I have seen at least two distinctive types of writers. The two groups work as if they come from different writing planets. Members of one group (I’ll call them Head Cases) work to get everything right in their heads before they move their hands across the keyboard. Members of the other group (I’ll call them Chiptons, after my friend Chip Scanlan) write quickly as a way of thinking, depending upon multiple drafts to perfect the work. The Head Cases rarely revise. If those two represent the ends of a spectrum, I’d place myself near the middle. I need a bit of planning and a sense of my focus, but I can write a quick imperfect draft that I’ll improve with rewriting — if I have the time.
When I read about writers, I look for players from both camps, and recently found one in the person of Hannah Arendt, one of the most important thinkers and writers of the last century on matters of politics and tyranny. Her testimony comes from an anthology of her work titled “Essays in Understanding.”
Question: Do you write easily? Do you formulate ideas easily?
Arendt: Sometimes I do; sometimes I don’t. But in general I can tell you that I never write until I can, so to speak, take dictation from myself.
Question: Until you have already thought it out.
Arendt: Yes. I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.
That interview took place in 1964, but it illuminates for me the circumstances of those Head Cases. They rehearse so hard that they write their stories in their heads, which is why, for them, to write is to “take dictation from myself.”
My friend David Finkel of The Washington Post offers a slight variation. He does not create a full draft to then revise. But he can only work on one paragraph at a time. He writes and revises paragraph one until he gets it the way he wants it, then goes on to paragraph two, and so on.
It might be useful for you to see yourself in this context. Do you speed-draft and then revise like Chip Scanlan? Do you work on one paragraph at a time like David Finkel? Do you think and think and then take dictation from yourself like Hannah Arendt? Let’s hear some testimony from the choir. What kind of writer are you?
