19 January 2012
Image by Abode of Chaos
In a recent newsletter from Publication Coach, Daphne Grey-Grant, she wrote about a play she’d seen during a trip to Chicago.
The play, Red, is about the 20th century American artist, Mark Rothko. In one line, the Rothko character states that only 10% of painting involves applying paint to canvas; the remaining 90% involves thinking about the work.
Daphne immediately saw the relevance of that statement to writing. I was intrigued by her reference, because THINK is the first stage of the TASTE writing process I train in all my writing courses.
Is 90% accurate?
It made me wonder if the 90% figure might be more accurate than I had previously thought. We’ve got 5 stages in the TASTE process (20% each??). Of course, the SKETCH (draft) stage (equivalent to applying paint to a canvas) is the shortest in terms of time – certainly less than 20% of the total.
On further thinking, I realized that the other four stages (THINK, ARRANGE, TRIM and EDIT) all involve thinking about what we will write or what we’ve written.
So yes, 90% thinking time probably is an accurate figure.
Is 90% required?
The trick is – do we spend 90% of our total writing time actually thinking? Or do we fall into the trap of dashing off lines and sending them to our readers – effectively reversing the time spent, 90% writing and (maybe) 10% thinking?
Perhaps you know the answer to that from having read poorly written documents at work. Or from the many, many things you must write every day – emails and reports and proposals and letters that command your immediate attention (and all too often keep you working late every day).
You may be saying, ‘But I don’t have time to think before I write!’
An earnest thinker I know
A person close to me is a man of few words. You ask him something, and you can almost see the wheels spinning in his head. He always thinks before he speaks. If I didn’t know him well, the delayed response would probably drive me crazy. But the response is worth the wait.
Other people I know respond immediately, spewing words with little or no thinking involved. Just sheer reaction. Talking to hear one’s head rattle.
Which do I prefer? Which do you prefer?
The 90% time saver
Taking time to consider what you write is ultimately a time saver.
You’ve considered what a specific reader needs and expects. You’ve considered the best way to structure a text – one that achieves a specific purpose and contains relevant details. You’ve thought through the specific action that the reader will need to take, and given them the information they need to facilitate that action. You’ve shown the courtesy of ensuring that your tone is appropriate and the text is clear of careless mistakes.
If you want to seriously develop the art of writing, start by increasing your thinking time. You may not achieve the fame of Mark Rothko, but your readers will be fans.