why is it so difficult to write an essay

Essay Writing Tips: 10 Steps to Writing a Great Essay (And Have Fun Doing It!)

by Joe Bunting | 118 comments

Do you dread essay writing? Are you looking for some essay tips that will help you write an amazing essay—and have fun doing it?

Lots of students, young and old, dread essay writing. It's a daunting assignment, one that takes research, time, and concentration.

It's also an assignment that you can break up into simple steps that make writing an essay manageable and, yes, even enjoyable.

These ten essay tips completely changed my writing process—and I hope that they can do the same for you.

Essay Writing Can Be Fun

Honestly, throughout most of high school and college, I was a mediocre essay writer.

Every once in a while, I would write a really good essay, but mostly I skated by with B's and A-minuses.

I know personally how boring writing an essay can be, and also, how hard it can be to write a good one.

However, toward the end of my time as a student, I made a breakthrough. I figured out how to not only write a great essay, I learned how to have fun while doing it . 

And since then, I've become a professional writer and have written more than a dozen books. I'm not saying that these essay writing tips are going to magically turn you into a writer, but at least they can help you enjoy the process more.

I'm excited to share these ten essay writing tips with you today! But first, we need to talk about why writing an essay is so hard.

Why Writing an Essay Is So Hard

When it comes to essay writing, a lot of students find a reason to put it off. And when they tackle it, they find it difficult to string sentences together that sound like a decent stance on the assigned subject.

Here are a few reasons why essay writing is hard:

• You'd rather be scrolling through Facebook
• You're trying to write something your teacher or professor will like
• You're trying to get an A instead of writing something that's actually good
• You want to do the least amount of work possible

The biggest reason writing an essay is so hard is because we mostly focus on those external  rewards like getting a passing grade, winning our teacher's approval, or just avoiding accusations of plagiarism.

The problem is that when you focus on external approval it not only makes writing much less fun, it also makes it significantly harder.

Because when you focus on external approval, you shut down your subconscious, and the subconscious is the source of your creativity.

The subconscious is the source of your creativity.

What this means practically is that when you're trying to write that perfect, A-plus-worthy sentence, you're turning off most of your best resources and writing skills.

So stop. Stop trying to write a good essay (or even a “good-enough” essay). Instead, write an interesting  essay, write an essay you think is fascinating. And when you're finished, go back and edit it until it's “good” according to your teacher's standards.

Yes, you need to follow the guidelines in your assignment. If your teacher tells you to write a five-paragraph essay, then write a five-paragraph essay! If your teacher asks for a specific type of essay, like an analysis, argument, or research essay, then make sure you write that type of essay!

However, within those guidelines, find room to express something that is uniquely you .

I can't guarantee you'll get a higher grade (although, you almost certainly will), but I can absolutely promise you'll have a lot more fun writing.

The Step-by-Step Process to Writing a Great Essay: Your 10 Essay Writing Tips

Ready to get writing? You can read my ten best tips for having fun while writing an essay that earns you the top grade, or check out this presentation designed by our friends at Canva Presentations .

1. Remember your essay is just a story.

Every story is about conflict and change, and the truth is that essays are about conflict and change, too! The difference is that in an essay, the conflict is between different ideas , and the change is in the way we should perceive those ideas.

That means that the best essays are about surprise: “You probably think it's one way, but in reality, you should think of it this other way.” See tip #3 for more on this.

How do you know what story you're telling? The prompt should tell you.

Any list of essay prompts includes various topics and tasks associated with them. Within those topics are characters (historical, fictional, or topical) faced with difficult choices. Your job is to work with those choices, usually by analyzing them, arguing about them, researching them, or describing them in detail.

2. Before you start writing, ask yourself, “How can I have the most fun writing this?”

It's normal to feel unmotivated when writing an academic essay. I'm a writer, and honestly, I feel unmotivated to write all the time. But I have a super-ninja, judo-mind trick I like to use to help motivate myself.

Here's the secret trick: One of the interesting things about your subconscious is that it will answer any question you ask yourself. So whenever you feel unmotivated to write your essay, ask yourself the following question:

“How much fun can I have writing this?”

Your subconscious will immediately start thinking of strategies to make the writing process more fun.

The best time to have your fun is the first draft. Since you're just brainstorming within the topic, and exploring the possible ways of approaching it, the first draft is the perfect place to get creative and even a little scandalous. Here are some wild suggestions to make your next essay a load of fun:

• Research the most surprising or outrageous fact about the topic and use it as your hook.
• Use a thesaurus to research the topic's key words. Get crazy with your vocabulary as you write, working in each key word synonym as much as possible.
• Play devil's advocate and take the opposing or immoral side of the issue. See where the discussion takes you as you write.

3. As you research, ask yourself, “What surprises me about this subject?”

The temptation, when you're writing an essay, is to write what you think your teacher or professor wants to read.

Don't do this .

Instead, ask yourself, “What do I find interesting about this subject? What surprises me?”

If you can't think of anything that surprises you, anything you find interesting, then you're not searching well enough, because history, science, and literature are all brimming   over with surprises. When you look at how great ideas actually happen, the story is always, “We used  to think the world was this way. We found out we were completely wrong, and that the world is actually quite different from what we thought.”

These pieces of surprising information often make for the best topic sentences as well. Use them to outline your essay and build your body paragraphs off of each unique fact or idea. These will function as excellent hooks for your reader as you transition from one topic to the next.

(By the way, what sources should you use for research? Check out tip #10 below.)

4. Overwhelmed? Write five original sentences.

The standard three-point essay is really made up of just five original sentences surrounded by supporting paragraphs that back up those five sentences. If you're feeling overwhelmed, just write five sentences covering your most basic main points.

Here's what they might look like for this article:

• Introductory Paragraph:  While most students consider writing an essay a boring task, with the right mindset, it can actually be an enjoyable experience.
• Body #1: Most students think writing an essay is tedious because they focus on external rewards.
• Body #2: Students should instead focus on internal fulfillment when writing an essay.
• Body #3: Not only will focusing on internal fulfillment allow students to have more fun, it will also result in better essays.
• Conclusion: Writing an essay doesn't have to be simply a way to earn a good grade. Instead, it can be a means of finding fulfillment.

After you write your five sentences, it's easy to fill in the paragraphs for each one.

Now, you give it a shot!

5. Be “source heavy.”

In college, I discovered a trick that helped me go from a B-average student to an A-student, but before I explain how it works, let me warn you. This technique is powerful , but it might not work for all teachers or professors. Use with caution.

As I was writing a paper for a literature class, I realized that the articles and books I was reading said what I was trying to say much better than I ever could. So what did I do? I quoted them liberally throughout my paper. When I wasn't quoting, I re-phrased what they said in my own words, giving proper credit, of course. I found that not only did this formula create a well-written essay, it took about half the time to write.

It's good to keep in mind that using anyone else's words, even when morphed into your own phrasing, requires citation. While the definition of plagiarism is shifting with the rise of online collaboration and cooperative learning environments, always  err on the side of excessive citation to be safe.

When I used this technique, my professors sometimes mentioned that my papers were very “source” heavy. However, at the same time, they always gave me A's.

To keep yourself safe, I recommend using a 60/40 approach with your body paragraphs: Make sure 60% of the words are your own analysis and argumentation, while 40% can be quoted (or text you paraphrase) from your sources.

Like the five sentence trick, this technique makes the writing process simpler. Instead of putting the main focus on writing well, it instead forces you to research  well, which some students find easier.

6. Write the body first, the introduction second, and the conclusion last.

Introductions are often the hardest part to write because you're trying to summarize your entire essay before you've even written it yet. Instead, try writing your introduction last, giving yourself the body of the paper to figure out the main point of your essay.

This is especially important with an essay topic you are not personally interested in. I definitely recommend this in classes you either don't excel in or care much for. Take plenty of time to draft and revise your body paragraphs before  attempting to craft a meaningful introductory paragraph.

Otherwise your opening may sound awkward, wooden, and bland.

7. Most essays answer the question, “What?” Good essays answer the “Why?” The best essays answer the “How?”

If you get stuck trying to make your argument, or you're struggling to reach the required word count, try focusing on the question, “How?”

For example:

• How did J.D. Salinger convey the theme of inauthenticity in  The Catcher In the Rye ?
• How did Napoleon restore stability in France after the French Revolution?
• How does the research prove girls really do rule and boys really do drool?

If you focus on how, you'll always have enough to write about.

8. Don't be afraid to jump around.

Essay writing can be a dance. You don't have to stay in one place and write from beginning to end.

For the same reasons listed in point #6, give yourself the freedom to write as if you're circling around your topic rather than making a single, straightforward argument. Then, when you edit and proofread, you can make sure everything lines up correctly.

In fact, now is the perfect time to mention that proofreading your essay isn't just about spelling and commas.

It's about making sure your analysis or argument flows smoothly from one idea to another. (Okay, technically this comprises editing, but most students writing a high school or college essay don't take the time to complete every step of the writing process. Let's be honest.)

So as you clean up your mechanics and sentence structure, make sure your ideas flow smoothly, logically, and naturally from one to the next as you finish proofreading.

9. Here are some words and phrases you don't want to use.

• You  (You'll notice I use a lot of you's, which is great for a blog post. However, in an academic essay, it's better to omit the second-person.)
• To Be verbs (is, are, was, were, am)

Don't have time to edit? Here's a lightning-quick editing technique .

A note about “I”: Some teachers say you shouldn't use “I” statements in your writing, but the truth is that professional, academic papers often use phrases like “I believe” and “in my opinion,” especially in their introductions.

10. It's okay to use Wikipedia, if…

Wikipedia is one of the top five websites in the world for a reason: it can be a great tool for research. However, most teachers and professors don't consider Wikipedia a valid source for use in essays.

Don't totally discount it, though! Here are two ways you can use Wikipedia in your essay writing:

• Background research. If you don't know enough about your topic, Wikipedia can be a great resource to quickly learn everything you need to know to get started.
• Find sources . Check the reference section of Wikipedia's articles on your topic. While you may not be able to cite Wikipedia itself, you can often find those original sources and cite them . You can locate the links to primary and secondary sources at the bottom of any Wikipedia page under the headings “Further Reading” and “References.”

You Can Enjoy Essay Writing

The thing I regret most about high school and college is that I treated it like something I had  to do rather than something I wanted  to do.

The truth is, education is an opportunity many people in the world don't have access to.

It's a gift, not just something that makes your life more difficult. I don't want you to make the mistake of just “getting by” through school, waiting desperately for summer breaks and, eventually, graduation.

How would your life be better if you actively enjoyed writing an essay? What would school look like if you wanted to suck it dry of all the gifts it has to give you?

All I'm saying is, don't miss out!

Looking for More Essay Writing Tips?

Looking for more essay tips to strengthen your essay writing? Try some of these resources:

• 7 Tips on Writing an Effective Essay
• Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

How about you? Do you have any tips for writing an essay?  Let us know in the  comments .

Need more grammar help?  My favorite tool that helps find grammar problems and even generates reports to help improve my writing is ProWritingAid . Works with Word, Scrivener, Google Docs, and web browsers. Also, be sure to use my coupon code to get 20 percent off: WritePractice20

Coupon Code:WritePractice20 »

Ready to try out these ten essay tips to make your essay assignment fun? Spend fifteen minutes using tip #4 and write five original sentences that could be turned into an essay.

When you're finished, share your five sentences in the comments section. And don't forget to give feedback to your fellow writers!

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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Is Writing Hard: The Top Reasons Why Writing Is Hard, With Tips

Is writing hard? It can be difficult if you have been told to re-write or revise after the first draft. Learn more in this article.

If you find the process of writing to be challenging, try not to get frustrated. The goal is to become a better writer, and even a good writer can have a hard time from time to time. For example, Ernest Hemingway is widely considered one of the greatest writers of all time. However, even he had some struggles with creative writing occasionally.

Becoming a professional writer can be hard, and good writing should be an interactive experience. Yes, writing is difficult, but it is also enjoyable. If you want to overcome writer’s block, you need to identify some of the biggest challenges. Then, you can use your writing skills to overcome them.

1. Writing Is Hard Because It Requires Your Undivided Attention

2. writing is a long process, 3. writing requires bravery, 4. writing takes a lot of practice, 5. writing caters to perfectionists, 6. writing has an inconsistent schedule, how to overcome these challenges, final word on is writing hard, why is writing so hard, if i want to become a better writer, what should i do.

One of the biggest reasons writing is so hard is that it requires your undivided attention. Have you ever taken a job where you were doing a bunch of mindless tasks? For example, you might have had a job where you had to copy information from one spreadsheet into another. Or, you might have had a job where you had to watch videos and then give your thoughts at the end. You do not necessarily need to pay attention to these tasks the entire time. Instead, you can tune in and out, still getting the job done.

When it comes to writing, this is not an option. If you do not focus on the task at hand, your writing will not be very good. Laziness cannot creep into your writing, or your work will suffer. There is no way you can put your brain on autopilot and end up with a good result. You need to focus on the task at hand if you want your writing to come out well.

If you aren’t focused on your work, it is better to take a break and do something else. Then, come back to your writing when you can truly focus on it. 

Another reason writing is hard is that it does not lead to instant gratification. If you want to see the fruits of your labor at the end of the day, writing may not deliver. It takes a long time to write a good story. Regardless of whether you are writing a poem, a short story, or a novel, the process is lengthy. Some of the greatest poets in the world have spent a month crafting a single poem. 

Therefore, you might not see the results of your hard work for days, weeks, or months. Sure, at the end of the day, you might have a bunch of pages written, but this does not necessarily mean they are any good. You won’t truly feel satisfied with your work until the entire story is finished.

Because there is a long time before you experience that feeling of fulfillment, writing can be hard. You might even start a story only to scrap it at the end because you do not like it. Most people do not have the patience to deal with the full scope of the writing processing. 

Do you want to go through life anonymously? Do you want to sit in the background where nobody will bother you? Taking risks is hard, and being a writer is brave. However, virtually everything you write will eventually be reviewed by somebody else. Are you a professional writer? If so, then a client or an editor will review your work. Do you work for a large firm? If so, a manager will review your work at the end. Do you want to publish a book? If so, your reader base will have an opinion on your work.

Someone else is going to read your work eventually. It can be nerve-racking to wait for them to give their opinion. After all, you might have spent months, or even years, writing that story. If the other person doesn’t like it, it could mean that all of your work has been for nothing. Or, if they don’t like your work, it could make you angry. It is your work, not theirs! Who are they to criticize it?

It takes a lot of courage to put all of your work on display. Unfortunately, many people are not willing to make themselves vulnerable like this, which is why writing is so hard. 

If you want to be a good writer, you need to practice repeatedly. The only way you will ever get better at writing is by practicing it daily. Even when you don’t want to write, you should let your fingers flow to put words on the page. Then, you can come back and organize them later.

If you play a musical instrument, you need to practice every day. Otherwise, your skills are going to rust over. Likewise, if you play a sport, you need to practice daily. If you take a lot of time off, you might get out of shape, causing you to fall short when you come back. Writing is the same way. If you don’t write regularly, your writing skills will get rusty. Then, when you are ready to write again, you might fall behind.

Because writing takes a lot of practice, it can be incredibly challenging. 

If you are a perfectionist, you might embrace the challenge of writing. But, unfortunately, it is not unusual for writers to expect themselves to be perfect. “Good enough” is never really good enough for a writer. Now, you might think that the endless drive for perfectionism brings out the best in a writer. Expecting yourself to do better can indeed be a positive quality in a writer; however, it can also be a tremendous challenge. 

Think about it like this. If you are running a book for someone, you may have a deadline to meet. The deadline is coming up, and you aren’t anywhere close to being finished. Why is that the case? You may have spent a long time writing the first chapter because you always felt like there was a better version. Therefore, that chapter was never perfect, causing you to fall behind on the rest of the book.

This is what they call crippling perfectionism. It is true that you need to go back and edit, proofread, and review your work. Then, you might be able to make it better. On the other hand, it takes a lot of practice to learn when to put down the chapter and move on to the next area. If you expect everything to be perfect, you will spend endless hours agonizing over a single word choice. This is another reason why you need to practice regularly. You need to learn when to make changes and when to let it go.

If you enjoy a routine, you may have a difficult time sticking to one as a writer. For example, you might be someone who likes to write early in the morning. You might be someone who likes to write during business hours only. You might even be someone who likes the right in the middle of the night.

You will quickly learn that you do not have a lot of control over when you write. If you don’t have a pen and paper, you might think that you can stay away from writing; however, if a moment of inspiration strikes you, you will probably pull out your phone and start to type into a notepad.

The point is that you will write when inspiration strikes you. You never know when you will feel like writing, and you don’t want to miss that critical moment of “eureka.” As a result, it is easy to let your writing seep into other areas of your life. It can be difficult for you to stick to a routine, and it can impact your relationships. It takes a lot of discipline to learn how to contain your writing while still getting the most out of your skills.

These are a few of the biggest challenges you will face if you would like to get better at writing. Fortunately, there are some ways you can overcome these challenges as well. These include: 

• Learn when to take breaks. It is okay to take breaks from time to time. If you are sitting there and nothing is coming out, put down the pencil and do something else. You may find that spending time outside gives you the moment of inspiration you’ve been looking for.
• Make sure you designate time for family members and friends. If you just assume you will spend time with those closest to you, you may not spend as much time with them as you would like. Instead, block off time to be with other people. This could help you improve your writing as well.
• Invest in a tool that can help you stay organized. For example, if you have multiple projects going on simultaneously, make sure you have a calendar of when they are due. That way, nothing will fall through the cracks.
• You may feel like you don’t have enough confidence in yourself. If that is the case, remember that vulnerability can be a valuable asset. You might want to try meditation or positive affirmations that can make you feel better about yourself. Then, remember to stay humble when you present your work to other people.
• Finally, you need to make sure you get enough sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep at night, you won’t give your brain a chance to recharge. This could cause you to fall behind on your work. You might even want to set alarms for yourself that tell you when to go to bed.

Everyone has a different strategy for overcoming these challenges. Of course, you will learn more about yourself as you go, but consider putting a few of these tips to use if you want to overcome some of the biggest challenges facing writers. 

So, is writing hard? It is highly unusual for someone to say that writing is easy, but everyone has their own talents. If you want to be a professional writer, you need to practice regularly. Then, make sure you give other people the chance to review your work. Listen to what they have to say.

Everyone has a different opinion, so make sure you put their opinion in the context of your work. Finally, remember to take breaks. There is a light outside of writing, and spending time with other people away from your work can help you improve your assignments when you go back to them.

FAQs About Is Writing Hard

Writing is hard because it requires a tremendous amount of patience and focus. It also requires a lot of vulnerability, as other people will be reviewing your work. You also have to be critical of yourself as you review your assignments, which can be a challenge for many people.

If you want to be a better writer, you need to practice regularly. Most importantly, you should try to practice different forms of writing. That way, you can improve different writing skills, apply additional writing tips, and get better at expressing your ideas through the act of writing. Freewriting is critical for exploring different styles of writing

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7 Things to Try When Writing Is Hard

Often, the difficulty lies simply in the unwieldy story—and the need for an ever-evolving understanding and ability in order to manage it. According to my estimate, as much as 75% of what is referenced as “writer’s block” is really just “plot block.” Something in the storyform is out of balance and/or the story’s problem is temporarily outpacing the author’s skill level. With enough persistence, these plot blocks give way sooner than later—and usually with the reward of either a  better story or, at least, a greater awareness in the writer.

But then there are the difficulties that fall under the heading of that other 25%. This is when the writing is hard in ways that aren’t so easy to bull our way through.

These are often deeper issues, arising from our life beyond the page. They might include illness (our own or someone else’s), exhaustion, stress, fear or other unresolved emotions, burnout, or any other number of things. Sometimes the cause seems to be something as simple (and vague) as a mood.

And it’s infuriating. Unlike with plot blocks, solving the problem isn’t always as simple as finding the right mental thread to pull. Sometimes, it’s a matter of putting things  other than writing first for a while (and coming to peace with that). Other times, it’s a matter of using the writing difficulties to help us work through what’s  really causing the block.

Writing Is Hard Right Now: My Story

Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration (Amazon affiliate link)

Until recently, I’d never experienced that second type of writer’s block. Plot block, sure. But I’ve spent my creative life building a skill set that helps me efficiently and effectively deal with that . (Indeed, it’s not really an exaggeration to say “avoiding plot block” is the entire reason I write this blog!)

But real live life-induced writer’s block? Not so much.

However, as I mentioned in the podcast intro a couple weeks ago, I now find myself somewhat bemused to be experiencing a definite (if not quite definitive) case of writer’s block. I am objectively aware it’s not the end of the world. There’s a part of me that is genuinely rolling my eyes at and passing the coffee to the other part of me that is getting really grumpy. And as I say, it’s not  definitive ; I’m still writing; there are still words.

It’s just that the writing is hard right now. Harder than I ever remember it being. It’s hard in a different way.

Dreamlander (Amazon affiliate link)

Part of this surprises me, since I’ve been incredibly eager to start the outline for the third book in my Dreamlander trilogy. But on the other hand, it makes sense. I moved last year, so I’m in a new place, figuring out a new routine. There’s also some heavy family stuff that knocked me for a loop when it first arose a few weeks ago. Also thrown in there were several layers of personal growth that decided to peak all at the same time.

And… then there’s the story itself. This is my first attempt at a series, so even though this book will be my eleventh rodeo, it’s still brand new ground. This is the first time I’ve ever had to tie off a multi-book story arc in a single volume. I started Book 3’s outline with the realization that I’d generously bequeathed myself dozens of little plot blocks—ideas I’d set up in Book 2 with vague ideas of their payoff in Book 3, but not enough info (yet) about how to get there.

Anyway, altogether it’s made for a potent mix that is allowing me the opportunity to learn new things about myself as a writer and a person. Some of those lessons are the tactics that have inspired this post—tactics that have already helped me move forward positively both in working on my story and working past the difficulties.

7 Things You Can Try When Writing Is Hard

For me, realizing I am most definitely not the first author to experience the whole “writing is hard” thing has helped me draw on the compassionate (and incredibly  tough ) wisdom of the many authors whose legacies permeate my life.

Today, I want to, in turn, reach out to those of you who may currently be finding that your writing is hard (whether normal hard or  hard hard). Here are a few practicable steps I hope will give you comfort and/or help you start moving toward a solution for your own unique writing challenges.

1. Just Admit the Writing Is Hard

In my experience as a writing mentor, I find writers tend to have two different kinds of relationships with writer’s block. The first kind uses writing difficulties as a comfy excuse to embrace the drama:

“Woe is me! I simply  can’t write! I have WRITER’S BLOCK!!!”

The second approach, however, denies there’s any problem at all:

“I  can’t have writer’s block! I never get writer’s block!! I don’t  believe in writer’s block!!!”

That was me for a while there. And then it was like:

“Wow, I have writer’s block…”

My first step was accepting that the difficulties I was facing on the page weren’t just plot blocks, but something bigger. That knowledge then provided me what is always the foundational key to problem-solving: correctly identifying the problem.

How did I know I was facing down something bigger than just your normal, ordinary, everyday, garden-variety plot block? Because the normal solutions to plot block (asking plot questions and looking for the right “thread” to pull) weren’t getting me anywhere. I was scribbling furiously; I just wasn’t advancing.

2. Identify the Cause

I suppose it’s possible serious writer’s block could be caused by a single issue (e.g., the death of a loved one). But for most of us, it’s a condition arising out of a unique cocktail of convergences. For me, the catalyst was a shaken-not-stirred mix of diverse ingredients that included everything from January ennui to unprecedented storytelling challenges to exhaustion/recovery from a big move last year to stressful current events—and more.

Most of these things, I had no control over and little to no recourse for “fixing.” Winter’s gonna end when winter’s gonna end. My emotional processing of life events is gonna take as long as it’s gonna take. Other people are gonna do what other people are gonna do.

After accepting that, I dialed in on the causes I  could do something about. First, I figured out what I believed were my main problems:

a)  Having a hard time sticking with a daily writing routine.

b)  Struggling with ideas that just weren’t flowing.

From there, I started implementing strategies to see if I could unblock the dam.

3. Take Care of  Yourself Before You Take Care of Your Writing

A truth that has become increasingly clear to me is that art and life are synergistic. If I’m not taking care of myself on basic personal levels—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually— then my creative pursuits will necessarily suffer . In the artistic life, discipline extends far beyond the desk.

Since I knew many of the reasons for my writer’s block had nothing to do with the actual writing, my initial strategies also had little to do with writing. For starters, I completely restructured my daily schedule in recognition of the fact that I’m slowest in the mornings, with my motivation consistently climbing throughout the day.

Another thing I did was set my phone to “Do Not Disturb.” This allowed me to check it in between projects, rather than taking the risk that my focus and energy would be disrupted in the middle of flow.

4. Trust the Process

So there I was, sitting with pen in hand, scribbling along, face scrunched in determination—and it’s  just not working . No matter what question I asked myself, I couldn’t find the right answer. No matter what idea I tried to chase, it never seemed to be the one that set my imagination on fire.

While this was happening, the one thought that kept me grounded was:  Trust the process .

I would take a deep breath and return to the basics that, by now, are second nature . On my iPad, I would open up Helping Writers Become Authors and review my own posts—every one of them inspired by some challenge I had faced on a previous story. I would remember the specific steps I needed to take:

• Ask “ what if ” questions.
• Identify your characters’ thematic Truths .
• Find the antagonist’s motive and goal .
• Look for the structural plot points .

None of these things “cured” my writer’s block. But like familiar road signs popping into view on a snowy night, they kept me grounded, reminding me I knew where I was going because I’d been here before.

The process never fails me. If I stick with it, it will see me through.

5. Go Back to Basics: Daydreaming and Dreamzoning

Outlining Your Novel (Amazon affiliate link)

Even though my writing process is built around intensive causal outlining , I don’t “make up stories.” I will sit down and brainstorm things that need to happen to move a story from Point A to Point B, but I never “create” the A and the B. They come me— spontaneous gifts from my subconscious imagination .

And that, I realized, was one of the reasons I just  couldn’t move forward  with this outline. I didn’t have enough “As” and “Bs” yet. I knew the bare bones of what needed to happen. But I couldn’t  see it. I couldn’t  feel it.

From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler (affiliate link)

So I went back to basics. For me, the hotline to my imagination is what I call “ dreamzoning ” (a term I got from Robert Olen Butler’s excellent From Where You Dream ). Basically, this is just intensified daydreaming. I’ll put on an appropriate playlist in the background, use something mindless but moving as a visual focal point (firelight is perfect, though a lava lamp isn’t bad either), and then just sit back and watch the show. I realized the other night that, really, it’s an almost meditative exercise. I’m trying to zone out of my surroundings and go deep into my head, dreaming vivid visual dreams fraught with emotional consequence.

All I get are snippets, flashes, photographs, and sometimes slow-mo movies. But these are the seedlings of my stories. If I gather enough, the story will write itself. Buh-bye, writer’s block. And in the meantime, spending my writing sessions chilling with a candle and some tunes is both productive and seriously low-stress.

6. Find the Right (Guilt-Free) Routine

Ironically, writer’s block often seems to come with a fair-sized dose of guilt. We  can’t write, and yet we self-flagellate because we  should be writing.

Depending on the root cause making our writing so hard for the moment, the best choice might be giving ourselves permission to  not write for a while (as I am—more or less—by allowing myself to focus solely on “dreamzoning” for a while). Other times, just tweaking a writing routine or schedule can do wonders.

Once I realized that outside drama and other factors were wreaking havoc with my ability to stay focused during a morning or afternoon writing session, I switched things around. I moved my writing session to the evening, when my energy is always most reliable. This gave me the ability to once again  consistently show up for writing time—which removed the useless poison of guilt from my already complicated cocktail of problematic catalysts.

7. Inhale Information and Inspiration

Often, writer’s block is simply the result of an empty well. As I discovered in #5, above, if I have no inspiration, how can I honestly expect myself to have anything to write about?

This goes for more than just imaginative bursts. It also goes for information—of all sorts. Any story is ultimately a reconstruction of things the writer has either experienced or learned. If you find yourself with nothing to write about, it could be as simple as that: you have nothing to write about.

Start filling your well. If you haven’t been reading faithfully, start a daily routine. If you’ve been reading the same  type of thing for years, try something new. Get out. Do new things. Watch new movies. Listen to new songs. Go to a museum. Fill your inner eye with wonders.

And read about writing. My success last year with a host of  amazing writing-related books has prompted me to make sure I read something powerful and inspiring about writing, or art in general, every single day.

Writing is hard for everyone. Some days are harder for some of us than for others. But the wheel keeps on rolling, and we all get our turn sooner than later. I feel certain that when it is time for me to return to the page, after a couple weeks of dreamzoning, I will find most of my challenges fulfilled. If not, I know further solutions will await me as long as I seek them with patience and discipline. In the meantime, I offer my encouragement to those of you who might be experiencing a similar trial, and I am thankful we get to walk together on this road—in all its many terrains and weathers!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What’s the first thing you do when your writing is hard? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Thank you for this. Lately, events outside my control have made it really hard to have any kind of consistent writing time or energy. (My mom’s been sick. It’s not fatal since we caught it in time, but hanging out in doctor’s waiting rooms is mentally and emotionally exhausting.) Sometimes just giving yourself permission to be struggling is a big thing. And reminding yourself that the outside events really are not going to last forever.

Very sorry to hear about your mom. That kind of thing comes first. Although writing can often be cathartic in painful situations, it can also be an energy drain when other things should be priority.

I really should keep reading. It might help me with my story.

Totally. Information is a writer’s greatest currency.

When the heck will you open a Patreon account?

It’s down there on my to-do list. 😉

Again, so timely! I’ve been thinking how awesome it is when a big life change happens…but you have advance warning. I have one rolling down the pike right now. I’m retiring from full-time go-to-work work on 3/29/19. Just around the corner it is. And I’m thinking, now I’ll have exactly 24 hours to play with for my optimal writing routine, instead of having to parcel some of those hours to a time clock. And I’ve been thinking, ahead, of the pitfalls of retirement that I’ve heard about from those who’ve gone before. One of the monsters is: shedding a routine because I can. I’ve been counseled to structure my day instead of just letting it “happen”, otherwise nothing important or vital will happen.

But, Kate, can I just live that way for a week-please, please, please? I’ve been punching a clock for 51 years now, and now I’d like to punch it just once, literally.! Bwahaha!

I think you deserve at least *two* weeks off. 😉

Terrific information, Katie! I am in the same space too. I think it’s partly due to the angst in the world that I am sensitive to. I recently wrote a post on “A Time to Write and a Time to Not Write” that says much of the same. We need to honor those seasons when the writing isn’t there. Thank you!

Another tactic I’ve been practicing long-term, for several years now, is tuning out the media. If something doesn’t add value to my life (or allow me to add quantitative value in return) and is, instead, feeding off my energy, I don’t want it in my day. I haven’t regretted it once. The news that filters around the edges is often more pertinent, clearer, and more thought-provoking.

>due to the angst in the world that I am sensitive to.

Same here. I can’t resist reading the news, even though I try. Apparently, I can’t go more than a day without clicking on a newsreader app. I tried to deal with this through my writing (Democracy’s Thief), but it didn’t work.

Find a replacement for the addiction. IMDb is my nicotine replacement. 😉 I still get to browse a news feed a couple times (and one that actually does still feed me most of the big stories) but without as much of a negative barrage.

This article was very timely for me. Over the last year, a cascade of hard changes, both good and horribly bad, have left me staring at my laptop unable to feel my story. Words come by force, and some of them are very good, but I feel detached from the process.

Like you, this is not my first round (I’m drafting my 11th book as well), but never in my more than 2 decades of writing has it ever been THIS hard.

As you said, many of the problems influencing my writer’s block are out of my control, but you’ve encouraged me to identify the ones I can control and make those changes.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. But every day I ask myself, “A few years down the road, will I feel better having written this story–or having not written it?” That answer, at least, remains clear.

All of these points are spot on! Whether or not we readers were/are already aware of them, these make a good reminder for us to stop and take a deep breath, to gather ourselves for the coming fray.

When I’m stuck, I either begin random stream-of-conscious noodling – usually pencil to reams of scrap paper – asking every question about the issue that comes to mind, allowing absurdity without self-censorship. Sometimes the gem we seek is in the response to that crazy what-if.

Or I go work on something else entirely, maybe or maybe not related to writing.

Two years ago I was caught in that “beyond the author’s skill” morass, and after isolating what I needed to do (in which I recognized my inadequacies and the need to consult with others), I began reaching out to those with experience in my trouble areas. It took about a year to gather the information, let it sink into my heart and soul, and then use that infusion to inform the chapters I needed to write. Even with the advance work of interviews, analysis, and self-examination, that was the hardest writing I’ve ever done. But I had to do it. The integrity of the story would have been compromised without it. My characters’ respect for me would have been damaged without it. And the work, as hard as it was, strengthened my skills massively. I truly enjoyed the challenge.

The real bonus was after it was done, with publication a couple months away, when the story sent me a definitive message about my next writing project. A work of non-fiction, that will be the hardest writing I’ve ever done. Now I realize that my previous challenge was an apprenticeship, or boot camp, for the next book.

I love connections like that!

This whole comment is great, but especially this:

“When I’m stuck, I either begin random stream-of-conscious noodling – usually pencil to reams of scrap paper – asking every question about the issue that comes to mind, allowing absurdity without self-censorship. Sometimes the gem we seek is in the response to that crazy what-if.”

This came in the nick of time XD Thanks!!

Yay for good timing! 🙂

As someone with ADHD, writers block is a tremendous pain. BUT… I draw, keep notes going on ideas, and just read for inspiration when it clobbers me

I’m always happy when life gives me any excuse to read and call it work. :p

KM, I believe your article speaks to every writer. When writing is especially hard for me, I literally write down everything that’s bugging me and sort out what I can impact and what I can’t. Then I try to take by the horns the things I can control. It helps to see that many of my annoyances are actually under my power to impact. Thanks!

Yes, love this! Brain dumping on the page is great way to get a more objective perspective within the messiness of whatever is going on.

All of the above comments ring true.

Sometimes I try a different approach. Good writing comes from the right side of the brain where my inner child lives. My blocks occur when the left brain is just overwhelmed with life’s demands. My child is ignored and can’t get any attention. When I switched careers and became a patent attorney I had no right brain time left at the end of the day. That lasted 12 years!

These days I let the negative take over. I tell myself, fine, you’re done, burned out and it’s time to quit. Get a job at Home Depot and sweep floors. (I treat some of my characters this way). Of course, my inner child who loves to tell stories doesn’t like the adult actually agreeing that he has nothing to say and should quit. So the rebellion in my head starts with an agreement that I won’t write very often and, of course, that the book I’m working on will never be finished. Sooner or later, the inner child misses writing so much that the time increases, the energy returns and the right brain takes over once again. Doesn’t always work but sometimes it’s just about letting your various personas clear the air.

Hah. Love this. Reverse psychology on yourself. 🙂

I go back and tweak earlier chapters of my draft in easy ways, like searching for vague verbs like “went” and replacing them with more vivid ones, or adding sensory details. That’s a gentle way of reawakening my interest in the story and characters or “getting my head back into it.”

Glad you brought this up. I’ve been doing this as well, with the book I just finished. It’s cathartic and helps with impostor syndrome (usually 😉 ).

Thank you very much for this – a great help on many different levels.

What I do is write free flow for twenty minutes or so. I scribble about anything and everything – whatever is in my overloaded yet tired brain. No editing – just rambling forth. No one will ever see it so there is no pressure – just a warm up for the muscles and the mind. Then comes the important part of the exercise – into the kitchen for a rewarding cup of tea. Cheers.

Yes, I’m remiss not to mention my muse: Coffee. :p

Yeah. I used to get terrible problems with January. I’ve helped it a lot by taking a holiday at that time of year in the sun. Sometimes I’ve even gone away for the whole winter, which can be amazingly cheap if you go to out of season resorts. For example I went to Malta for 3 months and paid as little as £4 a night. Mediterranean or desert places are a good choice, the weather is cool but there is still sunshine. It helps with mood and energy. The other thing is to take vitamin D in the winter. I don’t use a SAD lamp, but I’ve heard they can help. Before, I used to get murderous rages in the winter and I never felt properly awake. Exercise, particularly dancing, is good to boost the serotonin levels. Plot blocks can eat away at your motivation to write, but the worst things are what I call existential blocks where nothing in life seems to have any meaning, and writing seems futile. Remind yourself what makes writing sexy to you- the slant, strange, absurd or beautiful things that compelled you to write in the first place. Then aim to mine that spooky hair-raising feeling. I think that Julia Cameron has the right idea when she tells you to go on an Artist’s Date every week (for me that is once a fortnight) to fill the well. The other thing I do is to write something more indulgent like some poetry and leave the heavy novel project alone for an afternoon. Going to a Writers’ Group and showing off a bit can help to light a fire under you again. Perform something great you wrote in the past and let people fawn over you : )

Now that it’s finally gotten a little warmer, I’ve been walking every afternoon. That helps a lot.

I got a better understanding of my humanity through reading Eric Barker’s posts. He suggests if you’re blocked give yourself one tiny task. Go to your writing area and put one thing that’s out of place away. Or create the word processor document and enter the title. One thing leads to another. Thirty minutes later you’re still fixing “just one more thing…”

I like that!

Thank you KM, this was very helpful. I struggle with depression, so most of the time it’s really hard for me to write (or doing anything, for that matter), but the feeling of accomplishment I get when I CAN do it, even if just a little, is worth fighting for.

Totally agree with this. Focusing on the feeling we get after we do something, rather than when we’re doing it can be tremendously helpful.

Another eye-opening post. I realized that it’s not enough for me to admit that it’s not working or I’m just not up to it today (at which point I go out for a walk or something, which has its own rewards). But identifying the reason, even if it’s nothing to do with the work, is key to moving forward. When I’m stuck on the writing, I usually write out the supposed problem in my notebook, I just let the ink fly, no worries about spelling or grammar. At the very least, it gets the problem out of my head. I also love point 7. It reminds me of a Hemingway quote; “You have to stand up and live before you can sit down and write.” Thanks for sharing this!

Love that Hemingway quote!

1: To get started, write one true sentence.

Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer’s block. In a memorable passage in A Moveable Feast, he writes:

“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_ernest_hemingway_on_how_to_write_fiction.html

I’ve always liked that anecdote.

Hemingway’s stuff is enigmatic. It’s like he has to play a game with you before he lets you in on his secrets. And then sometimes, he just plays games (Hills Like White Elephants). When he talks about squeezing the orange peel and squirting the little droplets of oil into the fire or just looking out over the rooftops, I believe he was encouraging himself to have faith *in himself*. “Take your mind off things. The words will come. They always have. They always will. You can’t rush them.” All we can do is fix our thoughts on the one fact we know is true and not speculate on things we know nothing about.

In the “Old Man and the Sea,” he starts out with the old man going 84 days without catching a fish. Yet, Santiago doesn’t whine or worry. He doesn’t control when the fish will bite. I think that was another one of Hemingway’s ways of saying, “Don’t worry. Be Happy.” The one true fact in that scene is that you can’t control when the fish will bite. But you sure won’t catch anything by worrying.

Just my $0.02.

You know, Old Man and the Sea is actually a perfect analogy for writer’s block.

For me, “writer’s block” vanished two years ago. I’d read James Scott Bell’s “Voice” and found a huge gold nugget: the 300-word sentence. Here it is. 1) Get a yellow legal pad and a good black-ink pen. 2) Isolate yourself. Be in quiet, staring, still mode for 10 minutes. 3) Speculate on two or three scenes that might work. Pick one. 4) Write a 300-word sentence, using only commas, ABOUT that scene.

(For example, “this scene is about Julia, and she just saw her ex in the grocery store, behind the cabbages, and she hunkers down but, damn it, Jake saw her and he is smiling so she just leaves the basket on the floor and makes it to the exit, but instead of going to her car she tucks into the drug store and heads down the shampoo aisle, accidentally bumping into two elderly women, and takes refuge next to the reading glasses display, wondering why the hell she is avoiding him in the first place, why couldn’t she face him because it had been over a year now, and just when she felt calm and collected there he was, looking for her, and when she turned to leave she knocked the entire display case over, spilling glasses everywhere and in her panic to pick them up Jake shows up, just stands there with that smart*ss grin and she could have smacked him hard for it but, no, that would reek of unfinished business, and all she could do was accept his help and apologize to the employee who had already up righted the display case, and she knew that after they picked up all the readers she’d gather her wits and tongue and do the infuriating mature thing and act surprised to see him, this non-committal, video-gaming hot mess that moved to Chicago, leaving her behind.”)

Works every single time.

This is a great exercise for blocks in the drafting stage. My outlining process isn’t so much about getting words on paper as it is working through causal relations for scenes. Essentially, however, what I’m doing in the “dreamzoning” phase is a stream-of-conscious equivalent for a different part of the process.

Yes, the different kinds of writing . . . for me it’s the Post-it outlining stage, the 300-word sentence stage, the getting it on the laptop stage, then tweaking the chronology and lastly, the revision stage. Don’t know why we call it writing. It should just be called ‘re-writing.’

Yes, even for someone like me who prefers to do most of the heavy lifting upfront in an outline, rather than in revisions (when all goes well), the process is still a long procession of tweaking and refining.

“In the artistic life, discipline extends far beyond the desk.” I shall write this above my desk as it is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Working it out may take some time but that doesn’t negate the truth behind it. Thanks for that, Katie.

I’ve been mulling on this concept quite a lot lately. I will be doing posts on in it in the future. Basically, I find myself more and more interested in something I’m currently calling “whole-life art.”

I sometimes deal with this, especially in the summer. I need to be outside in the sun, in the wind, listen to the ocean breaking a block away from me. Being stuck inside is the worst! So I bought a table for the deck, and some chairs. I sit in the sun and write whatever I feel at the moment. It’s nothing that will be published, that’s not the point, it’s just for me. It doesn’t feel like spinning my wheels, and sometimes, something good comes out and moves one of my plots forward. I always have more than one book on the go, because I run myself into plot problems and need to let them stew until they figure themselves out. Mostly, I take time for me, with a long walk through the waves, or sitting and reading a book or a series I love. I get a good tan (and the much-needed Vitamin D I’m chronically short on), and I get some space for whatever I’m needing. We have 9 months of rain here on the Oregon Coast, so those three or four months of sun are precious and much needed. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, but you’re doing it right. Hang in there.

Generally, winter is the more difficult writing season for me. But summer certainly presents its own challenges. Somehow I’m always surprised by how much busier I tend to be in the warmer months.

Personally, I write best when it’s cold and dreary, when I’m stuck inside comforted by the wood stove. I think of everyone reading good books in wintertime – it allows me to envision my reader, to capture her attention. I can edit well in the sublime days of summer, but right now is my planting season and I damn the crocus. (Go Ducks! My alma mater.)

I do like writing by candlelight!

I always find it funny how similar the minds of creative people work. Going through a similar valley myself for a while now, I appreciate someone else speaking the same truths, and especially, coming to similar solutions! Everything in this post hits with me, but especially #5. I don’t know when I realized this as a creative writer, but whenever I did (a few years back), it opened a whole new understanding as how to nurture my subconscious. And the thing is, I felt like I’ve barely scratched the surface. Ugh, I wish I had a fire place ;-p. But yeah, you’re so right. And if I can encourage you any more, just remember that each season or chapter of your life gives you (creative) tools that you don’t even know were instructive. Whatever happens in your personal difficulties, it *will* influence your art for better. I have no doubt about it.

Fire places (and pits) are awesome. But just get a big candle. I found a big three-wick soy candle at TJ Maxx. It does the trick admirably–and with far less mess.

That’s a good idea. We have some candles, guess I should confiscate them under the guise of “writing necessities.”

Just keep them away from the dog. 😉

When getting to the page is the problem, I try to forgive myself. There are so many reasons why writing seems to take last place in life some days. But often I WANT to get to the page, even when life is throwing me curveballs.

When I don’t want to write because I’m fretting over a plot problem, I force myself to sit down. One technique I use to get past the block is to bring another character into the scene I don’t know how to write, typically a know-it-all who tells the other characters what to do. It might be good advice or it might be bad, but whichever it is, the new character acts as a catalyst. Whether the advice is good or bad, the protagonist then responds — he or she may do what the catalyst says to do, or may not, but SOMETHING will happen.

Once something has happened, and the scene is written, then I can edit it. It’s the blank page that’s most frightening.

Similarly, I used to have a list of prompts on the bulletin board by my desk. One was: “Have somebody shoot a gun at somebody else.” I never literally used it, but just glancing at it always got my creative mind going.

WOW! I am impressed. I’m a new subscriber and so this is the first time I’ve been here. The way you have designed this website is great. A moment after I clicked on the email you sent, I was here reading your fact filled blog, with no beating around the bush like some places do. The amount of useful information you have packed into this one article is amazing. I know I’ll have to go back and read it again several times just to absorb everything.

I’m not an author like you in the true sense of the word because I’ve never published anything yet, though I do enjoy playing with words. About four years ago, I completed a short, creative writing course sponsored by the University of Iowa. From three of the assignments, I’ve slowly, yes sadly to say, very gradually, been developing a story. Lately I’ve found that I can’t seem to get back to it, though after having written about 30,000 words, I’d like to see it finished. My tired fingers have punched out about the same number on another tale that’s unrelated to the first one. It too has come to a screeching halt. In my defense, I will admit that for awhile my work occupied every waking moment. I’m hoping some of the ideas presented here will get me going again. If nothing else, you have given me lots to think about.

I wanted to stop in to say ‘HI’ and to let you know I think you are doing a marvelous job here. THANK YOU for sharing some of your experiences with us. It is helpful to learn about how other people that have ‘been there and done that’ have worked their way through similar problems. Your fan club just grew by one because I know, I will be back.

I’m glad you stopped by. Great to hear you found the article useful!

And let me just say that, if you write, you’re a writer. Being published may offer official validation, but we’re all writers long before that happens. 🙂

Hear, hear! Indeed quite so!

When I get to that place that the flow for that day is not starting. I start writing a part that might or might not fall in place in this book. I have to pretend that it will be a part of one of the next scenes. Mostly it will fit in…but it gives me a next point to go to or to go from.

Thinking outside the box is huge in breaking through blocks. Usually, I find it’s not so much about a solution as it is simply rephrasing the problem. One of my favorite approaches is to work backwards. I’ll jump forward to a scene I know about, then start working my way backwards toward another known point, until I’ve filled in the blanks.

I have sometimes found that delays (like writer’s block) are a signal to me that I’m not ready yet for what I am attempting to accomplish. As difficult as it is for me to do it, I step away for a season (of varying lengths) and just wait. Often I will sense a small nudge when it’s time to return to the task. And when I do, usually I discover what was evading me before is now waiting patiently for me to come back and get reacquainted. I once heard Neil Gaiman say that it was ten years from the time he had the idea for The Graveyard Book until he was ready to write it. That is very encouraging to me!

Truth. And I’m considering this for myself at the moment. As much as I love order (and schedules), art and creativity don’t always play by the rules.

For the last few months, I’ve been struggling to find out how to get one sentence on the page, without deleting two. After sitting down to write every single day and only and only ending up with a page of decent writing, I knew that something wasn’t working. I needed to learn how to write fast, and be satisfied with terrible writing the first time around, just to get something on the page. This was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do, but it works, and if I can accomplish this, it will be the greatest writing victory I will ever score.

Hear, hear. Writing fast is one of the best ways to beat perfectionism in the drafting phase. Sometimes, when I’m really struggling with this, I will force myself to write 300 every 15 minutes. This always gets my fingers typing and the words flowing.

I wish I could join you in commiserating about the hard-hard moments, but I never showed up for them. Instead, I just put the stories on the side.

Do any of you face things that need to be done and you realize that you’ve refused to do what needed to be done because your real goals weren’t the service of the story. Like last week, I knew that I needed to put more focus on the danger posed by the antagonist. In order to do that, I had to have these thoughts elbow out the MC’s rhapsodizing crushy feelings for an ally. I wept at the prospect. I was able to do it, this time–I don’t yet know how successfully.

It is like, these people are a lot more to me than figures in a story. So I wonder if it will even be possible for me to persevere until the story happens.

Sounds like you’re faced with “killing some darlings.” This is always hard, but if it’s in the story’s best interest, it can open up a lot of avenues that were previously blocked.

Yes, there are days when writing is harder than usual. Conversely, there are days when it flows easily. Thanks for the roadmap for the tough writing days.

Truth! Nothing beats those days when we’re in the zone.

Thanks for this excellent list of strategies.

I have found some clues to help me overcome one of my current writer blocks: I haven’t been able to write my daily prayer blog for a while, and I am also having trouble keeping to the schedule for my writer blog. I will be praying about how to use your list to get me moving again )i(

So while I have been pushing aside the guilt associated with not fulfilling my promise to myself, I have picked up a pen and started taking notes on real paper. A while ago, I swapped the real ink and paper method for the faster typing of my ideas directly onto the computer page (which also allows me to hit delete because I don’t like what I discover). I chose a journal that was a gift, so ripping out a page is impossible, and each time I start writing a sentence, I feel a sense of privilege because I know that the book was given because the giver knew I want to be an author.

I have also subscribed to lots of reader-writer pages and newsletters, so that I don’t feel so isolated. Nothing beats filling my journal with notes and comments about how other writers deal with the BIG issues.

The one area where my writer’s block isn’t having a catastrophic outcome (ie blank page) is the Romantic Suspense series of novels I am writing. I am privileged to have three manuscripts, in different stages of pre-publication. When I get stalled with manuscript four, I can do some more work for the others. I set up a closed discussion group on facebook with friends who have already demonstrated that they are sensitive to my emotional state and make the appropriate comments that push me back into a more positive frame of mind. To let them know what is going on, I keep them updated with the project, and any other big issues relating to this writing journey. So far, their feedback has been helpful in moving me forward.

From the sounds of that last paragraph, I’d say you’re still being awfully productive for someone experiencing a block. Good for you! 🙂

“1. Just Admit the Writing Is Hard”

This actually works, holy cow! I just said those words to myself and all the tension in my mind just went away.

Hah! That’s awesome. 😀

Thank you for this post! I am actually struggling with an idea I like very much but don’t know how to make compelling enough! And with the tendency I have to over-complicate mi plot *sighs*

If you’re trying to make the story more compelling, take a good hard look at what it is *you* love most about this story. Try to add more of that.

I find that, sometimes, if I just start writing stream of consciousness, writing without thinking about it, whatever pops into my head, at some point in time it will dislodge the boulder that’s in the way and I can go back to thoughtful writing on the story I’m working on. I learned how to do this by reading Jack Kerouac and other “beat generation” writers, plus William Faulkner. I am told this is how these people wrote everything. Stream of consciousness, no revision, just wrap it up and send it to the publisher. I’m not recommending that, but the practice does often work to get the muse unstuck. Then I take the drivel and send it to electron heaven. Certainlywouldn’t want to foist it on anyone else.

Stream of conscious techniques are excellent ways of tapping the subconscious creativity. This is basically what I’m talking about (sans the actual writing of sentences) when I’m “dreamzoning.”

Wonderful and timely article. LOVED it. I read through my outline and take notes. Right now I am struggling with the sequence for ACT2b. I know what should be there, I know what my ending is. I am struggling with what organically should be in this sequence without cliche stuff. I also write the Cliche stuff and then Mind map how to make it non-cliche. And then there are times where I call it out and say I am resisting writing. Once I say that, then I become determined to overcome the resistance. A great book on that is The War On Art by Steven Pressfield. Once I recognize the resistance, I pull out my outline notes and just read and before I know it I am working on my story again and breaking through the Plot Block and the resistance.

One thing I like to do in situations like this is ask myself two questions: What will the readers expect to happen here? And-What won’t they expect?

I’ll write lists of answers for both questions and usually somewhere in there I’ll find a unique solution.

I have hit this several times since taking up writing more seriously a few years ago. Like you said, sometimes it’s just “plot block”. but for me, many times it’s actually something else that is sucking me dry (parenting, homeschooling, commitments to friends or other groups), leaving me feeling like I have nothing left to create with. I’ve tried a lot of things, but consistently I find that planning ahead in everyday life (meal planning, making a double batch of food, ordering things from amazon rather than running to the store) and taking the time to do the little things I enjoy (getting a nice smelling bar of soap, starting a fire, or enjoying a new kind of tea) help me to feel a little more relaxed and ready to try. maybe the words will be few, maybe they will be awful. but overall I will feel better when I start trying and will feel better when I end because I tried.

“I will feel better when I start trying and will feel better when I end because I tried.”

Love this. Sometimes even just making the time to write a sentence makes the day better. And one sentence often leads to two…

Another great article, KM!

I just got out of a long writer’s “funk” a couple days back, but I know these tips will prove useful in the future when I get stuck again.

This time, for me, it was mostly about distractions – shiny object syndrome, which feeds my self-proclaimed “useful procrastination.” It’s so easy to give in to chasing after a tool or skill that at the time seems to offer exactly what I think I need to move on, scale up, or just plain improve momentously. There’s always something, and they almost never deliver the injection of super-mojo I was hoping for. In some ways this is the curse of the internet – TMGP (too many green pastures).

At any rate, I got some life-changing news recently and it made me reevaluate all this arm-flapping activity. I realize now that, while some of that stuff is important to follow up on (there is good stuff to be learned), it is not as important as doing the hardest and most rewarding work I’ve ever known: writing.

Here’s hoping you come out of your current “funk” with colors flying and your hair on fire! KC

Glad to hear you made it to the other side!

This post came at just the right time for me! My main character is in prison and some fellow prisoners are working with him to escape. He then chooses not to escape but the escaped prisoners see him as a friend and ally. I have been stuck on this for days! I have bought your book on writer’s block (a very fair price). And being rewarded with a solution following your ‘what if’ scenario which came to me as I was writing this. It’s blindingly obvious really. He does escape but then he is caught and put back into prison. Yes! Yes! Thank you

That’s great! The “what if” exercises is one of my all-time favorites.

Hi. I was interested with the fact that your problems are arising from the fact that your current WIP is the last in a series. This is exactly tha situation that I am in. The first two books are ready to self publish but I don’t want to do that until I’ve got a fair idea of how Book 3 will pan out. There’s plenty of foreshadowing in the first two books that I can use (or not), but they are all looking a tad contrived as I’ve been thinking about them for so long. And then there’s the self-inflicted time pressure to finish it that I’ve put on myself!

Yes, as I’m discovering, writing sequels is a whole new ballgame. Usually, when I finish a book, I’m able to put it and its problems aside for a while as I move on to outlining the next one. But not so with this one! The problems came right along with me. 😉

This podcast confirmed what I’ve been going through with writer’s block. Life hits and we need to be settled again. Thank you for your insights.

Sorry to hear that. Here’s to all of us moving forward!

My problem is usually motivation. I’ll get as far as sitting in front of the keyboard and will start typing. But then whatever I type seems wrong and I can’t figure out what it is. I end up walking away from the keyboard.

The solution I use when facing this problem is writing in timed bursts. I tell myself I have to write 300 words in 15 minutes. Once I get going, I’m almost always surprised that what writing isn’t that bad after all.

Where does self-doubt fall under types of writer’s block? Does it have the same cures, or different? To me it feels like a different beast, but maybe not!

Yeah, self-doubt is a huge factor in blocks. I go through (at least) one bout of impostor’s syndrome with every book I write. That’s part of my “cocktail of convergences” right now, actually. :p The only solution I know of is to ignore the nay-saying inner voice and just keep moving forward.

I decided that since I was still waking up at the same time (cats 😂) but going in to work later, I should schedule that extra time for writing, or at least thinking about what I need to write. Haven’t got perfect with that – I’m very distractible. But it’s helped me realize that the problem I was having was that my story’s premise didn’t fit the main character. I’m rethinking the premise. Haven’t done any more actual writing yet, but starting to understand what I need to write once I’m ready.

Good for you. I’m all about hacking life.

Thank you so much for writing this! It has really shed some light on why writing has been so hard for me lately, and what I can do about it. You rock, K.M.!

That’s great. We’re all going to conquer this together. 🙂

I’m currently writing and finding that my words just don’t sound the way I want them to. I’ve set a small daily word count that so far I’m on track with but I think that I’m going to have to go back and rewrite it to the style and sound that I’d like. But as the saying goes, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

Truer words never written. Perfectionism is often a chief cause of writer’s block.

Thanks for this post! I can relay on that 🙂

I find myself with the hard, hard writer’s block over a month now, and it still doesn’t works. I know, what I want to write. I think I know enough about the outline. I found a good beginning a few days ago, but the flow just don’t want to come. The thing is, sometimes I prefer dreamzoning instead of real writing, and the problem with that is, that you could get addicted to it. On the other hand, if you don’t write… then what sense does it have? My main characters are surprisingly cooperative. Too cooperative. This may sound strange to some people, but though it’s annoying if the characters don’t want to go along with my definer outline, I get easier into that writing flow when they aren’t.

I will try a new writing routine next week, that includes more less, but hopefully more focused and productive writing. I’m also up to resolve the biggest problem in my life outside writing, so I hope I can start writing regulary at the end of next month. Or earlier.

Again, thanks for the post, I think it helps me to be more efficient in trying to accomplish my goal and, therefore: Solving that damn writer’s block problem 😀

Creativity is messy, and that’s just part of the deal. But I’m a fan of efficiency. It never fails to help me. Best of luck!

Hey, KM, you mentioned in an article a few weeks that you researched keywords for Wayfarer. I’ve a reference to that elsewhere, but I don’t know where to look or research. Do you have any tips? Thanks

I used KDP Rocket . I’m planning to do a review and more in-depth post about it in a few months.

I come to writing novels after having first written screenplays, only to discover how much more difficult it is to write a novel than a screenplay. A screenplay is a kind of blueprint for a movie. The emphasis is on clear direction to the actors and director, and snappy dialogue. Flowery descriptions don’t work as screen direction, so the whole game is a concise capturing of dialogue and actions.

One technique in writing for the screen that may be helpful to novel writers derives from this more simplified structure. In “Television and Screen Writing From Concept to Contract” by Richard A. Blum, Mr. Blum suggests the idea of a step-outline, which is a very simple numerical listing of the events of the story, usually in chronological order, including snippets of dialogue. I bought this book when I experienced another form of writer’s block; I sat down to write a screenplay and realized I had no idea how to write a screenplay.

I have found writing these outlines are so free from critical concerns about structure that they devolve into a brainstorming effort where the creative side of the brain is completely free. I wrote these outlines longhand with a glass of wine while at some relatively quiet tavern, or while on vacation on a boat somewhere. I am the type that is typically alone in crowd, which is a little better for me than being alone in my room.

I found at times I would have to rearrange events and make other revisions when writing the script, but this technique definitely helped sketch out the overall flow of the story. Moving to a novel from the script involved a lot of decisions about POV and such that I never considered, and the excruciatingly painful search for different and interesting ways to say things like “walked” and “looked”. In screen direction, actors typically walk and look, rather than “saunter” or “peruse.” Novel descriptions may actually confuse actors, especially those with lighter hair. Oh, snap! I didn’t just say that!

Once I had the step outline worked out, the script was just “scribbling and bibbling,” as Mozart said in Amadeus. Getting a novel is trickier from the step outline, but you will have the ammunition for completing a more formal outline, and the confidence that you have the backbone of the story worked out.

Anyway, if anyone gets stuck, this simple technique might help. If you are stuck trying to figure out how to tie details together, it might help to step back and focus on the simple steps that make a story, then work the details in later. Don’t worry so much about what the story “needs” and focus on sketching how the dominoes fail, and let them fall where they may. You can always pick them up and rearrange them later.

Bit of a late commenter, but just wanted to say I really appreciated this post. Ever since self-publishing my first novel back in December of 2016 (which is also when I found out I was expecting my first child), I’ve been battling the “hard-hard” blocks almost consistently. I had to come to peace with the fact that my life was changing in a seriously HUGE way, and that I needed to give myself time and space to process and do what was best for myself first.

I still haven’t found my writing flow…and here I am, now with 2 kids and a third on the way. I’m not sure I will ever write as much as I used to, but there is a flame of passion in me that refuses to go out. So I will keep journaling (as that’s about the only writing I’m consistently able to do) and let my story ideas keep percolating.

There are moments here and there where I have a few ideas ready to put on paper for safe keeping, and I relish those moments. But to your point of taking care of yourself FIRST, that is truly essential to the process. I just have to trust that I WILL write again, and not guilt myself for putting myself and my growing family as top priority, for however long it needs to be that way.

I’m a writer who deals with recurring depression and I often forget how important and legitimate self-care is. Some days are just not going to be writing days. Some days, I need to re-charge my brain with yoga or a long walk or even a nostalgic marathon of a favorite kids’ TV show. I’m often surprised by the ideas I get while doing seemingly unproductive tasks.

My case of plotter’s block right now consists of me being unsure of which story I should ACTUALLY be working on right now. I’ve been dabbling on The Woodsman lately, and have multiple scenes written out. I even have some of the ending written!

But then I was thinking of Arrows today…and argh, I just have a hard time focusing in general!

Of course, I could try to get up early before work to write…but I’m sort of a night owl, so I never end up in bed on time to do that.

Something I should work on the next few months…

I’ve taken the plunge to choose an editor for my manuscript. I found it always hard to take time out to rest and recuperate but I did. I gave myself permission. We’d had a horrific time of a family member’s illness over Christmas so it was encouraging to know that I could take the pressure off. I didn’t write for weeks knowing that the assessment was coming and I’d be rested. Gave myself guilt-free time off to do other things and as you said, fill up the well. Movies, books, people, keep my fitness up. Now I’m reading the report, fresher and looking forward to tackling the issues. It’s not going to be easy as I have to move plot points and do a lot of fixing work. Thank you for your input. It’s very helpful.

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9 Writers on Why Writing Is So Hard

Best-selling authors talk to Shondaland about what makes their craft so difficult and special.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Shondaland editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

There are few things as magical as reading a book that fully immerses you in a new world. Poetic and profound prose can evoke emotions that can remain with you for your entire life, transforming how you see the world. With that in mind, this month, Shondaland is exploring the world of books, from authors discussing their favorite reads and a publisher explaining the need for more transparency in the industry to a nearly published author sharing what it’s like to be on the brink of putting her first book out into the world. Happy reading!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “If writing were easy, everyone would do it!” You’ve likely read it a million times, right? Well, there’s a reason for that. You see, everybody has a story to tell. But it’s the actual telling of those stories that separates writers from everyone else yearning to share their tales. That being said, even the most seasoned and celebrated writers will quickly let you know that writing is just downright hard!

So, what is it that actually makes putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) so daunting, and how do you combat that difficulty when trying to write your story? Shondaland caught up with some of our favorite authors to find out. And what they have to say just might surprise you.

Why is writing so hard?

The solitariness of it, the elusiveness of it. If forced, we could generate words, sentences, paragraphs, but it would be meaningless. So, the thing that makes it a story, the words that etch out a character that the reader can see and feel and hear … there’s plenty of tricks to get there. You can create the conditions for that element to come forward, and do what you can to push yourself into that state that makes it happen … but part of it remains mysterious.

Alex Aster (author of Curse of the Forgotten City ) @alex.aster

Writing is so hard because we put so many expectations on our writing, and those expectations weigh down not only our fingers while typing, but also our words. I started writing books when I was 12, which I think saved me from a lot of the fretting about writing that I see so many people struggle with. When you’re a kid, you do what you love just because you love it. You don’t think to yourself, “Will these words be worth the time and effort? Will they turn into a book that will sell for enough money to allow me to pay my rent?” You just … write. As an adult, there are so many constraints on our time, so it’s natural for us not to want to waste it. We don’t have time to simply play the way we used to. Writing is hard because it’s a fluid, organic, almost magical form of creation that we often try so hard to bottle up or cookie-cut so it can be monetized.

Brandy Colbert (author of Black Birds in the Sky ) @brandycolbert

For me, not writing is often harder than writing. I don’t believe you need to write every day, but when I’m in the middle of a project, I either need to be actively thinking about it — working out plots and character arcs in my head — or getting words down on the page. I start to feel antsy and a bit anxious when I’ve taken too much time away from a project, to the point where it’s actually a relief to get back to work.

Sarah Gerard (author of True Love ) @sarahnumber4

It can be hard. It can also be easy and fun. Or fun and hard. Or hard but important, exciting, and fulfilling. We wouldn’t keep doing it otherwise. It’s hard because doing it well matters, because stories matter, and the details matter, and there are often a lot of details. Sometimes they take years to organize. The feelings and ideas and memories that we put into the writing also matter, and are layered, and we can’t force an understanding of them. We can only try to approach them with words, and, as many words as there are to choose from, or create, and despite their myriad iterations, they’re never enough.

John Green (author of The Anthropocene Reviewed ) @johngreen

I think writing is easier than many other things. For me, anyway, it is much easier than talking. But still, writing is difficult for me. Sometimes it is difficult because I do not know what I want to say, but usually it is difficult because I know exactly what I want to say but what I want to say has not yet taken the shape of language. When I’m writing, I’m trying to translate ideas and feelings and wild abstractions into language, and that translation is complicated and challenging work. (But it is also — in moments, anyway — fun.)

Kosoko Jackson (author of Yesterday Is History ) @kosokojackson

For me, the hardest part of writing is deciding what to write about. I have a lot of ideas, but not every idea is a viable idea. Is there a character? Is there a plot? Is there a through line? Is this something I want to spend 18 to 36 months on? Do I know enough to walk through the forest, but not so much that it feels boring to tell the story to myself? Writing is a journey for me that is as much writing a story that will appeal to readers (and my agent and editor) as much as telling a story to myself. What “lesson” am I trying to teach myself? What skill am I trying to sharpen? These are just a few of the questions I ask myself when making a novel, and not every novel has the answers — yet.

Morgan Jerkins (author of Caul Baby ) @morganjerkins

Writing is hard because sometimes — or perhaps many times — the words do not match the imagery of a specific scene that you have in your mind. It feels like there is always something that’s lost in translation as soon as it’s immortalized on the page.

Jonny Sun (author of Goodbye, Again ) @jonnysun

Writing is hard because you are dealing with the infinite. Out of a blank page, there is an unlimited number of possibilities of what to write. And at every scale of writing, this limitlessness exists — it feels like every word is an impossible choice. Every sentence can be written in endless different ways. And the ways those build to say something also exist in a million different permutations. The ideas and the way you structure those ideas are endless — the endlessness multiplies itself.

Chuck Wendig (author of The Book of Accidents ) @chuckwendig

I don’t know. Why is it hard digging ditches? Why is it hard being a god? Writing is somewhere in between both of those. You’re the god of digging ditches. You’re navigating this interstitial terrain between art and craft, between self-actualization and commerce, between empathy and evil. It has all these rules, and almost none of them are true. The work is the work, and the work is sometimes hard. It’s supposed to be easy, and some days it is — ironically, the easy days don’t mean the work was good, and the hard days don’t mean the work was bad. The short answer is, again, I don’t know. Maybe it’s hard because it needs to be hard, because if it were too easy, it wouldn’t really matter.

What do you do when writing gets most difficult?

Megan Abbott (author of The Turnout ) @meganeabbott

Go to a matinee. Take a walk. Read a writer I love. Main thing for me: Step away from the computer.

When writing gets really difficult, I stop writing. But just for a few hours. When words are hard to wrangle, I don’t try to force them onto the page. I have tried before, and the result was just more food for my computer’s trash bin! That being said, when I’m on deadline, I treat writing like any other job that has to be done, regardless of my mood. So, I’ll take a walk, reread something I’ve written that I particularly like (almost to show myself, see, you can make something good; you’ve done it before! ), or watch a movie. Once I’m out of the writing chair for a while, I’m often itching to get back in it to try again.

I do write every day when I’m on a tight deadline, and some days it takes hours just to squeeze out a few words. Sometimes I have to power through and remind myself I can fix whatever is not working in edits, either the next day or down the road. But it’s also important to realize when you need breaks. I’m a big fan of taking in other forms of storytelling, like watching television and films, reading graphic novels, newspapers, and magazines, or even rereading a favorite author’s work. Getting outside for some fresh air or a walk or hike usually helps. Cooking and yoga are also soothing ways for me to reset. Just engaging in activities that don’t require you to stare at a computer screen or notebook are all helpful.

Look at one piece of it at a time, rather than trying to apprehend the entire project. Alternatively, take 10 steps back and apprehend the entire project. Look at a different piece of it. Look at a different piece of writing altogether. Make dinner. Read. Hang out with my partner.

I get so frustrated. I cry. I take a walk. I get really angry at myself for being such a terrible writer. This is stupid! Why am I even attempting this when I am so hopelessly inept at storytelling? And then eventually, I get over myself and write. If there is a way to write without at least occasional weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have not yet found it.

I try to take a step back and evaluate “Is the issue I’m facing difficult or something that I truly don’t know how to solve?” If it’s the former, then that means I’m learning, and I’ve learned to be comfortable in the discomfort and trust my skills. If it’s the latter, then there’s something missing. Maybe I’m not at the skill level I need to be. Maybe I need to read more in the genre or more examples of what I’m trying to accomplish. Writing is as much pen-to-paper as it is refilling the well and learning from those who came before you.

I like to tell myself that it’s only a draft. I have to build a foundation first no matter how bad it is because it’s not meant to be perfect. Other times, I take breaks in between writing sessions. It may be a day, or four. I also have been okay with knowing that not every writing session is going to be easy. There are good days and bad days.

I try to establish rules and boundaries so that the limitlessness feels like a puzzle. Instead of a blank everythingness, defining a container helps to figure out how to use those bounds to express things that feel outside of those bounds, and also helps to figure out when I can break those rules for specific purposes. I also — when faced with indecision — just try to write the bad version, and then revisit later. It’s always easier to edit and have something in front of you that you can improve as opposed to coming up with something when nothing is in front of you.

It depends on when, and why, it’s difficult. If it’s difficult toward the end of a writing day, I give up and go do something else for the day. If it’s at the start, I try to push through. Sometimes it’s a problem in the work, sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s, I dunno, a Thursday on a full moon with a high pollen count. Sometimes the thing to do is go take a walk, get the blood moving. The blood carries oxygen, and the brain needs oxygen, so churn that red stuff, get the idea bubbles bubblin’.

Do you have any advice for fellow writers struggling with their work?

Write badly. Give yourself permission to write badly. We’re always trying so hard to make it good, vivid, real, faithful to the vision in our head … and that’s a lot of pressure. If we give ourselves permission to write one bad page, two bad pages, we can forget all the rest and just churn out words, ideas … and, in the best circumstances, get to see that beautiful unconscious place that leads to good stuff!

The times when writing is most difficult is when I don’t have a plan. Anyone is going to look at an empty page and think, what am I supposed to do to fill it?! So, I recommend always working with some sort of outline. Some might believe it takes the magic out of writing, but what it really does is just gives a writer a place to start … and a direction to go when they’re a little lost. Almost like a map.

I also recommend writing for yourself first. When I began writing at 12, I was just writing the type of book that I wanted to read. Pretend you’re the only one who will ever read it. At least in the drafting stages. That way, you won’t be afraid to take risks.

I think writers could stop being so hard on themselves — myself included. It’s irrational but easy to compare works in progress to finished books on our shelves, and it helps to remember that no piece of writing comes out fully formed. And that every project is different, so it’s best to go into it without expectations and know that you might have to figure out new ways to shape the piece into what you want it to be.

Talk to other writers about it. Meditate on what brings you to the work in the first place, what is important to you at the core of it.

Try to be nice to yourself!

Your journey won’t match anyone else’s, and you should embrace that. Find what works for you and what doesn’t, but don’t be ashamed. I’m a writer who bounces around a lot, but when I settle? I settle. I write so many hundreds of pages of books that will never become real. That’s okay because that’s me. I’m also a messy drafter; that works for me. Don’t be ashamed of what works for you, and embrace what makes you unique.

Write it down. Just write it all down. Set the foundation first before you start sculpting. Who knows? Even the pieces you inevitably discard may help to propel the next plot point or character development. All can be useful if you allow it.

Figure out what you enjoy writing about and the ways you write that make you enjoy writing. It’s less about “write what you know” but more “write what you know you like.” So much is already difficult in this world — it doesn’t help to also make writing something a struggle too. I think it helps to find the topics and structures and ideas that make writing feel exciting and joyful — the writing will still be hard, of course, but if there’s something there that makes you keep wanting to revisit it, over and over, that you still feel excited about trying to figure out, then I feel like that means you’ve found something to continue following.

Write a lot. That’s it, really. Iterate as often as you can. Part of this is, obviously, doing the thing helps you learn the thing, but more specifically it also helps you learn your process and your voice, and in knowing those things, you come to recognize when a difficult writing day is normal — meaning, it’s part of your process, your pattern — and when it is abnormal. Abnormal difficulty can mean you’re not dealing with a writing problem, but rather anxiety or depression or some other neurodivergence, and those are normal and okay but can’t be solved the same way you’d solve an average writing block — you can’t “write your way through” depression. You’ll only sink deeper, like with quicksand. You have to be able to see clearly the difficulties in front of you and see when they belong to your writing process or exist outside of it. Writing a lot helps you get to that kind of clarity.

Scott Neumyer is a writer from central New Jersey whose work has been published by The New York Times , The Washington Post , Rolling Stone , The Wall Street Journal , ESPN , GQ , Esquire , Parade magazine , and many other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @ scottneumyer .

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Why Is It So Hard to Start Writing? 6 Tips to Get Over the Fear and Just Write

Aug 2, 2022

Which, when I say it all direct and straight up like that, may sound a little snowflakish . 

As in get over yourself, you dainty easily umbraged petulant person. It’s just words on a page. 

If only the buck-up buttercup approach worked. 

To be sure, it can–short-term but long-term? You’ll chafe your soul until it refuses to do much of anything except encouraging you to cram more and more heavily buttered popcorn into your piehole while watching  Inventing Anna and mimic her terrible yet oddly compelling accent. 

Could be fun but it’s not writing.

But wise and sage-like Jen, why is it so hard to start writing?

Because your resource-intensive gray matter–aka the 3 pounds of your brain–has zero interest in wasting calories on something that A) doesn’t keep it alive and B) doesn’t spread your genes.

(We could argue with your brain that writing can make you a lot of money that you could spend on food, and people could fall at your feet because you’re such a brilliant writer which could hypothetically spread your genes but your gray matter cares about now , not the future. Silly gray matter.)

Thus, grasshopper, you must learn to trick your brain to make it easier to get started writing.

How precisely do you do that? Oh, be still my writing coach’s heart while I reveal the secrets to the writing bliss. Or if not bliss, then getting started writing.

How To Start Writing Most Especially When You’re Scared to Start Writing 

1. nothing can eat you.

✍️ Believe it or not, that pesky gray matter thinks writing can kill you. Like a tiger!

✍️ Put your hand on your heart, take in a full breath, pause, sip a tiny bit more, exhale out of your mouth with the rudest sound you can muster. Ahhh….

✍️ Remind yourself, “Nothing can eat me. I’m not in any danger if I tell this story, express this idea, fumble around with words for 15 minutes.” 

✍️ For more about teaching your brain a new trick, listen to this .

2. Shrink time when you’re scared to start writing (or anytime) 

✍️ Have you ever gone on a writing retreat and suddenly been like “holy moly, I’m supposed to write all day ? But the longest I’ve written in the last year is a Facebook post.” Cue a long nap.

✍️ This is why I start my writing retreats, online and in-person, with shorter writing times, and gradually extend to build up your stamina. Genius!

✍️ Do the same for yourself. Start writing for 5 minutes. But here’s my magic trick: stop at the end of that 5 minutes time! That’s a hard stop friend. 

✍️ This leaves creative desire in your tank. You can write 5 more minutes in a bit or tomorrow but not right/write away.

✍️ Work your way up to writing for longer periods of time if you want . You never have to if you don’t want to. You can write a book a half-hour a day. I have.

3. Forge a creative cave to make it easier to start writing 

✍️ Your brain craves flow. Flow makes it easier to write and harder to be scared to start writing. 

✍️ Flow is not a brain state you can create on deman but you can create conditions in which a flow state is more likely to unfold. 

✍️ Multitasking is the #1 enemy of flow. That includes news alerts, incoming email dings, visual clutter (face a wall so you can’t see the clutter), noise (noise-canceling earphones are a writer’s best friend), and lots of beckoning open tabs.

✍️ Your phone has to be out of sight .

✍️ Shut it all down when you sit down to get started writing. Make it a ritual.  

4.  Delete shoulds and forever decisions 

✍️ I just got off the phone with a writing client who was scared to start writing because she thought if she picked one genre, that was it for the rest of her natural born life. Where do we get these ideas? You can write in as many genres as you want but you have to pick one at a time .

✍️ I asked her to tell me “what’s fresh for you now?” (one of my favorite writing coaching questions) and we worked through the shoulds cluttering her brain, got to a fresh idea in about 3 minutes for a personal essay, and then we brainstormed what her hook would be. Pow.

5.  Screw order

✍️ The way you learned to write in school likely makes you scared to start writing. It was all about focusing on the finishing product and getting a decent grade. You were supposed to sit down and churn out a reasonably cogent piece of writing. 

✍️ With transitions! And logical order! And if you have a brain like mine, a logical order is hard as my daughter’s head (she’s a double Taurus, you get me?).

✍️ Instead start with a cluster map or a quick list of things you want to include or explore. 

✍️ Then write in chunks with no transitions and don’t worry about the order of said chunks. Let it be messy and out of sequence. 

From the national best-selling author of The Woman’s Comfort Book and Why Bother.

5 ways to start your non-fiction book.

You can write your book faster, easier, and better.

I’ve written 9 books with about a million copies sold.

I’m not one of those creepy people who make it hard to unsubscribe or email you again nine years after you’ve unsubscribed. Giving me your email is like a coffee date, not a marriage proposal.

  6. Write all the way to the end even when you are scared to start writing 

✍️ It is a terrible idea to get three messy paragraphs on the page and then go back and edit.

✍️ As hard as it is, keep going until you reach some kind of end.

✍️ Read what you wrote OUT LOUD while looking for your point.

✍️ Chuck Wendig says “Every story is you saying something… every story is you making a case for something …You’re trying to say that love is everything. Or love is hopeless. Or that nature will defeat man. Or man will defeat himself. Or bees will defeat bears. Or robots are fucking awesome. I DUNNO MAN, I’M NOT YOU. Have a point of view . Have a perspective.”

✍️ Find one point in what you wrote (I am repeating myself because nobody wants to do this part but it’s KEY).

✍️ You are allowed to have a say, a voice, an opinion without being an expert, having a tidy conclusion, or being free of self-doubt.

✍️ In fact, being the expert without self-doubt and having lots of tidy conclusions is basically being Dr. Oz and that would be very, very frightening and sad. And you’d have to eat a lot of green coffee beans. Ew.

7. Write what you want  

✍️ Shoulds, smart ideas that you think will sell, writing the stories everybody else thinks you should write, writing in a genre you don’t read or respect… stop wasting your time.

✍️ Some writing teachers say “write what you want to read” and I like that but I also love to read fantasy and suck at world-building.

✍️ Thus wise Jen says, “write what you want to read and that’s a fit for you.”

✍️ You might like my conversation with Susan Shapiro, author of the Book Bible , on finding your genre . 

8. Every writer is scared to start writing

✍️ When I talked to extremely-best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd , she said “…when I was writing The Secret Life of Bees , I was so stymied about the whole thing, how do I start? Where do I start? I would sit and stare at the computer and the tension builds up inside me. I’ve heard a lot of people say to me, ‘Oh, I must not be a writer, because I can’t sit there and think up things to put on the page’ and I always say, ‘sounds like you are a writer to me!’”

✍️ I’ve written 9 books and hundreds of thousands of words for other stuff, like this blog/newsletter, and every time I start, it’s as if I never wrote anything before.

✍️ Join our exclusive writer’s club and start writing whether you’re scared or don’t know what to say. Because we don’t either! 

9. Don’t start at the beginning

✍️ Maybe the most important advice.

✍️ Write the end. Write the middle. Write 5 things out of order that you know might belong. Write the dialogue only. Write the trouble and what happens. Write the most juicy bit.

✍️ You can write the actual beginning later.  Much later.

How To Start Writing for Beginners

But Jen, all of that sounds like I would have to first know I AM a writer and know what I want to write about but I don’t. I’m a total beginner. 

No, you aren’t.  

You’ve spent thousands of hours writing–school papers, emails, thank you notes (you write those don’t you?) texts, social media posts, grant or project proposals, and who knows what else. 

1. Consider all the writing you have done in your life.

Whew! See, you are not a beginner. 

You might be a beginner at writing for a particular reader in a particular genre or writing for a particular goal or outcome, or you might be a beginner writer when it comes to studying a certain aspect of the writing craft.

How fucking exciting. It reminds me of when I went to university at 17 and discovered foreign films (and cheap French wine but that’s another story.) A whole new world.

Be more excited at all that you are about to discover than where you think you should already be or know. 

2. Love your beginner’s mind. 

Then use all the ideas above. 

3. Your Writing Won’t Look Like You Think it Should

Yes, some people write beautiful sentences and their first drafts come out polished and looking like Jennifer Garner’s teeth but for the rest of us mere mortals, our first efforts are more like Steve Buscemi’s choppers.

If you first allow something, anything, that interests you, that you are even vaguely curious about, to slither and plop and dribble and plonk onto the page, you can do anything with it. 

If you judge what comes before it can even show its squashed little being, you will not only be scared to start writing, you will never start.

Remember my friend, everything you have ever read has been rewritten and edited, often dozens of times. Or more. 

4. Now Go Forth and Write for 5 Minutes

And if you need more help, check out Let Your Writing Be Easier, a bountiful highly affordable audio collection of writing insights, practices, and pep talks. Get on-demand crackerjack good help for making starting writing and writing more regularly as pleasurable as watching Ryan Gosling do just about anything.

Are you on the advance list for Taos and my new programs Start Your Book, Find your Hook and Finish Your Book, Find Your Reader ? Seats will go fast.

Writing Anxiety

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses the situational nature of writer’s block and other writing anxiety and suggests things you can try to feel more confident and optimistic about yourself as a writer.

What are writing anxiety and writer’s block?

“Writing anxiety” and “writer’s block” are informal terms for a wide variety of apprehensive and pessimistic feelings about writing. These feelings may not be pervasive in a person’s writing life. For example, you might feel perfectly fine writing a biology lab report but apprehensive about writing a paper on a novel. You may confidently tackle a paper about the sociology of gender but delete and start over twenty times when composing an email to a cute classmate to suggest a coffee date. In other words, writing anxiety and writers’ block are situational (Hjortshoj 7). These terms do NOT describe psychological attributes. People aren’t born anxious writers; rather, they become anxious or blocked through negative or difficult experiences with writing.

When do these negative feelings arise?

Although there is a great deal of variation among individuals, there are also some common experiences that writers in general find stressful.

For example, you may struggle when you are:

• adjusting to a new form of writing—for example, first year college writing, papers in a new field of study, or longer forms than you are used to (a long research paper, a senior thesis, a master’s thesis, a dissertation) (Hjortshoj 56-76).
• writing for a reader or readers who have been overly critical or demanding in the past.
• remembering negative criticism received in the past—even if the reader who criticized your work won’t be reading your writing this time.
• working with limited time or with a lot of unstructured time.
• responding to an assignment that seems unrelated to academic or life goals.
• dealing with troubling events outside of school.

What are some strategies for handling these feelings?

Get support.

Choose a writing buddy, someone you trust to encourage you in your writing life. Your writing buddy might be a friend or family member, a classmate, a teacher, a colleague, or a Writing Center tutor. Talk to your writing buddy about your ideas, your writing process, your worries, and your successes. Share pieces of your writing. Make checking in with your writing buddy a regular part of your schedule. When you share pieces of writing with your buddy, use our handout on asking for feedback .

In his book Understanding Writing Blocks, Keith Hjortshoj describes how isolation can harm writers, particularly students who are working on long projects not connected with coursework (134-135). He suggests that in addition to connecting with supportive individuals, such students can benefit from forming or joining a writing group, which functions in much the same way as a writing buddy. A group can provide readers, deadlines, support, praise, and constructive criticism. For help starting one, see our handout about writing groups .

Identify your strengths

Often, writers who are experiencing block or anxiety have a worse opinion of their own writing than anyone else! Make a list of the things you do well. You might ask a friend or colleague to help you generate such a list. Here are some possibilities to get you started:

• I explain things well to people.
• I get people’s interest.
• I have strong opinions.
• I listen well.
• I am critical of what I read.
• I see connections.

Choose at least one strength as your starting point. Instead of saying “I can’t write,” say “I am a writer who can …”

Recognize that writing is a complex process

Writing is an attempt to fix meaning on the page, but you know, and your readers know, that there is always more to be said on a topic. The best writers can do is to contribute what they know and feel about a topic at a particular point in time.

Writers often seek “flow,” which usually entails some sort of breakthrough followed by a beautifully coherent outpouring of knowledge. Flow is both a possibility—most people experience it at some point in their writing lives—and a myth. Inevitably, if you write over a long period of time and for many different situations, you will encounter obstacles. As Hjortshoj explains, obstacles are particularly common during times of transition—transitions to new writing roles or to new kinds of writing.

Think of yourself as an apprentice.

If block or apprehension is new for you, take time to understand the situations you are writing in. In particular, try to figure out what has changed in your writing life. Here are some possibilities:

• You are writing in a new format.
• You are writing longer papers than before.
• You are writing for new audiences.
• You are writing about new subject matter.
• You are turning in writing from different stages of the writing process—for example, planning stages or early drafts.

It makes sense to have trouble when dealing with a situation for the first time. It’s also likely that when you confront these new situations, you will learn and grow. Writing in new situations can be rewarding. Not every format or audience will be right for you, but you won’t know which ones might be right until you try them. Think of new writing situations as apprenticeships. When you’re doing a new kind of writing, learn as much as you can about it, gain as many skills in that area as you can, and when you finish the apprenticeship, decide which of the skills you learned will serve you well later on. You might be surprised.

Below are some suggestions for how to learn about new kinds of writing:

• Ask a lot of questions of people who are more experienced with this kind of writing. Here are some of the questions you might ask: What’s the purpose of this kind of writing? Who’s the audience? What are the most important elements to include? What’s not as important? How do you get started? How do you know when what you’ve written is good enough? How did you learn to write this way?
• Ask a lot of questions of the person who assigned you a piece of writing. If you have a paper, the best place to start is with the written assignment itself. For help with this, see our handout on understanding assignments .
• Look for examples of this kind of writing. (You can ask your instructor for a recommended example). Look, especially, for variation. There are often many different ways to write within a particular form. Look for ways that feel familiar to you, approaches that you like. You might want to look for published models or, if this seems too intimidating, look at your classmates’ writing. In either case, ask yourself questions about what these writers are doing, and take notes. How does the writer begin and end? In what order does the writer tell things? How and when does the writer convey their main point? How does the writer bring in other people’s ideas? What is the writer’s purpose? How is that purpose achieved?
• Read our handouts about how to write in specific fields or how to handle specific writing assignments.
• Listen critically to your readers. Before you dismiss or wholeheartedly accept what they say, try to understand them. If a reader has given you written comments, ask yourself questions to figure out the reader’s experience of your paper: What is this reader looking for? What am I doing that satisfies this reader? In what ways is this reader still unsatisfied? If you can’t answer these questions from the reader’s comments, then talk to the reader, or ask someone else to help you interpret the comments.
• Most importantly, don’t try to do everything at once. Start with reasonable expectations. You can’t write like an expert your first time out. Nobody does! Use the criticism you get.

Once you understand what readers want, you are in a better position to decide what to do with their criticisms. There are two extreme possibilities—dismissing the criticisms and accepting them all—but there is also a lot of middle ground. Figure out which criticisms are consistent with your own purposes, and do the hard work of engaging with them. Again, don’t expect an overnight turn-around; recognize that changing writing habits is a process and that papers are steps in the process.

Chances are that at some point in your writing life you will encounter readers who seem to dislike, disagree with, or miss the point of your work. Figuring out what to do with criticism from such readers is an important part of a writer’s growth.

Try new tactics when you get stuck

Often, writing blocks occur at particular stages of the writing process. The writing process is cyclical and variable. For different writers, the process may include reading, brainstorming, drafting, getting feedback, revising, and editing. These stages do not always happen in this order, and once a writer has been through a particular stage, chances are they haven’t seen the last of that stage. For example, brainstorming may occur all along the way.

Figure out what your writing process looks like and whether there’s a particular stage where you tend to get stuck. Perhaps you love researching and taking notes on what you read, and you have a hard time moving from that work to getting started on your own first draft. Or once you have a draft, it seems set in stone and even though readers are asking you questions and making suggestions, you don’t know how to go back in and change it. Or just the opposite may be true; you revise and revise and don’t want to let the paper go.

Wherever you have trouble, take a longer look at what you do and what you might try. Sometimes what you do is working for you; it’s just a slow and difficult process. Other times, what you do may not be working; these are the times when you can look around for other approaches to try:

• Talk to your writing buddy and to other colleagues about what they do at the particular stage that gets you stuck.
• Read about possible new approaches in our handouts on brainstorming and revising .
• Try thinking of yourself as an apprentice to a stage of the writing process and give different strategies a shot.
• Cut your paper into pieces and tape them to the wall, use eight different colors of highlighters, draw a picture of your paper, read your paper out loud in the voice of your favorite movie star….

Okay, we’re kind of kidding with some of those last few suggestions, but there is no limit to what you can try (for some fun writing strategies, check out our online animated demos ). When it comes to conquering a block, give yourself permission to fall flat on your face. Trying and failing will you help you arrive at the thing that works for you.

Celebrate your successes

Start storing up positive experiences with writing. Whatever obstacles you’ve faced, celebrate the occasions when you overcome them. This could be something as simple as getting started, sharing your work with someone besides a teacher, revising a paper for the first time, trying out a new brainstorming strategy, or turning in a paper that has been particularly challenging for you. You define what a success is for you. Keep a log or journal of your writing successes and breakthroughs, how you did it, how you felt. This log can serve as a boost later in your writing life when you face new challenges.

Wait a minute, didn’t we already say that? Yes. It’s worth repeating. Most people find relief for various kinds of anxieties by getting support from others. Sometimes the best person to help you through a spell of worry is someone who’s done that for you before—a family member, a friend, a mentor. Maybe you don’t even need to talk with this person about writing; maybe you just need to be reminded to believe in yourself, that you can do it.

If you don’t know anyone on campus yet whom you have this kind of relationship with, reach out to someone who seems like they could be a good listener and supportive. There are a number of professional resources for you on campus, people you can talk through your ideas or your worries with. A great place to start is the UNC Writing Center. If you know you have a problem with writing anxiety, make an appointment well before the paper is due. You can come to the Writing Center with a draft or even before you’ve started writing. You can also approach your instructor with questions about your writing assignment. If you’re an undergraduate, your academic advisor and your residence hall advisor are other possible resources. Counselors at Counseling and Wellness Services are also available to talk with you about anxieties and concerns that extend beyond writing.

Apprehension about writing is a common condition on college campuses. Because writing is the most common means of sharing our knowledge, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we write. This handout has given some suggestions for how to relieve that pressure. Talk with others; realize we’re all learning; take an occasional risk; turn to the people who believe in you. Counter negative experiences by actively creating positive ones.

Even after you have tried all of these strategies and read every Writing Center handout, invariably you will still have negative experiences in your writing life. When you get a paper back with a bad grade on it or when you get a rejection letter from a journal, fend off the negative aspects of that experience. Try not to let them sink in; try not to let your disappointment fester. Instead, jump right back in to some area of the writing process: choose one suggestion the evaluator has made and work on it, or read and discuss the paper with a friend or colleague, or do some writing or revising—on this or any paper—as quickly as possible.

Failures of various kinds are an inevitable part of the writing process. Without them, it would be difficult if not impossible to grow as a writer. Learning often occurs in the wake of a startling event, something that stirs you up, something that makes you wonder. Use your failures to keep moving.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Hjortshoj, Keith. 2001. Understanding Writing Blocks . New York: Oxford University Press.

This is a particularly excellent resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Hjortshoj writes about his experiences working with university students experiencing block. He explains the transitional nature of most writing blocks and the importance of finding support from others when working on long projects.

Rose, Mike. 1985. When a Writer Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing-Process Problems . New York: Guilford.

This collection of empirical studies is written primarily for writing teachers, researchers, and tutors. Studies focus on writers of various ages, including young children, high school students, and college students.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Why Learning to Write Well in College Is Difficult

Bill cerbin, assistant to the provost, uw-la crosse terry beck, department of english, uw-la crosse.

The following list is not, of course, meant to rationalize sub-par writing by college students. Nor can one course instructor address all the challenges listed below. We can, though, learn from this list and push ourselves, for example, to teach explicitly the genres we assign or—when we confer with students about their papers—ask them about the previous writing advice they’ve received. By understanding why writing is difficult for some of our students, we can work to help students develop as more confident and able writers.

• Variations from discipline to discipline. Disciplines are discourse communities with their own methods of developing and communicating knowledge. However, students take classes in several disciplines (i.e., several discourse communities) at the same time and often have difficulty mastering the different forms of inquiry and the different stylistic conventions that apply. It takes a long time to develop writing proficiency in one discipline, let alone several.
• Lack of uniform criteria and standards. Criteria, standards, and definitions of good writing differ from course to course (even within the same department). Students develop the idea that these are arbitrary and a matter of instructors’ personal preferences. This prompts them to search out “what you’re looking for” or “what you want” in their assignments.
• Lack of explicit criteria and standards. In some courses, students have little or no information about what constitutes appropriate writing and no clear sense of the goal they are supposed to work toward.
• Undeveloped writing processes. In many classes students are expected to write well, but are not taught to do so. Courses do not try to develop students’ writing: they simply require it. And students are left to use whatever strategies and competencies they have. But unless they are given feedback and helped with their composing processes, students will not get better by simply writing a lot.
• Misleading or incomplete writing instruction. In some classes, formal writing may be treated solely as a list of rules governing the use of language (grammar, spelling, punctuation) rather than as purposeful communication of ideas. If this is done, mechanical aspects of language are emphasized to the exclusion of important conceptual abilities. Often key writing concepts are never addressed in courses. For example, how to adapt one’s knowledge to the audience and the situation (i.e., rhetorical thinking) is extremely important but rarely taught. Similarly, how to develop a coherent train of thought is crucial to good writing—but rarely taught.
• Incomplete understanding of the subject matter. Students very often have to write about subjects that are unfamiliar to them. And, typical of novices in any subject area, their understanding as they write tends to be incomplete and naïve. Thus, it is very common that their writing lacks coherence and structure—reflecting their fragmented understanding of the topic, not necessarily their incompetence as writers.
• Lack of experience with and failure to understand genres. Most assignments are academic writing exercises: “tests” in which students demonstrate their knowledge to the teacher (e.g., essays, library research papers). These are genres that are rhetorically difficult and confusing—and poor preparation for the writing they will do after their university careers. Students have fewer opportunities to develop knowledge of other forms of writing and to write to different audiences.
• Lack of consistent coaching. As students go from class to class, they experience writing as a hodgepodge of activities, assignments, advice, etc. It is unlikely that these unrelated, discrete experiences promote cumulative learning and develop writing expertise.
• Non-reflective writing experiences. Students probably do not treat writing as a deliberate skill to develop. For the most part, they do not analyze their own writing or reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, and development as writers.
• Students do not care about what they write. Often students perceive academic writing as a chore rather than as a meaningful learning experience. While this is part of current student culture, it is not inevitable. Students are more likely to be invested in their work when they have some control over the selection of the topic and the work has an “authentic purpose” beyond getting a grade.

©2001, Bill Cerbin and Terry Beck.

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What To Do It You’re Really Struggling to Write an Essay

“I am worried that I can’t write essays and get top grades.” This is a common worry that many students in colleges and universities have when faced with academic assignments. Because essays are very common when assessing students, having challenges to prepare them could result in failing grades or being required to repeat a course. You do not want any of these consequences because of simply struggling with writing essays. Do you?

The good news is that if you are really struggling to write an essay, we have a solution. This post is a comprehensive guide on why it is so hard for students to craft good essays. Also, we will tell you what to do if you are having a hard time writing an essay.

Why is Writing So Hard for Students?

For most people, going to college or university is one of the critical steps toward achieving the success they want in their careers. When in college, the bulk of the time is used in academic work, such as writing assignments. However, most students find it challenging to prepare the assignments, and we are going to tell you why:

Problems Picking the Right Topic for Essay The first step in writing a good university academic essay is getting the right topic, but this is never easy. Most students end up getting stuck even before starting the work. If you make a mistake of selecting any topic, there is a risk of starting an essay that will bore you midway or without enough resources. Poor Writing Skills “I can’t write an essay because of poor writing skills.” This is one of the common reasons that students give when seeking expert help. We agree with the students that acquiring good writing skills is a process that takes time. For example, you need to learn how to use different writing and formatting guides, from APA to MLA. Another important aspect of writing skills is researching and extracting the correct information about your topic. Take the example of a history essay on World War II. In such a paper, you should be able to research and get the key arguments, such as the causes, effects, and the world’s preparedness to prevent a similar war in the future. Good writing skills also mean you are able to organize your ideas well to strike a seamless flow from the introduction to the conclusion. For some students, these skills take a lot of time to develop, and it is advisable to seek help from professional writers for quality papers that cannot wait. Tight Deadlines Are you a new student in the university and wondering, “Why is writing so hard for students?” One of the main reasons is tight deadlines. This happens in two ways. Although rare, your lecturer might issue an order with a very tight deadline, which is hard for students to beat. The second method, which is pretty common, is students forgetting the assignments and only remembering them when the deadline is only a few days or hours away. For example, you might have so many assignments or parties to attend that some of the essays are forgotten. Then, you remember them when the task is one day, 9-hour, 12-hour, or 3-hour to the deadline. The Topic is Tough, and You Do Not Know What to Do “I can’t write essays because they are really tough for me” is another common reason given by students who are not prepared well for their studies. If you have so many activities and limited time is available for your studies, there is a serious risk of finding the topics of your essays really challenging. In some cases, teachers might ask students to write assignments on topics ahead of what they have covered to encourage them to read ahead. So, if you have not read ahead, facing such questions might be really tough. The best way out is to seek assistance from a professional. Lack of Correct Writing Resources Is access to the resources for preparing your essay challenging? If “yes,” you are likely to find it challenging to write quality essays. For example, most colleges require students to use the latest resources, no older than 5-10 years. If getting these resources is a challenge, preparing a quality essay can turn out to be an uphill task for you. A lot of Competing Tasks Why are essays so hard to write? The truth about essay writing is not that they are so hard to prepare, but students may have many competing tasks that make it tough to do the tasks professionally. For example, do you have multiple assignments to do at any one moment? In some cases, students taking part-time jobs might use the bulk of their time at work, leaving very little for their assignments. Other activities that can take a lot of your time include games, parties, or medical issues. Fear of Getting a Failing Grade Sometimes the difficulty of writing an essay arises not from lack of confidence. For example, if you performed poorly in the previous essays and there is a risk of getting a failing grade, preparing other essays might appear impossible. This fear can be so much that even getting started with an essay is almost impossible.

Put An End To Struggling With Writing Essays

“Why do students struggle with writing in college?” Now that we have answered the question, let us now turn to the main steps needed to craft your essays like a pro for top grades.

• Step One: Determine the Type of an Essay It Is

When your lecturer gives an assignment prompt, he is likely to point out the type of an essay it is. For example, is it an argumentative, cause & consequence, or definition essay? If the teacher does not define the type of essay, you need to determine its type.

• Step Two: Pick the Right Topic and Research It

Once you know the type of essay under consideration, the next step is selecting the preferred topic and researching it comprehensively. Make sure to go for the topic that is interesting and that has ample resources for research.

When researching the topic, you should pick the main arguments that will be discussed in the paper. Also, gather the main points that you will discuss under every argument. Where you need to use quotes, numbers, and figures, make sure to capture the respective page numbers.

• Step Three: Develop a Good Essay Structure

What is the best essay format for top grades? This step is very crucial because the essay structure tells you where to discuss what points. The commonest structure for writing essays is introduction, body, and conclusion. If the essay is a short one, a five-paragraph model should suffice, where the first paragraph is the introduction, three paragraphs for the body, and finally the conclusion.

In addition to these pages, you might need to add a title page, which captures your details, department, registration number, and lecturer’s name. An additional page for the references might be required after the conclusion. This last page highlights all the resources that you used to prepare the essay.

For those preparing lengthy and complex essays, separate pages might be required for appendices, a list of figures and tables, and acknowledgment. It is important to liaise with your lecturer to determine if these additional pages are needed. In standard pages, the only additional pages needed are for the title and references.

• Step Four: Introduce Your Topic

Now that you have the essay structure, the next step is writing the essay, and the starting point is the introduction. Because it is the first part of the essay that the reader encounters, it is crucial to ensure it is professionally written and make the reader want to continue reading the rest of the paper.

Open the essay with an appropriate hook statement to grab the attention of the reader and then provide some background of the issue discussed in the body. Another crucial component that you should bring out in the introduction is the thesis statement, which is your stand about the issue you are tackling in the essay.

• Step Five: Write the Body and Conclusion of the Essay

The points that you found when researching the topic should go into building the body of the essay. When preparing the body, it is crucial to ensure that each point takes its own paragraph. Besides, every paragraph should start with the topic sentence while the subsequent sentences provide supporting information.

To make the essay enjoyable to read, make sure the points are flowing well from the start to the end. For example, a student writing an essay about global warming might want to start by looking at the definition of global warming and then delve into at the causes. Finally, outline the effects. If the essay is lengthy, consider breaking the body down into parts with subheadings.

• Step Six: Write the Conclusion

This is the last part of your essay and should be done as professionally as possible. Start the conclusion by restating the thesis statement and then summarizing the entire essay. Note that you are not supposed to introduce new points in the conclusion. However, you can place a call to action, such as citing gaps that might need additional research.

How to Write an Essay and Score High: Special Tips

Why is it so hard to write an essay? As we have demonstrated, many reasons can make a student find it challenging to prepare assignments, but with the above, all should be well. Now, we will tell you some tips used by expert writers to prepare A-rated essays.

• Write Your Introduction as the Last Item.

Although the introduction comes as the first item when a reader is going through your essay, it is a good idea to consider writing it as the last item. This is because you will have researched the topic extensively and captured the main points in the essay. At this point, preparing the introduction will be very easy.

• Start by Preparing a Draft Before Writing the Final Essay

Starting your essay by preparing a draft allows you to progressively improve the work along the way. By the time you submit the final copy for grading, it will be a lot different from the first draft, increasing the chances of getting a better grade.

• Proofread Your Work Well.

Even if you prepare a great essay, but it contains errors, it is likely to give the lecturer impression of a student who is not serious with his/her work. Therefore, go through your work several times to identify and correct errors before submitting it for marking. You might even ask a close friend to help with proofreading.

• Read Essay Samples By Experts to Overcome the Difficulty of Preparing Quality Work.

Get Essay Writing Help if Still Unsure of What to Do

If you are really struggling to write an essay, this guide has demonstrated the main causes of the problem how to crafting top-quality work. So, are you ready? If you are still finding it challenging, do not give up because you can use professional online writing assistance to prepare top-rated essays.

Our online expert writers have a lot of experience in preparing academic assignments and will stop at nothing in ensuring you get A-rated work. For them, there is no essay that is too difficult to write. So, reach us today and we will be ready to help and guarantee you the best grade. Why get stressed about your essay or fail when a pro ready to help is only a clock away?

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What Makes Writing So Hard?

MAY 9, 2022

Many students struggle with writing—but what makes it so hard? And why do so many students hate to write? Writing is a task with a very high cognitive load. Giving students meaningful practice and clear structures for writing helps them move their thoughts out of their heads and onto the page.

Who Needs to Write? Everyone.  

Based on the most recent NAEP writing assessment , only about one in four students at any grade level is proficient in writing—and that number hasn’t shifted meaningfully in decades. One in five students scored at the lowest proficiency level, Below Basic, at each tested grade level. Clearly, the traditional English Language Arts (ELA) programs used to teach writing are not, on their own, enough to move the needle for most students. 

At the same time, writing is more important than ever in our knowledge economy. Writing is a “gatekeeper” skill for many higher-paying professions. Most white-collar and technical jobs require at least basic writing skills, whether for creating formal reports or simply communicating through email. In blue-collar and service jobs, people are often expected to be able to write clearly to communicate with customers. And writing will almost certainly be required to advance beyond the entry levels. In fact, a survey of business leaders put written communication skills at the top of the list of sought-after attributes. 

Beyond the workforce, writing, like reading, is a skill that enables full participation in our modern world. Good writing skills allow people to participate in democracy by writing letters to the editor or expressing their views to a representative. Writing also allows people to participate in, rather than simply watch, all of the discourse and entertainment happening online. Writing can empower people to self-advocate in a variety of contexts, from healthcare to consumer interactions to legal proceedings. Writing skills are essential for anyone who wants a seat at the table in today’s complex political, consumer and personal realms. 

The High Cognitive Load of Writing

By some metrics, today’s kids and teens are writing more than ever—that is, if you count texting, commenting on online content, and interacting in multiplayer games. But these interactions do not rise to the level of writing required to be successful on state assessments, college assignments, or workplace tasks. When students are faced with an authentic writing task—such as responding to a piece of text, writing a research paper, or developing an original narrative—the majority struggle. 

In part, that may be because students don’t have much practice with formal writing, especially in extended form. There is some evidence that students today spend less time on writing than in the past, especially on argumentative writing and writing in the content areas. The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) recommends that students have 60 minutes of writing time each school day , including a mix of direct writing instruction and writing assignments that span different purposes and content areas. However, only about 25% of middle schoolers and 30% of high schoolers meet the standard, and many students are only spending about 15 minutes each day on writing. 

But even with ample time and instruction, writing is hard —in fact, it is arguably the hardest thing we ask our students to do. Natalie Wexler, the author of The Knowledge Gap , explains that writing has an even higher cognitive load than reading . That’s because, in addition to processing information, students also have to figure out how to get their own thoughts on the page. 

Writing is a highly complex skill that involves many discrete sub-skills at both the “macro” and “micro” levels. 

• At the “macro” level, students have to figure out what to say: what is the point they are trying to make or the story they are trying to tell? What is the best way to organize their ideas and structure their piece? What are the big ideas and conclusions they want to get across? What kind of supporting evidence or details are needed? 
• At the “micro” level, students must apply a myriad of foundational writing skills, from the motor skills involved with keyboarding or handwriting to decisions about word choice, syntax and grammar. 

All of these writing processes are happening at the same time , adding to the overall cognitive load of the task. To lower the cognitive load, students must achieve proficiency and fluency at both the macro and micro levels. When students struggle with foundational skills such as letter formation and word selection, they may not have enough cognitive resources left to focus on the “big picture” of what they want to say. On the flip side, students who don’t know how to organize their ideas will not have much energy to focus on developing their writing style and editing and polishing their work.

The Hardest Part of Writing is Thinking

For most students, the hardest part of writing isn’t writing out individual words or forming a complete sentence. It is simply figuring out what to say . In fact, the Writing Center of Princeton says: 

Writing is ninety-nine percent thinking, one percent writing. In other words, when you know what you want to say and how you want to say it, writing becomes easier and more successful.

Writing is, fundamentally, thinking made visible. If you can’t think, you can’t write. One of the best ways of lowering the cognitive load of writing is to give students a structure for organizing their ideas and thinking through the flow and structure of their piece. 

That’s where Thinking Maps come in. Thinking Maps provide the structure for thinking through a writing task and organizing ideas prior to writing.

It starts with understanding the task itself. Students in a Thinking Maps school learn to use “signal words” that indicate what kind of thinking is required for a task. Then, they know what kind of Map to use to start their thinking process. For example, if the prompt asks them to explain the similarities and differences between two historical eras, they know immediately that this will be a “compare-and-contrast” task. The Double Bubble Map provides the structure they need to organize their ideas, whether from their existing knowledge, in-depth research, or a text provided with the prompt. Once they have fleshed out their ideas, students can use a writing Flow Map to develop their piece section by section. Having this kind of structure helps students move through the planning and organizing phases of writing more quickly so they have more time to spend on other parts of the writing process, including revising and editing. It also leads to clearer, more organized writing. 

At Pace Brantley Preparatory, a Florida school serving students with learning disabilities in grades 1-12, adding some dedicated Thinking Maps planning time prior to writing led to better writing products on their benchmark assessments. Read the Pace Brantley story .   

In our Write from the Beginning…and Beyond training , teachers learn how writing develops across the grade levels and how to use Thinking Maps to support student writing, including using the Maps to process thinking before writing and using the writing Flow Map to plan writing. Advanced training includes specific strategies for different genres, including Narrative, Expository/Informative, Argumentative, and Response to Text.

When students can think, they are ready to write. And when students can write, they are ready for anything. 

Want to know more about Thinking Maps and writing?

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"Initiative overload" can cause teachers and school leaders to lose sight of the fundamental practices that have the greatest impact on their goals and mission. When this happens, it's time for a reboot.

June 17, 2024

To understand contemporary issues and participate fully in civic life, students need a solid grounding not only in basic facts, but also in essential critical thinking skills. Thinking Maps can help students develop the thinking skills they need to ask relevant questions, detect bias and misinformation, connect past and current events, and understand the changing world around them.

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Mastering Science Concepts and Content in K12 | Thinking Maps Support student mastery of the Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) with Thinking Maps. Learn more on the blog:

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Scientific thinking empowers students to ask good questions about the world around them, become flexible and adaptable problem solvers, and engage in effective decision making in a variety of domains. Thinking Maps can help teachers nurture a scientific mindset in students and support mastery of important STEM skills and content.

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Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don’ts

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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I Can’t Write Essays: Tips to Overcome Struggle Writing Essays

overcome Struggle Writing Essays

Picture this; you want to write an essay, and you switch your computer and hold your pen and paper. But wait a minute, you freeze in your tracks, you don’t know how and where to begin. Does this sound like you? If so, say, ‘I can’t write my essay’, then you are struggling writing essays, and you need to solve the situation fast.

Don’t worry yourself; it’s a struggle that many students face trying to write an essay. At Grade Bees, we have practical solutions for students with the problems of writing essays. Apart from offering you essay writing help , we have this guide to help you do it yourself.

Here are a number of tips and guides on how to overcome the common difficulties and struggles that students have when writing essays. You will learn how to write essays like a pro and sometimes force yourself into it.

Get an essay written by a Team

Our team avoids plagiarism and ensures checks to guarantee a quality and ORIGINAL paper

Problems Why you Can’t Write your Essay

If you are struggling to write an essay, chances are you are not having a problem with all aspects of essay writing but just a few of them. You cannot have issues with all the areas.

Most probably, you are struggling with either the structuring or the idea parts of the academic writing process. Below are some of the areas that students struggle with.

Fear of Failing the Essay

Success and failure are twins; missing that mark in your essay should not depress you and cause psychological tension. All you have to do is to relax, concentrate, put pen to paper, and focus on your writing.

Poor Punctuation of the Essay

Stuffing your essay with unnecessary commas, full stops in a sentence, and other grammatical errors, makes your article look unorganized.

Many students compromise the content and quality of their essays by making this mistake.

Being Unaware of your Targeted Audience

When writing your essay, focus on your target audience. Missing to understand your audience will give you more problems than you can imagine. You will not be able to achieve the quality you intend while writing your essay.

Unorganized Essay structure

Essay writing follows a specific structure, ranging from sentence structure, introduction, body of the essay, and the conclusion. Do you want your audience to read and understand your essay? Then follow the laid down structure when writing. You can check our guide on how to write good paragraphs and learn how to organize points for short essays.

Problems students have with writing their essays

Knowing the problems students face when writing an essay, why is it so hard to write an essay? 

1. Many Students Fail to Read Widely

Reading opens your mind, and a lot of information is gathered on a variety of topics when it comes to essay writing. It is no surprise that Stephen King was quoted saying that,

“You have to read widely, constantly refining your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written, but I know it’s true.” Stephen King

It’s the only way one can be able to sharpen the writing skills intended.

2. Lack of Focus

As much as you have read widely and want to show your professionalism when it comes to writing, you cannot write everything that comes into your mind. Focusing on the essay assigned is your ultimate goal.

3. Lack of Concentration when writing the essay

Many students are struggling to write essays because they handle several issues while writing. Being busy on the phone, listening to music, attending to a friend, and other distractions make writing difficult.

But here’s something exciting. Did you know you can force yourself to write an essay? Allow me to share these tips with you.

Also Read : Is Academic Ghostwriting Illegal? The Truth from the Myths

How to Write an Essay Like a Pro

Well, I’ll walk you through the whole process. Remember, each essay has its purpose, but they have a standard structure.

1. Decide on your Essay Topic

What do you intend to write? How well do you understand your topic? Can you write without getting stuck? Therefore, choose an item that you can quickly and comfortably handle.

2. Write Down your Thesis

Communicate to your readers what you intend to put forward, your points, and what you plan to argue about in your essay.

3. Outline your Essay

Always ensure you have an outline of your ideas. Put everything on paper, even if it means having diagrams to help you write efficiently, then do so. An overview of your work will help you remember everything when you get down to writing.

4. Have your Essay Structure

As mentioned earlier, essays have a standard structure, but it is crucial to put your structure down to make it easier to follow while writing. Usually, the structure of your essay should entail the following:

• An introduction, which makes your readers more encouraged and interested in reading your essay.
• The body of an essay; the shape of your piece should have main points and sub-points. This helps your readers follow a specific flow while reading your essay.
• Essay conclusion; always keep your readers glued to your essay by summing up all the points in your end. Give your essay a perfect closure.

What to do when Struggling to Write an Essay

Having known all the above information, and you still find yourself struggling? Here is what you should do:

• Always read and read a lot. You won’t improve unless you are reading what others have written. Don’t forget; the best writers are good readers.
• Share your work with other writers who have gone through the same. They will be able to correct your work and also offer encouragement.
• Practice a lot. You have heard people say practice makes perfect, and yes, this is the ideal time to apply that. Write as many essays as you can.

How to force yourself to write an essay

• Keep a tight timetable and schedule your writing time and ensure you stick to it. 
• Have a place set aside for writing. Establish your workstation or even an office where you can concentrate on your essay.
• Shut out the world from your working environment. If it means not having your phone around your place of work or even not having the internet, then so be it.
• Limit your movement during writing. In most cases, when you fear you are struggling writing essays, make sure that you remain seated and write.

Also Read : Are Essay Titles italicized: How to Italicize Words in essays

How do you Begin Writing an Essay?

Beginning an essay shouldn’t be a daunting task; you can always start by:

• Having a perfect introduction that captures readers’ attention. It builds the reader’s trust in your work, which translates into quality.
• That first paragraph that welcomes your reader is all you have to give a sneak preview of your essay.
• Draft a strong thesis statement. Communicate openly about what you are putting forward in your essay. Your thesis statement is your selling point and should convince your readers of what you are writing. 
• Never undermine the power of those catchy strong opening statements and sentences. These statements build the reader’s confidence in your work and you. Use these sentences as a hook that holds your readers to your work.
• Know about your topic of choice. How do you prove that you know about the topic? Support your work by quoting the points of reference and supporting your ideas.

Tips if you don’t know how to Write an Essay

• Decide on your essay topic. It’s a huddle that many faces when writing the essay, making an informed judgment on the item you are comfortable with, propels you quickly when you start writing.
• Have a proper understanding of your topic. Do proper research and try to know everything on the item you want to write on.
• Proper knowledge will enable you to have authority and enjoy your work.

Parts of an Essay and their Meaning

• Have an outline of your essay. As mentioned earlier, an essay follows a specific structure. Therefore, putting down the framework basing on the fabric will make your work easier. Put the following structure in mind:
• Have an introduction paragraph. Invite your readers with a persuasive introduction that will automatically keep them glued to your work.
• Have the body of your essay. Your essay body should have information on the topic, research about the problem, and also give statistics, if any.
• Have a conclusion on your subject. Like the introduction, the end provides a summary of your essay and must be given a perfect touch as the introduction.
• Write a thesis statement. Tell your readers why you are writing your essay. Stating your topic and proving your argument is what you include in your thesis. For instance, when writing an essay on animal testing thesis , you will need to take a stand on the ethics of animal testing.
• Get down to work and start writing. Remember to follow the outline structure that you have drafted.

Also Read : The 5 Best Essay Writing Services as per Reddit reviews

Where to get help Writing an Essay

But again, if you are struggling to write essays, then look for help. Some sites are resourceful when it comes to essay writing. Here at Grade Bees, we have proven essay writing services that will help you earn that grade if you cannot write your essays for one reason or another. Take advantage of the resources in such sites.

Order an Excellent Essay today!

Let us help you get that A in your next assignment. Place your order today, and you will enjoy the benefits.

With over 10 years in academia and academic assistance, Alicia Smart is the epitome of excellence in the writing industry. She is our managing editor and is in charge of the writing operations at Grade Bees.

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• 20 Top Tips for Writing an Essay in a Hurry

In an ideal situation, you’d have all the time in the world to write a great essay, but sadly it doesn’t always work out that way. There will always be times when you’re required to write an essay uncomfortably quickly, whether because of a tight deadline imposed by a teacher, or because you’ve been so busy that the essay has ended up being put off until the last minute. However, it is possible to produce a good piece of work even when very pushed for time, and in this article, we asked former a Oxford Summer School student how.

1. Adopt the right mindset

Before you start writing, it’s crucial to get yourself into the right mindset. You may be experiencing feelings of panic, feeling as though you don’t have enough time and you can’t do it. You may feel defeated before you’ve even begun. To be successful, however, you will need to banish these negative feelings . It’s vital to be positive, to try to relish the challenge, and to adopt a ‘can-do’ attitude. If it helps, imagine it’s a battle that you’re going to win. Give yourself a pep talk, and keep the end goal in mind: you’re going to do a great job and impress your teacher. You’re going to prove to yourself that you can take on this challenge, enjoy it, and write an essay in record time. Take a deep breath, remain calm, and start to attack the work systematically and logically.

2. Switch off your phone and social networks

The last thing you need when you only have a couple of hours to write an essay is to get distracted by your phone or social networks, which have a habit of eating away at your time without you even realising. Procrastination isn’t an option at this late stage, so it’s time to ban yourself from your phone, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, iPlayer, YouTube, and anything else you think might distract you. Sit somewhere quiet and put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. If it helps, install a full-screen text editor onto your computer, such as Darkroom , to force yourself to look at your essay and only your essay. You can also get browser apps that keep you off social networks for a time period of your choosing.

3. Type your essay rather than handwriting it

Most young people these days type faster than they write by hand, so unless you’ve been told that you must handwrite your essay, type it. This will make it much easier to edit what you’ve written and change things around, and you’ll be able to get more words in through typing quickly. It’s probably also going to be easier for your teacher to read a typed document than your handwriting, and you won’t suffer an achy arm that could slow you down, so that’s an added bonus.

4. Read the question carefully

When you’re in a rush, it can be easy to skim over the question and think you’ve understood it – only for you to realise, after writing most of the essay, that you got the wrong end of the stick and it’s too late to change it. This is particularly hazardous when you’re under pressure, because your brain has a tendency to see what it wants to see; it may tell you that the title is asking a question that you want to answer , while the reality might be subtly but crucially different. So, start by reading the question very carefully and ensuring you’ve completely understood what it’s asking you to do. If it helps, underline key instructional words in the title, such as “compare” or “analyse”. This forces your mind to focus on the right kind of task, so you write the essay with this in mind.

5. Get your books ready

Prepare your workspace by opening the books you’ll need to use on relevant pages, or putting Post-It notes in them to mark where relevant information is. This means you won’t have to keep wasting precious time hunting through books to find the information each time you need to refer to it.

6. Sum up your argument in a sentence

To get yourself thinking clearly about what you’re going to be writing, see if you can sum up what your argument is going to be in a single sentence – a bit like an ‘ elevator pitch ’. If you can’t do this, the chances are that you don’t quite know what you want to say, with the result that you may end up waffling in your essay, thereby wasting valuable time. It’s important to set out with a clear idea of what your argument is, because then everything you write subsequently will be working towards the goal of getting this particular argument across. Of course, don’t spend too long on this and end up with not enough time to write the actual essay!

7. Write your notes directly into the document

When you’re in a hurry, your notes can double up as an essay plan, killing two birds with one stone. Start by typing your essay notes directly into the document you’ve created for your essay. This could be bullet points or one-sentence summaries of what you want to write in each paragraph. For each point, also include a line or two on what evidence you’re going to use in support. Once you’ve done this, organise the notes into a sensible structure by dragging and dropping paragraphs into an order you think works. This becomes your detailed essay plan.

8. Then rewrite your notes into an essay with an argument

You now have the outline of your essay in note form. You can now turn your notes into an essay by rewriting them into academic prose, complete with ‘filler’ sentences that glue it all together and help build your argument.

9. Save the introduction and conclusion for last

Perhaps surprisingly, the introduction and conclusion of an essay are often the hardest bits to write. So, save these for last. By the time you’ve written the body of the essay, the task of writing the introduction and a summarising conclusion should be much easier, as you’ll already have spent plenty of time on your argument and you’ll be very familiar with it.

10. Do the references as you go along

If you’re required to add references and a bibliography to your essay, do these as you go along to save time. Each time you quote someone, add in a footnote saying where the quote is from, and at the same time, copy and paste the details of the book into a bibliography at the end of your document.

11. Proofread as you go along

Save time on proofreading by checking over each sentence or paragraph for spelling, grammar and typos as you write it. When you’ve finished writing, it’s still worth having a quick final read through your essay for a sense check and to ensure that it flows well – but this should take less time now that you’ve already checked for errors.

12. Don’t be tempted to copy and paste

The internet is full of resources that probably exactly match what you’re going to be writing about, and when you’re in a hurry, there can be a strong temptation to copy and paste useful paragraphs into your essay. Don’t ever do this! Plagiarism is not only immoral, but it also means that you won’t learn the topic in as much depth – and the whole point of writing an essay is to consolidate what you’ve learned and prepare you adequately for future exams. Teachers can use Google too, and if they suspect that you’ve stolen someone else’s work by copying and pasting something off the internet, all they need to do is type one of ‘your’ sentences in Google and they’ll instantly find where you’ve got it from. It’s normally easy to spot copied work, because the style will be different from the rest of the essay. It’s just not worth the risk, as you’ll lose your teacher’s trust and this will probably be reflected in the quality of the reference they give you for university.

13. Try not to over-quote

A common tactic by students pushed for time is to use too many quotes – or very long passages – from other people (scholars, sources and so on) to bolster the word count and reduce the amount of writing they actually have to do themselves. Try to avoid doing this if you can; it’s a transparent tactic and shows that you haven’t fully mastered the subject yourself, so you have to resort to hiding behind the words of others. The vast majority of the writing in the essay should be your own. Short quotes here and there, accompanied by your commentary on them, are a good thing; lots of long quotes that take up much of the essay, with little explanation from you, are not.

14. Keep your style concise

You’re not going to have time for long-winded sentences, so keep your written style as concise as possible. There’s nothing wrong with being short and to the point in your sentences, providing it adequately conveys what you want the essay to convey. Being economical with words will ensure that you express yourself clearly as well as saving you time, so it’s a good idea all round.

15. Try a change of scene

If you’re struggling to concentrate on writing your essay in your normal work space, a change of scene might be just what you need to focus your mind. If you normally work at home, try heading to the library or a local coffee shop to see if you can work any better there. If you’re distracted by noise at home, try some noise-cancelling headphones or simply put some music on.

16. Take a break (but only if you feel you need one)

It sounds counterintuitive when you’re pushed for time, but taking short breaks from time to time will stop you running out of energy and keep you focused. If you have two hours to write the essay, for instance, take a break for five minutes after you’ve worked for an hour. That said, if you’re really ‘in the zone’ and working efficiently, and you don’t feel you need a break, just work straight through and take advantage of your spate of productivity for as long as it lasts.

17. Don’t bother with the usual tricks

Many students try to trick their teacher into thinking that their essay is longer than it really is by widening the margins, selecting a bigger font and using wider line spacing. Your teacher will see straight through this, and it might irritate them – so don’t bother!

18. It’s OK to use Google for quick research

While Google is no substitute for reading what you’ve been told to read, it can be useful for quick definitions or getting to grips with something you’re struggling with at the last minute. Don’t rely on it, by any means, but if you’re writing your essay and haven’t quite understood something in class, a quick Google search should enable you to acquire the level of understanding you need.

19. Keep hydrated and fed

Make sure you drink plenty of water while you’re writing, as this will help you stay alert. You may also want to equip yourself with some snacks to keep you going, as this can make the process of writing an essay more bearable as well as maintaining your energy levels.

20. Reward yourself

Give yourself something to look forward to once you’ve finished the essay, as this will help to motivate you to complete it. It could be a chocolate bar, the promise of watching an episode of your favourite television show, or an evening out with friends – anything that will provide sufficient incentive to get your essay finished. You’ve worked intensively and have a great essay to show for it, so you deserve a reward!

Image credits:  typing

Why is it so hard to write an essay?

Table of Contents

Writing requires focus

Ideas don’t come quickly, many students don’t outline, writing requires practice, writing requires diligence, writing requires courage, lack of confidence and fear of failure, related posts:.

• How it works

Why Students Struggle With Essay Writing

Published by Alaxendra Bets at August 19th, 2021 , Revised On August 23, 2023

Writing comes naturally for some of us. Students with good essay writing skills have words flow into  sentences , sentences,  paragraphs , and paragraphs into an essay  or  dissertation . However, for many students, writing is tedious work they want to avoid.

If you are struggling with  essay  or  dissertation writing , rest assured you are not the only student facing this problem. But it’s important to understand the reasons for your essay, coursework, exams, or dissertation writing failures to put your academic life back on track.

Here, we discuss and attempt to figure out the causes as to why are so many students struggling with essay writing.

In the unfortunate event that you have already failed coursework, dissertation, essay, or exam, we have compiled comprehensive guidelines  on what you could do to improve your situation.

Reasons Why Students Struggle with Essay Writing

Before we shed light on the obscure causes of students finding it hard to deal with essay and  coursework writing , let us look into the more apparent causes. Research studies have confirmed that writing and reading are reciprocal processes. Apart from providing professional writing guidelines to students, we also provide professional writing services , i.e. essay services , coursework writing services and dissertation writing services .

If you read regularly enough, your writing will improve by leaps and bounds. Likewise, your writing improves your reading significantly. Many students apprehend the importance of this relationship as they read complicated transcripts and texts to improve their writing abilities.

But not all students can comprehend this relationship between reading and writing, and eventually, writing becomes a continuous struggle for them. Debbie Lee, in her article published on Educator Community (2017), states that;

“To write, we use many parts of our brain at the same time as well as the kinesthetic process of writing. For many students, especially those with language or fine motor skill delays, the task of writing is challenging.”

Poor Mechanical & Content Skills

In the same article, Debbie argued that students with poor processing and poor content and mechanical skills often struggle with essay writing. The most notable processing skills that many students would often lack include fluent development of ideas, language formulation and ideation, and active working memory.

Content and mechanical skills that are essential for any student to be good at writing are as follows;

• Expressing ideas
• Organising ideas
• Punctuation
• Capitalisation
• Basic Spelling & Vocabulary
• Automatic Letter Formation
• Clarity of Expression
• Use of appropriate grammar in essay
• Different styles of essay writing
• Flexibility in the writing process
• Understanding the viewpoint from the text in books
• Lack of enthusiasm and passion

Want to know what essay structure and style will work best for your assignment?

Problem fixed! We can write any type of essay in any referencing style. We ensure every essay written is beyond your expectations.

When you consider all of the above underlying skills that students should master to become proficient writers, you can understand how frustrating it can be. Perhaps, it also explains why most students prefer not to write their papers and  get experienced writers to write .

No Right Answers When You Are Inexperienced

Unable to find what the right answer to a particular  problem question is? Many students end up scratching their heads around the basic question they must answer as part of their essay  or  dissertation  assignment.

While every other skill student learns the right way to do it, it can be hard to figure out the correct way to write an essay  because most of us approach writing naturally and emotionally.

But let it be clearly stated here that the right or correct way of writing an essay does exist if your supervisor or tutor is not teaching the  essay writing structures for different types of essays , dissertations, and research papers, you are not getting the help you deserve, and the confidence needed to jump into an assignment writing task.

To produce a high-quality essay paper, you need to learn to be good at brainstorming, writing the essay outline, and developing the rough draft and the final copy because that is how you will improve your writing skills.

ResearchProspect provides the tools, and they help students need to have their essays written to the highest possible academic standard.

Fear of Failure

Have so many questions in mind before writing even a word of your assignment? What is the  question I need to address ? What is the objective of this assignment? Which academic sources should I use as reference material? What should be the structure of the essay ? What abilities and skills will I be graded on? What writing style must I follow?

These questions and many more could swarm around in your mind. Don’t worry, Don’t Panic. Don’t Be Overwhelmed! It’s normal to have so many questions. It’s completely normal to fear failure, especially if you haven’t had much writing experience in your previous academic years.

If you haven’t been taught about the writing and structuring processes (yes, a range of writing structures and styles exist), it can be pretty hard to get going. The fear of failure will stay with students if they do not provide help on creative writing rules and the  different types of essay writing structures .

For example, this is an article on how you structure a dissertation paper.

Also read: Sociology Essay Writing Service .

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Helping Students Who Struggle with Essay Writing

The world we are living in is changing rapidly. With texts, tweets, posts, snaps, and Insta around us, it’s no wonder students don’t want to get in struggle with writing. This is particularly frustrating for teachers and students alike, as students scrap to express their thoughts and views clearly in the traditional fashion their schools expect them to.

But the world of academia has remained pretty much unchanged over centuries, with universities expecting students to become good researchers and capable writers . We will never replace essays , assignments, research , dissertation , and analysis with tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook stories in universities.

Your teachers will not be delighted with you if you eagerly indulge in social media postings but struggle with basic essay writing tasks. A study conducted by ResearchProspect concluded that as many as 3 of every 5 students lack proficiency in writing – a number that cannot be ignored.

Our Essay Writers

ResearchProspect writers  know the writing rules and are proficient in all types of writing structures and styles.

Our essay writers understand that essays aren’t going anywhere, and so they have mastered the art of presenting their expression, arguments, and analysis through their writing. They love sentence diagrams and grammar drills because it is their job to do so.

Contact us via telecom, email, or mail to discuss anything regarding your essay. Our staff is always there to help!

Have a last-minute essay to finish? Don’t panic! Please fill out  our online order form  and get your essay paper delivered to your email address promptly. Any subject, any deadline, any complexity – we promise 100% plagiarism free and 100% confidential service.

The essay writing tips in this blog post aim to help readers establish why they struggle to write a first-class essay or dissertation paper that meets academic expectations. The post directly aims to help students experiencing writing difficulties in achieving the grade they desire despite their writing limitations.

View some  essay writing samples  here!

Learn  how to write an essay with a bang!

Helping Students Succeed Since 2011!

ResearchProspect is the UK registered essay writing website helping students across the globe since 2011. Our writers hold master’s to Ph.D. degrees from reputed educational institutes. No matter how urgent or complex your requirements are, our services have helped thousands of students over the years at a time when they needed them the most. So stop struggling with essay writing and get essay writing help from our professional essay writers . View our essay services here  or view our  full range of services here.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many students struggle with essay writing.

Many students face challenges with essay writing due to various factors such as lack of effective strategies, time management issues, language barriers, and unfamiliarity with academic conventions. Support and guidance can help mitigate these struggles.

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Writing Too Slowly? The Reason Why and What You Can Do

One simple mind-shift into another gear.

Every day is pain-staking, creaking. Writing your academic journal article, book, or dissertation is coming along so slowly. But it’s not because you’re not trying.

Maybe it even looks like now you’re going to be in big trouble if it doesn’t go faster. It’s getting late.

Or you are starting up and nothing is taking off. You know you have to write. You have a topic. Some material. Even maybe an idea of what you want to say eventually. So why won’t it get going?

Well, I know what it is far more often than not. I’ve had the occasion to observe the process of many academic writers and know what’s going on most of the time. Now, it might not be true in every case, but you have to check. You have to know if this is you, because there is something you can do about it.

Here’s the simple test.

When you start off writing your piece, find out if you basically believe that the words that you are writing are the words the reader will be reading.

This may be a sign that you are writing prematurely.

Of course when we are far along into a piece, or revising or editing, then obviously our frame of mind should include the belief that:

“The words that I am writing are the words the reader will be reading.”

More or less.

But when we are earlier on, drafting, this frame of mind can be the kiss of death.

Yet I find many writers only write in this frame of mind. When they start writing their piece, they actually feel, believe, and/or actually ARE writing the words that the reader will be reading, more or less.

And if this works for you, fine. But if things are painfully slow, then I can almost guarantee one thing:

You are not presently ready to begin writing.

Now that doesn’t mean you don’t have ideas. It doesn’t mean you don’t have material, experience, expertise, knowledge of the sub-literature, etc….

Those are big fat myths of readiness by the way! Those don’t make you ready to write. Many people put off writing because they haven’t mastered those things. But that’s not necessary at all.

And it absolutely does not mean you should not be writing.

What does it mean to be writing prematurely?

“Not presently ready to begin writing” means you haven’t done enough pre-writing to enable you to write under the framework “the words that I am writing are the words the reader will be reading.”

Writing under that belief, and/or fact, is a particular kind of writing . And that writing often requires a lot of pre-writing first to go smoothly.

But many writers skip ahead, and skip over the important step of pre-writing, and begin composing their actual text.

Many writers who write painfully slow do not do the necessary pre-writing. It’s not part of their process.

So when they set out to write something, they are actually writing that thing.

That’s crazy! You have to pay your dues first. No wonder it’s so hard and slow!

Well, of course I have to admit it’s not exactly crazy if it works. It’s not like you can’t make that work. You can. People do. They can write very good things that way. Some great writers have written that way (but more haven’t!).

So we are talking here really about a couple things that have to be true for this to be of help:

• You are writing too slowly and painfully. If you are not writing painfully slow, this doesn’t apply to you.
• And you want it to go faster and easier. You might be writing too slowly, but you don’t want to change that. Which is fine.

But if you want to change, you have to stop writing prematurely, which doesn’t mean not write at all. What it means is that you don’t start writing the actual piece, the article, chapter, whatever, without a lot of prewriting first.

That writing can be outlines and beats. But it should also be tangents, reactions, rants, wording experiments, games, sketches, arguments between opposing points of view, anything, and it could also be essay writing and article writing, with one caveat: although it is in the form of conventional exposition, as you are writing it you have little to no belief that you are writing the actual text that you are going to use.

You are exploring, trying things on for size, seeing how things play out in words.

For some writers this comes naturally. For others it has never crossed the mind to do prewriting. It’s thought that when you start to write, you open the document file, and start writing the introduction, or a different section. That’s how you write.

But many successful writers pre-write for quite a while, days at least, or weeks, and sometimes longer before they start on the real thing.

So why do many other writers not (and suffer the consequences)?

What makes writing so hard and slow?

There’s a simple reason and a deeper reason why some writers skip over pre-writing, and both reasons need to be addressed if you want to change this.

1. The simple reason is that it’s just never been your habit. You’ve always done it one way (and if that’s fine with you, no need to change). And the simple solution to that aspect of it is to start getting more practice at writing in an exploratory mode. Get looser with writing exercises and techniques that rub up against the over utilitarian relation to writing. Join our email list and you can get some help in email and there is a ton more inside our members’ creative writing bootcamp to help with that. Practice your instrument!

2. The deeper reason has to do with a fear of wasting efforts and a belief in a scarcity within you.

Both of these are completely erroneous beliefs and fears.

Of course, the current economic situation in the academic careers doesn’t exactly help put these fears to rest.

But that doesn’t make them any less untrue.

It’s simply not true that investing some time and effort in pre-writing is a waste of time or energy. Instead, it’s setting you up for an easier and faster time later.

And it’s simply not true that your creativity is a limited resource that can run dry. Letting free play with words happen does not exhaust the well, it deepens it.

And if we do try pre-writing, but we judge our pre-writing on the basis of how many pieces of text we can cut and paste and use out of it, we’ve still got it all wrong.

In prewriting, we’re exercising our instrument, and we’re touching into our topic through written words. That’s going to connect with our subconscious, which is going to continue the thinking and the writing in the background, throughout the day, in our sleep even. We are pushing at some things, pulling at others, seeing how it works, what happens, and what can possibly happen, as well as discovering things we definitely don’t want to do.

All of that is making a huge contribution to making things easier later.

The fact is, we can’t know or judge the effects of pre-writing through our normal evaluative processes. In fact, it’s those judgmental processes themselves—trying not to waste, trying to maximize every little bit—that are the thing pushing us into writing prematurely.

We can only know the effects of pre-writing partially, when we look back and see how better things are for us, overall in our process. Some of the reasons why it’s better we can know, some we can guess, and others will remain a mystery.

Some writers are too afraid to let go and do something that does not appear in surface dimensions to be a direct payoff.

Some writers will feel that a few reams of pre-writing are a waste of time because the text in there can’t be imported into their document or doesn’t have direct relation to what will, eventually, be in the document.

And fair enough, to repeat, you can write well without pre-writing. Joseph Conrad, famously, wrote a couple sentences per full day of writing labor.

But other writers, many of them, routinely warm up to writing, warm up to their topic, really grasp it a bit in their hands and take some many days of practice swings before they take a crack at it.

And the reason they are loose enough to do that is because they have no problem just writing for writing’s sake. They trust in writing. They don’t see it a potential waste. Writing helps writing.

Test Yourself:

So, to get into this mindset, at least on occasion, or to just try it out for a while, there is that simple test you can do:

When you write, is it always under the belief that the words that you are writing are the words the reader will be reading?

If so, can you try to write a little, sometimes, without that belief, and push against the fear that it’s a waste?

Or if you do it a little, can you expand that, write in exploration a little more?

You have to try and see.

Trust writing.

Trust writing, just a little, and you will start to see that writing is trustworthy. And then you’ll trust it more.

And that’s when things take off.

To get some writing exercises that will help you learn to pre-write, join our email list and get 5 eBooks sent to you to help with your writing, or join the Creative Academic Writing Bootcamp , if spaces open up.