Why Writing is the Back-Bone for Storytelling

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

– Ernest Hemmingway –

Introduction:

Being able to write, and write well, is a super-power. But we all know this. There are not many people convinced that it isn’t a super-power. And those that don’t – well, they probably won’t be reading this post anytime soon, that’s for sure. 

Writing is the foundation for most storytelling media. It’s behind theatre, movies, books, video-games, podcasts, music, etc. It seems like a necessary skill that one must learn for these media. Writing is how we get ideas out of our head and into the real-world. It’s how we share our ideas to others in a tangible way. It’s how we visualize what we are creating and refine it. 

Even if you don’t see yourself being a writer, there are many reasons why you ought to consider doing it more often. Writing is a skill that will get you far in the world and will prove very rewarding on a personal level. So come along and learn why writing is so important in the storytelling sphere. 

Personal Benefits to Writing

Communication Skills; Writing helps drastically with this. Why? Because it trains our minds to communicate our ideas chronologically. When writing, we have to think about how a reader is going to interpret what we are writing. We must write assuming that the reader knows nothing about us. Our ideas and thoughts must be conveyed clearly. Our point gets muddled if we convey our idea out of order. In addition, the more you can convey in fewer words, the better. It means less jargon the reader has to sift through to understand your idea. This translates to every day conversations too. If we jump all over the place while speaking to explain our thoughts, people will be confused.

Critical Thinking; This one goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. If writing helps communicate chronologically, it strands to reason it helps think chronically too. As we think more chronically, we begin to think logically. Thus, critical thinking is born. That’s not to say you can’t think critically before you start writing, but writing certainly helps improve those skills. You can, in realtime, write down your thoughts about a matter and see what conclusion they lead to. If they make sense, you’ve succeeded. If they don’t, backtrack and see what isn’t adding up. 

Organizing Thoughts; As we are emotional creatures, critical thinking through writing can be a beneficial tool to have. Sometimes we can’t think clearly in the midst of our emotions, so writing helps formulate our thoughts and feelings into actual words. This will help you better understand them. When our head is a jumbled mess of feelings, slowing down and putting pen to paper can help organize them instead of letting them run rampant in our minds.

How Writing is applied in Storytelling Media

Every storytelling media that uses writing starts with a blank page. The idea may be in your head, but to put it to words is an exercise. Your ideas will be fleshed out here. I know all of my ideas start out as some vague concept, and writing provides clarity. Often time, writing helps formulate new ideas too. As you get into the groove of writing, it stimulates your imagination to come up with more ideas and soon, your blank page is not so blank anymore. This is true of all writing in storytelling. The blank page is the barrier to entry. 

Writing allows you to refine your ideas. Once you have something fleshed out, you can shape it and mold it. The initial ideas you had may not work out as well as you thought. And so, with the page in front of you, you revise the idea. You will often have to revise the writing multiple times before it produces an idea you are satisfied with. The only way to get to that point of satisfaction is to edit your ideas constantly and ruthlessly. Boil the idea down to its essence and ask what really matters. Then build from there. 

Once you have fleshed out and refined your idea through the writing process, you are ready to move on to whatever the next step of your media format is. But the page will always be there for reference. As other processes take over, sometimes you can forget where you started or what the original concepts were. You can go back to what you wrote and see how your progress has evolved. How ideas have evolved. And what you may need to change to make sure you are capturing the essence of the original idea. 

How to Implement Writing

Different medias require different forms of writing. Scripts for theatre and film tend to be more bare bones in their narrative; novels are much more illustrious, and songs are symbolic. Narrow down which media you are pursuing then practice the  type of writing specifically related to your storytelling media of choice. Read a lot of scripts or novels to get an idea of what the style should be like and what needs to be focused on. 

In fact, read a lot in general. Read books and blogs – keep your mind fresh with different author’s writing styles and techniques. Familiarize yourself with sentence structure and voices. Enhance your vocabulary. I don’t think you have to read things specifically related to your media, so much as just read in general. Sometimes, reading things completely unrelated to your format or genre can be beneficial because it allows you to think outside the box. It may also give you ideas you did not think would be applicable to your format. 

And of course, write, write, write! The way to get stronger and faster is to exercise. Exercise your writing skills. Write things no one will ever see. And definitely make sure to write things that other people will see. Consistently set yourself in a situation free of distractions and focus on writing for an allotted amount of time. Write as much as you possibly can during that period. Most writers find themselves needing to “warm up” before they get into the flow of writing, so the longer time you can set aside for it, the more progress you will make. 

Conclusion

Because writing proves to be the backbone of most storytelling media, it’s important you get proficient at it. The good news is that there are multiple styles of writing; however, you need to learn to write clearly and concisely. There needs to be logic. And once you think you are done writing your idea, you need to refine it to make it even clearer. The only way to get better at this is to practice and read.

The best way to start is to journal for a few minutes, daily. This will get you into the habit of writing and fleshing out vague thoughts. Then nail down what writing style you need to learn and work on that. Pick a book to read a little bit of every day. Write your idea or draft, read it over, revise it, and have someone read over it and provide feedback. And once you have produced something you feel is ready, move on to the next step!