Free-Writing 101 – What Is Is, The Advantages, And A Step-By-Step Process

I’ve mentioned free-writing in a few other articles, but I’m going to explore the subject in more detail here.

What Is Free-Writing?

It originated as a writing strategy that was developed by Peter Elbow back in 1973.

His intention was that it would be a form of brainstorming, but instead of just writing notes and bullet points, you’d write in complete sentences and paragraphs – but without stopping.

The “without stopping” part is crucial because it prevents you (in theory) from editing as you go, which slows down your writing and, more importantly, it jolts your mind out of creative mode and into review mode.

That means it’s more or less akin to the idea of “stream of consciousness” writing.

Or, as Callum Sharp put it, “Free writing is like getting into a car and just driving. There’s no destination to reach or goal to achieve, it’s all in the process, and process is everything.”

It seems as though that original intention has been somewhat muddied, because the term free-writing has come to be used more widely than that, as we’ll soon see.

What Are The Benefits Of Free-Writing?

These are some of the most common reasons that writers choose to free-write:

1. Writer’s Block. While there are those writers who claim this doesn’t exist, there are plenty more who experience what they say is writer’s block, and a quick burst of free-writing can help get those creative juices flowing. This may be because it frees the mind, or because it forces you to write something, but either way, a lot of authors swear by this technique.
2. Mental Stimulation. As I’ve mentioned in other articles, one of the keys to prevent, or at least slow down, the decline of cognitive functions (e.g. Alzheimer’s) is to keep your mind active – and free-writing is a great way to exercise your mind.
3. Inadvertent Censorship. When you are writing “normally”, your mind is editing as it goes, and you may end up leaving out something that you should have included, or you may replace a word for something “better” that later turns out not to be better at all. With free-writing, since the idea is that you simply write (or type) whatever comes into your mind, this on-the-fly editing is not a problem.
4. More Ideas. When you free-write, your mind is more open to new and unusual ideas, which you can capture. Later on, when you edit your work, you can decide whether to retain those ideas, refine them, or delete them.
5. Improves Writing Skills. Like with anything, the more you do something, the more at ease with it you become. With free-writing, you can push your boundaries further than you may otherwise do, developing your skills and maybe even finding new genres you’d like to work in.
6. Inspiration. Even though you don’t know what you’re going to write when you start, you can end up creating some pretty good material, which can easily be polished up later for publication. (I’ve done this with several pieces of my own random free-writing.)
7. Restores Creativity. Most children have remarkable imaginations, but this creativity is stifled as we grow older – the education system values conformity over individuality, and when we finally escape that stage of our lives, we end up (in most cases) in jobs where we have rules to follow. Even in our personal lives, there are societal norms that may constrain our creativity. But free-writing lets you see that the creativity you once had as a child is still there and accessible.
8. Therapy. I have an entire article about the benefits of journalling, which may or may not involve free-writing. However, some counsellors and therapists do get their clients to free-write as a way to help them deal with trauma. Being able to do what is effectively a brain-dump of how you feel about an experience is beneficial, especially in cases where people find it hard to talk about it openly.
9. Speed. By this, I don’t mean your typing speed (although that will probably improve the more you practise this), but the time it takes. For me, I do 750+ words of free-writing every day, and it has never taken me more than 15 minutes. That means it’s easy to slot into your day somewhere. I prefer to do mine late at night, if I’m not too tired, or first thing in the morning before I start my work.
10. Fun. Personally, my primary reason for free-writing is because I enjoy it and it’s fun! It’s a few minutes where I can write whatever I want, however crazy it might be (and some of what I’ve created is definitely on the bizarre side), and not worry about whether anybody else will read it or not. You could also use your free-writing session as a treat or reward for having accomplished some other task throughout the day.

So How Do You Free-Write?

There are a few decisions you need to make before you actually start:

1. Medium.
2. Duration.
3. Theme.

I’ll touch on each of those in the next few sections.

Free-Writing Medium

There are probably three different ways you could do your free-writing:

1. Typing (which is my preference).
2. Hand-writing (which is recommended by others).
3. Dictation (which I’ve never heard of anybody doing, but it’s an option nonetheless).

There are many benefits of hand-writing compared to typing, and I can see how writing by hand may be beneficial to some people when free-writing too.

However, for me, using a dip pen as a left-hander back in junior school made writing more like torture than something to enjoy – and I’ve never been able to let go of that feeling.

I also find writing way too slow, which I know is one of the reasons people prefer it in some cases, but not being able to record what’s on my mind fast enough disturbs my flow, and when I write too fast, it becomes so illegible that even I cannot read it later on.

And finally, you could in theory speak your free-writing directly into a Dictaphone, or software on your computer or phone.

This approach would allow you to go even faster, since most people talk at a much greater rate than even the best typists.

Of course, there is no right or wrong way to free-write, so it’s down to whatever you prefer, and, to a degree, your answer to the next question…

How Long Should You Free-Write For?

There are two main ways to choose from:

1. Time.
2. Word count.

Most people probably go with a time limit, and five minutes is a common target.

This is because they’re using free-writing to get themselves into “writing mode” in their head, so it’s more like an athlete doing a few warm-up exercises before an event.

You can, of course, write for as long as you want, but you probably shouldn’t overdo it – I would suggest 15 minutes is an upper limit, because after that, not only will you find it difficult to keep the words coming, but your hands and wrists may start to ache too.

Also, setting a time limit is easier for most people – you can use a kitchen timer, your watch, or an app on your phone, and you don’t need to think about it once you start.

Using a word count is less easy to do, since you need to be using software that counts the words for you while you type, but you may prefer this method if you want to create content of a specific length rather than worry about how long it takes you.

This is currently my preferred approach, although I have tried both.

What Should You Free-Write About?

This is the big one, and the one where I am going to spend the most time discussing the options.

Essentially, before you start your free-writing session, you need to choose what’s referred to as a writing prompt.

And you have plenty of choices, including:

1. Feelings. You can use emotions or feelings (e.g. anger, fear, grief, happiness, joy, loss, love, rage, sadness) as your inspiration.
2. Genre. Your seed might be a particular style of writing, or subject matter (e.g. action, fantasy, horror, humour, romance, thriller).
3. Location. This might be a country, a city, a specific place (e.g. a museum, coffee shop, park), or a room in your own house. And it doesn’t need to be real – your chosen location might be somewhere fictional (e.g. somewhere from a movie like Mos Eisley from Star Wars, or somewhere of your own creation, such as a planet you’ve made up).
4. Person. Again, this might be somebody you know (e.g. a specific relative, friend, work colleague), somebody you know of (e.g. a historical figure such as Napoleon or a modern-day celebrity such as Roger Federer), a fictional character (e.g. Sherlock Holmes), or a character you’ve made up yourself. Another option is to choose a generic type of person (e.g. parent, lover, enemy, boss), without having any one particular person in mind.
5. Pre-Written. A writing prompt that somebody else has provided. There are plenty of websites, books, and even software that come with some predetermined ideas for you to use as your starting point.
6. Random Sentences. For this, you can choose a sentence – that you wrote yourself, that comes from a book, that was a line in a TV show or movie – or a line from a poem, and use that as your prompt.
7. Random Words. This is what I use for my daily free-writing. I choose three words at random (using one of many sites that offer this feature), and then use those three words in the first paragraph as my prompt.

The Entire Process

So, this is what the whole process looks like:

1. Find somewhere quiet to do your writing – it’s better, of course, if you can ensure there are no distractions.
2. Choose your medium.
3. Set a limit that is based on either time or word count.
4. Select a writing prompt.
5. Get settled, with everything you need (e.g. computer, tablet, notepad, pen or pencil, Dictaphone) and with potential distractions removed.
6. Start your timer (if you set a time limit).
7. Begin typing – and do not stop, not even to make corrections.
8. If you get completely stuck, simply keep typing the same words (e.g. “I’m stuck”) repeatedly until you can move forward again.
9. When your timer rings (or the software shows you’ve reached your target word limit), you can either stop writing or you can continue if you’re in the middle of something you don’t want to simply cut off mid-stream.

My Daily Free-Writing

This is what I’ve been doing for almost three months now:

1. I go to a random word generator site, on my laptop, to give me three seed words.
2. I go to 750 Words.
3. I start typing a story, making sure to use the three random seed words in the first paragraph (or two).
4. I continue typing, keeping the inspiration from that first paragraph going, until the word count at the bottom of the screen shows I have typed at least 750 words. Most days I type from 750 – 850 words, but the exact number is irrelevant.

The site is fun to use, it’s fast, has several interesting features, including various statistics and the ability to download a month’s worth of your writing at a time (as plain text files).

By way of an example, here is what I created earlier today, using the seed words “pants”, “curtain”, and “motorcycle”:

Jared was riding his motorcycle wearing nothing but pants and a curtain, like a superhero cape.

He looked like an idiot, but he didn’t care – he’d given up worrying about what others thought of him years ago.

The day he realized that other people’s opinions didn’t matter was the day he achieved true freedom.

It would have been preferable if he’d learned that lesson much earlier, but better late than never.

So now, in his mid-40s, and maybe having what many would call a mid-life crisis, he was having the time of his life.

He’d stopped wearing conventional clothing, he said what he wanted, provided it was true, and it wasn’t his problem whether somebody else was offended by his choice of words.

Jared had never been happier – it even made up for the fact that this wife had left him long ago. Within two years of being married, in fact, but he knew now that he’d been too young for that – immature, not knowing himself or what was important to him.

Those two years had been hell, but they too had taught him something.

His job, however, was something he had to play by the rules with – his ultra-conservative employers, a large bank, would never accept the non-work Jared.

So he did what he had to during the day, in the office, and outside of that, he was Jared the Magnificent.

At work, he was bounded by rules and expectations, but on his own time, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

He’d travelled abroad, something his parents frowned on when they were alive, he chose to eat at foreign restaurants, to sample their cuisine, he dated all sorts of different women, to prove to himself that he was above “having a type”.

His new lifestyle had cost him most of the friends he’d had before his transformation, but to him, that just meant they were never true friends in the first place.

The only one who’d kept in touch was actually a youngish lady who also was a bit of a rebel.

She’d been fortunate to come to the same conclusions as Jared in her late teens.

There was nothing romantic between them – they simply gelled.

Neither of them wanted to live their lives according to anybody else’s rules.

Katie had taken it one step further though – she had found a way to earn enough money to live without having to compromise her principles.

She made and sold goth designs online, and while she would never be a millionaire, that didn’t matter because her aims in life were modest by most people’s standards.

Katie had also accepted that her unique personality wouldn’t suit most people – men or women, since she wasn’t fussy who she slept with – and she was OK with one-night stands.

Jared had tried flirting with her once, but she had shut him down immediately – in a friendly, joking way, which caused no hard feelings.

But they did occasionally travel together, as much for companionship and somebody to share the experience as anything else.

They even shared a room sometimes, preferably with twin beds, but they had also had to share the same bed too.

That had worked out really well, once Katie had made her views clear.

Jared was sort of jealous of her, if he were being honest with himself. He too longed for a way to get out of his job and make his money in a more fun way.

His savings were minimal, especially after adopting his experimental lifestyle – travel wasn’t cheap.

But he was working on a plan that would pay dividends if he just stuck at it for a while longer.

He’d sold his house – something he’d retained in the divorce because his ex-wife had landed a wealthy stockbroker – and downsized, to release capital, and he no longer owned a car on the basis that it was a costly expense when he wasn’t using it most of the time.

Even his diet, at home, had been simplified. Much to his own surprise, he’d gone vegetarian, and he found he was enjoying it. A bonus was the fact that he also felt better for it too.

His current trip, to go and visit a museum down on the south coast, had been made on a whim – like most of his travels.

And right at the last minute, he’d decided to wear something a bit bizarre as it was a sunny day and he thought, “Why the hell not?“

As you can see, it’s nowhere near the world’s best writing, but with some tweaking, it could become a short story (my favourite format is 500-word flash fiction stories that have a twist at the end, and I’ve already edited at least three of these 750 Word stories to fit that format).

You may also notice there are relatively few spelling and grammatical errors, and that’s because there is a part of me that cannot leave mistakes in something I create if I know they’re there.

This means my average words per minute (WPM), which the site tracks for you, is probably higher than shown, because if I didn’t go back to fix typing errors, I would definitely be faster.

Alternatively, it could be the opening of a new novel, and failing that, it might give you an idea for a novel.

And if nothing else, like I said above, I enjoy doing it, which is really all that matters (to me).

Conclusion

Well, that’s free-writing in a nutshell.

As somebody who has done a lot of writing (a novel, tons of poetry and haiku, and a fair amount of flash fiction stories) a few years ago, I started doing free-writing as a way to get my creativity going again, because the work I do most days is mainly on the opposite end of the spectrum to creative writing.

I found I really enjoy it, it keeps my mind active, it gives me ideas, and it doesn’t require much time.

And I think the benefits speak for themselves, so I would suggest giving it a try – you may find you love it as much as I do!

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Random Word Generator
2. Writing Prompts