In the book, Writing without Teachers, Peter Elbow declares that ‘everyone in the world wants to write’; however, despite this universal yearning, the majority of aspiring writers, including the author himself, experience great difficulty with the writing process. Elbow promotes two methods to eliminate troublesome writer’s block: free-writing and writing in groups without the instruction and critique of a teacher.
The author’s proposals are clear and simple enough: practice daily free-writing in 10 minute increments, leave editing for the final step in the process, and create writing groups where participants ‘experience and perceive’ each other’s writing. The whole thrust of the book concerns free-writing, which is writing done very quickly, without stopping, and without editing. The effects of such a technique are to get words on the page from the beginning, to eliminate editing while work is being produced, and to reduce the anxiety of creating ‘perfect’ writing. The author contends that the whole process of teaching people to write relies on the faulty assumption that good writing requires planning, outlining, and determining meaning before any word can be written.
Another message in the book is contained in the appendix essay ‘The Doubting Game and the Believing Game-An Analysis of the Intellectual Enterprise’, which is a theoretical presentation of his ideas intended to captivate academic authorities. As evidenced by this essay and the author’s introductory comments of ‘I am looking for people to engage me at the theoretical level’, the author desires to challenge traditional methods and to gain the notice of intellectuals in the field (p. xxvii).
This brings me to the one downside of the book - it is heavily reliant on personal history and experience and the author is too obviously seeking attention for his ideas. Autobiographical digressions occur at the introduction, appendix, and throughout the book by way of diary entries, personal notes, and stories. I found the many digressions into the author’s personal history a bit excessive, and it gave me the impression that he was more interested in selling his ideas rather than helping writers to improve . This is not mentioned to fault the author’s techniques promoted in the book, but rather his choice of delivering the message through constant reference to his own life history.
The author addresses, in a very practical manner, that writing can be a difficult and excruciating process for many people. He dispels the notion that only a select few have the mysterious gift of writing well and thereby offers hope and encouragement to a population struggling to write dissertations, essays, or even works for personal enjoyment. The strength of the book is its innovative and simple alternatives to the common advice of writing self-help books. The oft-repeated phrase is ‘just write and keep writing’ and this sums up the whole point and purpose of the book.
The author goes to great lengths to defend his method and to convince the reader of its effectiveness. So, do the main claims - to unblock blocked writers, to silence the internal editor, and to release a hidden reserve of words and ideas - actually prove true in experience? I’ve previously incorporated the core tenet of the method, daily free-writing, into practice with my own writing. I have found that the method lives up to the expectations put forth in the book. Despite some flaws in style and the many autobiographical detours, I recommend this book for its practical, simple, and effective methods for struggling writers.
References
Elbow, Peter (1998) Writing without Teachers. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Erin Connelly - Since 2003 Erin Connelly has been a writer for university, government and nonprofit publications. She has edited submissions for "Nature," ...
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