Experience Shapes Thought

Your experience conditions how you apply creative and critical thinking to your writing and how you critique the writing of others. Enhancing these skills assures better success.

We are creatures who love our routines. Rather than seeing the act of writing as a discipline, consider creating rituals that match your thinking style. However, before you put words to the page, think about why a particular story needs to be told here and now.

• For whom are you writing?
• What do you want your reader or audience to gain from your work?
• How do you want to affect your readers or audience?
• How will you sustain their interest?

If you're critiquing the work of another writer, recognize that the writer may not share your way of thinking. Keep an open mind and embrace the different mindset so that you better speak to the needs of that writer. 

Use this strategy for critiquing published work. You will enhance your creative and critical thinking skills through analysis without worrying about the feelings of the writer. This is an excellent way to exercise your unique way of thinking.

Nonthinking Thinking

Sometimes, not even problem-solving will help you find resolution when writing or critiquing. Thinking is hard. Not thinking is even harder. When focused on your task, letting go can be challenging. The fear of never finishing what you started is a real concern and can drive you wackadoodle.

Not thinking isn't really a lack of thought, it's more of a diversion or a way of stimulating other parts of your brain. 

Trust your intention, commit to the completion of your work and step away from the page. Let the resolution rise from your creative unconscious to your conscious mind. You may surprise yourself.

Recognize the Subjective

Complete objectivity is not possible, even when you've developed heightened skills in critical and creative thinking. At the same time, as you enhance your thinking skills you will be better equipped to separate objective evaluations from subjective conclusions.

Subjectivity can be exploited to write content that provokes. Nor do you have to play fair when you write. However, there is a fine line between provocation that engages and provocation that alienates.

In critiquing, the subjective aspects of the work and your subjective reactions can give you insight into how a piece works. Being reactive is normal, but an effective critiquer  also need to assess from whence a reactions come from, separating the personal from the universal.

Training the Brain

Training your brain is like exercising any other muscle. You work out until your body responds without conscious thought. Like great thinkers, athletes may be born with an innate talent, but without training, these talents are not fully realized. Moving past prior limitations can be painful, but worth the effort. The initial discomfort of brain training pays off, especially when writing.

Discovering and assimilating new information is one way to train your brain. The key is the assimilation part. Gathering information isn't enough. Learning to integrate the new information in a way that broadens or deepens your original thoughts takes effort and a willingness to alter your thinking.

One way to apply brain training to writing is sharing your work with others and learning to assimilate feedback in a way that improves your work. This takes practice and more practice. You will falter, stumble and fall numerous times before you are able to get up and do the work that needs to be done. 

Target Audience

For whom are you writing? If your answer is one of the above, you're doing yourself a disservice. Not only will the marketing of your work suffer, but the work itself will also suffer.As you think about what you will write, focusing on a target audience can help you shape your work effectively.

Thinking strategies for articulating your target audience include:

1. Choose someone from your life you believe would value and enjoy your work and write for them.
2. Visualize reading your work (or having it read) to a group and think about who would be included in that group.
3. Identify other works that share your target audience.
4. Determine where your work would appear in a directory or bookstore.
5. Think about what makes your work special.
6. Look at your social media interests as a way of focusing your intent. 

The form your work takes may change during development, but your target audience is likely to remain the same. 

Danger, Will Robinson

Ah, the conundrum of provocation. On the one hand, you want your work to make others think. On the other hand, your work may inspire emotions your readers do not wish to feel. 

As a critiquer, your challenge is to recognize and accept your reactions to a piece of written work. Monitoring your reactions can give you insight into the effectiveness of what is written. Did the content get under your skin because you disagree or was it because the writer didn't back up their conclusions with evidence? Did a particular character push a button in you or was their a disconnect between who they are and what they did?

Critiquing isn't only about the work, it's about you and your thinking process. Think of this as an opportunity for possible insight.

(If you don't know who Will Robinson was it's because you never watched LOST IN SPACE)

Critiquing and Criticizing

Critiquing a developing work is a process, not a proclamation. Learning to critique constructively will help you develop your work. To learn effective critiquing skills requires:

• developing skills in creative and critical thinking
• recognizing the "rules" of writing and how they can be broken
• learning the language of constructive feedback
• practice, practice, practice

There are no shortcuts and the learning effective critique includes blunders and gaffs. However, this learning process helps you look at your own work in a more constructive way, reducing your anxiety when you share your work with others.