We’re going to try a little experiment here, me and you. We’ll call it reality writing. In which I try to take you inside the mind of a writer, namely me, as I try to create a piece of writing, namely this. I’m not quite sure how it will work, or if for that matter, it will work at all. But we will try. And, in the process, learn about the process, and create literary history. The first time a reader and a writer ever worked together. So, let’s begin:
First, we need an opening sentence. Check. Now with the next sentence were going to want to expand on that first one but also introduce a new element, where were going with all this. Okay. And then were going to want to add one more sentence to round out our first paragraph and complete the introduction. Wallah.
Then we start the second paragraph off with a transition. About here I usually like to throw in a topic sentence. Topic. After that we should try to set up the rest of the piece, what we’ll call the body. The meat. The middle section. The three middle paragraphs where we really try to make our argument matter. Filler.
These paragraphs are not always easy. They have to be extremely well thought out. We need to be able to carefully, step by step, make our case. We need to make sure that we are creating something worthwhile for you. So that you have a reason to continue on and a sense of why you’re even reading this whole thing in the first place.
And now that we’ve really got you going we can really just start flowing. From one sentence to the next. Now we’ve hit our stride and my fingers are just flying from key to key. We’re barely in control of them anymore. We just instantly know what the next sentence should be, what you want. Our piece has found its own internal logic.
But then, around here, we usually start to run into that self-doubt that every writer experiences. Maybe, we think, we might be getting a little ahead of our self. Are we really accomplishing what we set out to do? Are we making my point? Did we get so caught in the stream of conscience that we ended up flowing too far downstream? Does what we’re doing have any value?
Lucky for us though we’ve made it through the middle section and onto the conclusion, so we don’t have to worry about all that. We just need to figure out a way to wrap this whole thing up. To recap what has come before. What we’ve learned, what we’ve gained. What the point was.
Which is tough in this case. Even now I pause and re-read the whole thing for an idea of what to do for an answer to that. And that’s what I came up with for us. Which I don’t think was that bad. Sort of interesting in a meta way. No? Pause again. Rub my lip. Look around the room. Stare back at the screen. Write this.
And finally we’ve made it. The last paragraph. The big closer. What we’re going to send you out on. What may be the only thing you’ll end up remembering from all of this. Should we go with a question? Nah, too open-ended. Should we go with some sort of an irreverent comment that turns everything that has come before ironically over its knee and spanks it? Possibly. Unfortunately though, we can’t think of one. So, I know what we’ll do. We’ll go with old reliable. A zinger.
We did it, me and you! We wrote something. You have now truly gone where no reader has ever been before, inside the mind of the writer. You’ve been granted a front-row ticket to the creative process. A V.I.P pass to the true genesis of art. I will contact the Columbia Journal of Medicine and New York Magazine to let them know of our experiment’s great success. We’ve made history here. I’m so proud. And I hope you learned something in the process.
