Still Waters

Settle down with a notebook and pen — yes, the old-fashioned kind that you hold in your hand! — and freewrite in response to any of the prompts below. Gaze deep into the reflection pool of your own hopes, fears, and fantasies about what it means to master that art of clear, elegant structure in writing. You may be surprised at what bubbles up!

Take time to explore your natural patterns of thinking and how they translate into written structure. When you're working through a complex problem in conversation, how do you naturally organize your thoughts? Do you start with big picture and work toward details, or build from specific examples toward broader conclusions?

Consider what structural approaches feel most natural to your mind and which feel forced or artificial. What organizational patterns help you think more clearly, and which seem to work against your natural thought processes? How might you honor your natural thinking patterns while still meeting the structural expectations of academic writing?

Reflect on this: What would it look like to view structure as a tool for thinking, not just a container for thoughts you've already developed?

Journal about how you think about your readers when you're organizing your writing. Do you tend to structure your work around what makes sense to you, or do you consciously consider what order would be most helpful for someone encountering these ideas for the first time?

Think about your own experience as a reader. What kinds of structural choices help you follow complex arguments, and what kinds of organizational decisions leave you feeling lost or frustrated? How do the best writers you know guide you through their thinking?

Consider the relationship between structure and hospitality. How might you use organizational choices to create a welcoming, navigable experience for your readers while still maintaining intellectual rigor?

Reflect on the particular structural challenges of your current writing projects. What makes organizing this specific work difficult? Are you dealing with complex chronologies, competing theoretical frameworks, multiple case studies, or other complicating factors?

Consider what you're really trying to accomplish with this particular piece of writing. What do you want readers to understand, believe, or be able to do after reading your work? How might your structural choices serve those goals more effectively?

Think about the relationship between your argument and your structure. Does your current organization highlight your most important points and make your logic easy to follow, or are there ways your structure might be working against your argument?

Explore the relationship between structural constraints and creative freedom in your writing. Do you find that having a clear organizational framework helps or hinders your creative thinking? How do you balance the need for logical structure with the desire to let ideas develop organically?

Consider what "creative structure" might mean for your academic writing. Are there ways to organize your work that feel both rigorous and innovative? What would it look like to use structural choices as part of your intellectual contribution rather than just as a neutral container?

Reflect on how structure affects your writing process. Do you prefer to outline extensively before drafting, or do you discover your structure through the act of writing? How might you honor both your need for organization and your creative writing process?

We’d love to hear how these writing prompts landed with you and whether they stirred any revelations. Please email us at writespace@helensword.com to share your thoughts.