonstrate curiosity, understanding, patience and tolerance.”

The message also reiterated the school’s dress code policy as well as the school’s policy against written, verbal, or physical acts that stand to threaten, humiliate or abuse others.

But Sorenson said he thinks some parents misinterpreted the note, incorrectly taking it as a message that the school was “taking the side of a single group, saying, ‘We want you to be kind to this group, but they don’t have to be kind to anyone else.’”

“Nobody was taking the side of one group or another,” he said. “What we were saying is everyone needs to treat everyone else with respect.”

A few days later, the school sent another message to parents, trying to clarify its original note.

“We have had several parents reach out to us over the past few days, regarding rumors that are being spread about behaviors of a small group of students at our school,” the message read. “We hoped our efforts to clarify misconceptions would be sufficient, but it seems we still have some misunderstandings.”

The note concluded with an acknowledgement of rumored plans of the April 17 walkout protest.

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