Prewritting Method: Looping

Hello, Neophyte! I haven’t decided what to do with you yet. For now, let’s dive into prewriting methods, shall we?

Looping. No, I’m not referring to a new fad workout method or a funky substance designed to make you see an infinite symbol twirling in the sky. Here, it’s as much an exercise as a method. What does it consist of? It’s simple. Let’s say you’re out of ideas, but you either have to write or need to write for whatever reason – the dreaded writer’s block, in this case. Or perhaps you need to get the creative engine roaring again. This is where this exercise comes in. It involves writing down something and then working it over, looping over something simple until you have built something greater. It works with just about everything, from something as basic as an idea to a chapter.

I would argue that it would work with a book, but for a book or a novel, you need to work over the component parts. If you treat it as a single unit as you work, then you are never going to reach the finish line.

Need a practical example? Well, Neophyte, let’s build something very simple, from the top of my head. Let’s go with the idea that I want to write something, but I have no idea where to begin.

“John is walking down the road.” Simple enough. Now, let’s loop over that one simple sentence.

“Coming from the family meeting, John is walking down the road.”

“Coming from the family meeting, John is walking down the road, eyes red, crimson; he is angry.”

“Coming from the family meeting, John is walking down the road, eyes red, crimson; he is angry. Leaving his uncle’s house behind, he is stomping on the ground, so furious that he is oblivious to his surroundings.”

“Coming from the family meeting, John is walking down the road, eyes red, crimson; he is angry. Leaving his uncle’s house behind, he is stomping on the ground, so furious that he is oblivious to his surroundings. Eventually, he reaches a crossroads and tries to cross the street, only to get run over by a car.”

No, Neophyte, I didn’t think this one before going in. As a true looping exercise, I wrote it from the top of my head, and there is the power of that tool for any writer. As I have established, the white page, the blank space is the most terrifying thing in the craft. Nothing compares, and it is always easier to write from some limitation than from absolute freedom. Why? Well, Neophyte, because limitations force our creative engine to work far more smartly than in any other situation. But more importantly, they give us something from where to begin.

Out of the blue and with no particular intention, I turned a simple action taken by a faceless person into a one-paragraph story that I can use to build from. The question is, where do I take it from there? What are the consequences of the accident? How do the people in the car play into all of this? Does the family meeting involve an overarching conflict?

I hope it becomes clear just how useful this can be, especially when you apply it to things you are working on formally. It allows you to make something grow and expand almost naturally.

Also, let’s not kid ourselves, Neophyte; we do this almost naturally. Every time we write something only to delete it and start over, we are naturally doing this. All writing is rewriting, and looping is essentially that with a funky name and an explanation of what it is.

Like most tools, it can be applied to any part of the process. Themes? How things relate? Working on ideas? You can use it, no problem.

This also has the advantage of giving you a neat workflow to your writing. Why? Because looking at the word count of an average-length book is daunting, and we, as a whole, have the neat tendency of treating things as a whole instead of watching and understanding their component parts. Meaning? You are not going to write 40 thousand words in a single afternoon without a hefty amount of “help” either of the chemical variety or of desperation and adrenaline. Worse still, if you manage to write those 40 thousand words, the chances of them being “good” are low. So instead of suffering anxiety by looking at a gigantic thing, you have to look at it from the point of view of its component parts.

Looping allows you to do this, to build something block by block in an understandable way, to add and subtract as you go without the burden of the whole and the anxiety that brings to the table.

That should be all. Until next time!