You Don’t Need a Helmet for This Ride

Writing is like a bike that can take you on an imaginative path to anywhere; but, unlike a bike, with the written word you can go anywhere, anytime, to any universe without restrictions. Most people I know are quick to tell me they are not very good at writing. I look at them skeptically and tell them, “Yes, you can. Writing is a learned skill. Anyone can write, just like anyone can learn to ride a bike.” Sounds easy enough, if you know how to start. Put the training wheels on and climb onto the seat of your bicycle and I will take you for a short ride.

The purpose of writing is to inform a reader. The most commonly used of the four major categories--exposition, argumentation, description and narration--is exposition, which, to quote from Wikipedia, is used for: business letters, how-to essays (such as recipes and other instructions), news stories, personal letters, press releases, reports (such as scientific reports, term papers, also, textbooks), wills, and encyclopedia articles. Argumentation is persuasive writing to convince someone of an idea or intent, such as resumes, advertising copy, editorials, reviews (such as reviews of movies, books, etc), job applications and evaluations, and letters to the editor. Descriptive writing is for journaling and poetry. Narration is to relate events, such as the novel, autobiography, short stories and oral history. If it is not clear to you already, hear this: in your lifetime, you will need to write. And it is a skill you can learn.

There are three basic parts to writing: the concept, the form and the presentation. I will give the ABCs of writing from my book, KISS Keep It Short and Simple:

• A. First, put your name and date and title on the paper and it is no longer blank. (A blank piece of paper sometimes seems to be the most intimidating part of a writing project.)
• B. Build the paper using the ‘3’ principle: a sentence has three components, a paragraph has at least three sentences, and a paper has at least three paragraphs.
• C. Fill in the details using the KISS principle CCI: Compare, Contrast and Interrelate©. Compare is to tell how two, or more, subjects are alike; contrast is to illustrate opposite characteristics; and interrelate is to show the relationship between subjects using the like/dislike elements.

The best tool I know to organize thoughts for expository writing is CCI: compare, contrast and interrelate. It might not be necessary for all forms of writing, such as recipes, textbooks and wills, but it is useful for most of the writing you will do. Any writing you do is organic, coming out of fragments of ideas that need to fit together as a whole, like a jigsaw puzzle. It is like taking a photograph and turning it into a jigsaw puzzle: the concept is the whole picture, your ideas are the fragmented pieces that your writing will put into a picture again. Your reader has to grasp the concept that you are conveying through the written word; each word is the puzzle piece that you lay down to create a picture. But unlike a jigsaw puzzle, those ideas do not have to go into just one slot to form a picture, but the whole has to end up comprehensible, in multi-colors or black and white, or free-form expression.

So, now can you imagine yourself riding a bicycle, snapping a photograph and doing a jigsaw puzzle at the same time?