Left-brain and right-brain thinking refers to the idea that certain tasks require logical and analytical thinking while others require creative and intuitive thinking. While this
remains a topic of scientific debate, its popularity suggests that it is a helpful paradigm for some people.
For me, in the world of writing, the equivalent terms would be plotter and pantser, referring to those who plan their writing a lot versus those who make everything up as they go. I tend to be more of a plotter. I put this down to my wide variety of interests; as well as drawing and writing I also like coding and puzzle games.
So, while I am more right-brained in the way I come up with ideas for my creative work, I am very left-brained in my process of executing the ideas. To give an example, I may intuit what would make a good story idea by listening to my emotions, but I would then look to more analytical story structures and other objective measures while writing my story.
Of course, speaking in binary terms such as left and right leads to dead ends. Learning an instrument is the perfect example of a hobby which people argue uses both halves of the brain.
When I was at university studying English Literature and playing music, most of the people in the ensembles I played in were STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students. This went against my preconception that musicians, being creative people, would also be more likely to be students of the arts.
I think that the reason music seems to bring together left-brain and right-brain thinkers is that, while it is a creative and artistic endeavour, there is also a lot of satisfaction to be gained from the technical and theoretical skills one derives from learning an instrument.
Leaving music and returning to writing, I find a lot of writing advice is targeted at either plotters or pantsers and not at people who do a bit of both. One of the reasons for this must be that the two groups often stigmatize each other. Sometimes, writers who understand Freytag’s pyramid and iambic pentameter can be snobbish towards writers who rely on their intuition. Likewise, those intuitive writers may have disdain for analytical techniques which they see as draining humanity from the writing process.
Yet, even self-proclaimed pantsers do some plotting. Their plotting may just manifest itself in mental plans and rigorous editing instead of outlines and character biographies. Vice versa, all plotters do some pantsing, such as writing out of order or deciding to deviate from their outline at points.
If some of what I have written so far has not rung true to your personal experience, then I will have explained my point well. There are infinite approaches to writing and infinite ways to combine the plotter and pantser methods. Some people have taken to describing themselves as plantsers, people who combine the plotter and pantser approaches. At the end of the day, I don’t think these labels are the be-all and end-all. We are all writers and we all have eclectic toolboxes filled with techniques borrowed from many different disciplines.
Abandoning the notion that we must all subscribe to one set of writing ideals may be the key to unlocking a dialogue about the writing process which is more accessible. Frankly, I find writing to be difficult. What has helped me is accepting and embracing the fact that my process does not have to follow any conventions.
I felt the need to write this short article as I wanted to create a learning resource based on the idea of analysing a famous short story and breaking it down into an objective formula for story writing. I worried that this would face the same hypocritical attacks I often see online. When seeking writing advice, aspiring writers are often told to stop Googling and pick up a book.
I do see the logic in this. If your favourite author is John Steinbeck, read East of Eden and you can see first-hand how he works. Yet, this skips over the essential switch from reading as a reader to reading as a writer. Being able to say that you like a book is not the same as being able to say why you like a book and there is nothing wrong with seeking guidance in that regard.
This is to say nothing of the fact that some of the major hurdles facing aspiring writers have nothing to do with vocabulary or grammar and everything to do with not knowing what to do when faced with a blank page.
I was recently writing a short story which I wanted to be Katherine Mansfield-esque. As I wrote, I constantly referred to my collection of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories to see how they worked. Yet, I wanted to go further. I wanted to take notes on what kinds of similes and metaphors she used. I wanted to analyse her sentence structure. I wanted to map her stories onto Freytag’s Pyramid.
In essence, I wanted to blend intuition and analysis. I felt that having the structure and language of Katherine Mansfield’s writing would free up mental space for me to write the personal story I wanted to tell. My conviction is that your story idea will tell you what structure and language to use to best tell your story. So, why would I want to use Katherine Mansfield’s structure and language instead of my own? Because one writing exercise does not define a writer. I spent the first half of this essay trying to convince you that the most popular division amongst writers is an illusion. I now hope you will also see that close reading and copying are valid writing tools just like plotting and pantsing.
So, I send you out into the world to write how you want to write. Do you want to lock yourself in a room with a pen and paper and write down the first thing that pops into your head? Do you want to re-write Moby Dick as a sci-fi adventure? Everything is valid as long as you do not feel limited to one set of tools. Personally, I will continue to use every single tool in my toolbox to make the task of writing just a little less daunting.