How I Learned to Write My First Few College Papers — The Shitty First Drafts Approach
A trick for getting started on that blank page
Writing is never easy. Many people struggle with not even knowing where to begin. I know I faced the problem of staring at essay prompts on my computer screen and not knowing where or how to start writing. So, I ended up registering for a writing class in my first semester of college.
“Bird by Bird” is a book by author Anne Lamott, and a recommended book in my first year of college. My professor had picked a chapter titled “Shitty First Drafts” from the book, and she had used it to teach us how to get started on writing any paper.
Getting started on your paper
You see, the biggest challenge, to writing papers for me in college was getting started. Many of us tend to want to perfect the papers in our heads before putting anything down in writing.
This creates the problem of not knowing how to start. Personally, this was something that I struggled with. Even up till now, I often spend hours if not days, thinking about a topic or a short story and trying to make sense of the beginning, the middle, and the end, before putting pen to paper. I literally try to do my writing in my head.
Well, according to the Shitty First Draft approach, you just start writing! It doesn’t matter if you’re typing the middle idea or the last, just put it on paper.
My professor’s technique for teaching this Shitty First Draft approach was simple: we would pick random topics like snow, food, the weather, or a sport, and we would write a page on it starting with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. This felt quite easy.
As we progressed through the semester, those one-page essays turned into two pages. We would then exchange papers with our peers and review each other’s work.
So how do you start writing a paper? Basically, just type chunks of ideas and paragraphs that relate to your entire paper, and group similar ideas together. You can ignore the order or coherence for now. Note that at this point, an outline may not be necessary, but it helps to have one so as not to wander away from your main points.
Don’t be afraid to move things around
Once you’ve started and typed all of your ideas into chunky paragraphs, the next step is organizing.
Merge similar paragraphs into one, and make them shorter and concise. You may find that you have repeated yourself or that some sentences are redundant. Clean those up a little if you can, but focus more on grouping similar ideas together.
Next, create an outline of your paper based on the ideas you’ve typed out and your plans for your paper. Then begin to arrange your paragraphs and ideas according to how you would like your papers to flow.
Add your transitions at the beginning of each new body paragraphs to blend their flow.
Finish strong
Lastly, move things around for drama and effect. Focus on the flow and the effects you want to have on your audience.
If you started with your strongest ideas in your first few paragraphs, your second paragraph might actually be more suited as your last, especially if you want to finish strong and make your audience feel a sense of climax.
By the end of the semester, we were writing five to eight pages with a sources page at the end. Over time, this approach to writing stopped feeling like work, it felt natural.
While you may not be in academia, I’m hoping anybody with writer’s block or a similar hindrance to writing, may adopt this approach as a way to get started as a writer.
