I work with many students that are learning how to write. So I get to see a lot of them making the same mistakes. When I ask them why they are pursuing an academic career, or why they are working on a paper, they often tell me something like: “because I want to make a contribution to science.”
Now, that’s a beautiful feeling. I sympathize with that. But it has nothing to do with writing. A reader doesn’t read you because you want to make a contribution, but because you have something to say.
The great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald said it best:
“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
That’s where I see a lot of students struggling. They come to work wanting to say something, but they have not worked on the story until they sit in front of the keyboard. Soon, writer block kicks in. They do not understanding that typing is not where ideation begins. It is something you need to prepare for by first growing an idea to the point you can no longer fit it in your head.
As an advisor it is easy to see the symptoms. Pointless drafts are circular and non-assertive. The student is trying to fill up pages without knowing what point they are trying to make with the hope that if they keep on going they will figure it out. But the reader already abandoned them in the first paragraph. After all, it is the job of a writer to know where a story ends. This “Chekhov’s gun principle,” the idea that if a gun is shown in the first act, it must be fired in the third.
Chekhov’s gun is fundamental because it provides a method to question every sentence in your text: how does that sentence contribute to your final goal? If it doesn’t, it must go. Pointless writing can be dismembered easily using this single technique. Use Chekhov’s gun to interrogate every sentence. Of course, all writers like to sometimes indulge in a poetic detour. But do that to often and you will lose your reader. There is a reason why there is another principle called “kill your darlings.” Cutting out a bad and pointless sentence is easy. Cutting out a beautiful but pointless sentences separates the kids from the adults.
Of course, some writing—and a lot of rewriting—takes place at the keyboard. But the point is that writing is something that we must do first inside our heads: when cycling to work, walking with your partner, or cooling off after a heated argument. At some point you will need to sit down and transcribe those ideas. But the chances that the idea will hit you the moment you sit in front of a keyboard is naive. Having ideas and writing them down are two difficult activities. Trying to do them at the same time is an overkill.
So if you are a student reading this, and you are struggling to write, I have two pieces of advice. First, don’t be discouraged. Wanting to say something may not be a lot, but can give you the perseverance needed to keep on going until you have something to say. And second, ask yourself the “Fitzgerald question:” what am I trying to say? Your answer cannot be yes or no. It has to be a summary of the point you are trying to make. And when you finally start having an answer, work on it. Keep on trying to articulate it when you walk alone, when you drink with friends, and when you find that contrarian asshole that really pushes hard against anything you say. Because maybe, at the end of all of that practice, you will be able to sit down in front of a keyboard and write a good first draft.