What's Your Thinking Style? AUDITORY!

For those of you who think in sounds or words the problems you will face are vastly different from writers who are visual.

Now there are pros and cons to being an auditory thinker. Classically, most writers ARE auditory, but there are many successful writers who are also visual. Why is this so? Well, it goes something like this:

Auditory thinkers often have a "voice" talking in the back of their heads. By simply "tuning" in to this voice, writers who are auditory thinkers can splurge copious amounts of text. When they're in the groove there's no stopping them.

And therein lies the problem for most splurgers. They hate going back. They don't like editing or rewriting. They get bored and don't see - or hear - anything wrong with what they've written.

So these are some tips for those writers who are auditory:

1. Leave anything you've written to go fallow
2. When you go back read your work ALOUD - this somehow objectifies what you have written. You can often HEAR errors that you cannot with the eye alone.

Another issue that auditory writers have is one of structure. Auditory writers can produce great quantities of text and once "out" they often believe, incorrectly, that it's perfect. How can you overcome this?

1. Understand structure - think of it as the rising tempo of beats as you reach the climax/cliffhanger. The tension should be rising and the peak should be just before the end.
2. If you start with a bang then more bangs should follow!
3. Wait a few days or weeks and then go back and re-read what you've written and do it ALOUD! You'll be amazed by what you hear.
4. Find a good reader who gives great feedback - these people are the rarest people on earth! And listen to what they say, although whether you make changes must always be your choice!
5. Read about the art of writing fiction.
6. Keep writing
7. Keep rewriting

ZHZ. 

What's Your Thinking Style? VISUAL!

Writers who are visual often claim they have "writer's block". The reason is quite simple:

Visual people have hot and intense visual narratives running through their mind's eye: the moment they put a pen in their hand and touch nib to paper or fingers to keyboard keys their imagination flags. 

How is it possible to take a picture made up of a thousand words and start it with one word?

Actually, it's quite easy. You storyboard. That doesn't necessarily mean you draw something!

Take a story that you're writing, don't tell me what it is, I want you to go and play the story in your mind from beginning to end...

Go on, go and do it.

...

...

Have you done it yet?

...

Now go and do it again and I want you to count each "scene" that you have. If the story starts with a scene of a soldier returning home after the Iraq War call it the "Coming Home" Scene and that's No 1.

Go on...do it...

...
...

How many scenes do you have in total? One? A hundred?

The next step is simple.

For each scene, get a separate piece of paper (recycled of course!) and put the name of the scene and its number at the top.

Go on - do it!

...
...

Now that you have a series of scenes in order I want you take the next big step...ask questions...

Say we jump back to the first scene in "Coming Home" which is No 1.

• What is the character wearing?
• What colour are his eyes?
• What is he/she wearing?
• What expression is on his face?
• How is he/she walking?
• What colour is the door?

Get the drift?

You see, visual people arleady SEE the story. Once you start to ask questions, the scene becomes CLEARER and CLEARER.

Now go and ask all the questions for the first scene...
...
...

Done it?

Then do the next...

And the next...

What you are compiling is all the TEXT that you will need to tell your story.

...

Once you have done this, I can guarantee you that if I were to ask you to tell me the story it would simply ripple off your tongue. Now, isn't that magic!

ZHZ. 

What's Your Thinking Style?

Often, when teaching creative writing, this is the first question I ask.

Why is it so important?

I think that your thinking style sets out how you will write, the difficulties you will face, and knowing what style you think in will enhance your writing.

But what do I mean, by thinking style? Well, let me ask you another question!

• Do you think in pictures?
• Do you have a voice in the back of your head?
• Do you see pictures AND hear sounds?
• Do you simply feel things?
  

• People who are pure visual thinkers will often freeze the moment the nib of the pen touches the paper.
• Auditory thinkers will often write too much.
• People who think in many styles will, depending on what mood they're in, write better or worse...
• Kinaesthetic thinkers won't write unless they "feel" like it!
• 
  

So what difference does this possibly make? Why it makes all the difference in the world.

It will dictate whether or not you're geared for:

• Poetry
• Plays
• Short-stories
• Comic Books
• Screenplays
• Novels

Which do you think favours visual thinking?
Which favours auditory thinking?

You don't need to be a genius to work this out.

And if you were a little confused, why are screenplays so different from theatre plays? Why, it's because they're more visual.

OK, you say, I know what style I have, but how can I improve my writing?

Good question! Now you're thinking!

ZHZ. 

The End in Mind

This is the one thing that if you do it, it makes all the difference in attaining your goals:

Visualise the end.

See it

Hear it

Feel it

Writing goals and aims down is brilliant, but also inscribe them, etch them into your mind and go over them again and again, daily, weekly, but visualise them, in fact I would suggest you:

Draw them

Paint them

The more vividly you see, hear and feel your goal, the more tangible, the more likely you are to achieve it, so go and dream and make them real.

ZHZ. 

What Do All Writers Have in Common?

There's one thing, one thing alone all writers have in common.

It comes before a writer becomes...a writer. And it follows ever after.


It is a sort of being.


And in this being and fulfillment and song and motion the parameters are set for all the things that a writer will become later on.


Before a writer becomes a writer, they are first a

reader.


So read and read and read

And then perhaps you can write and write and write.

ZHZ.