College Admission Essays: Writing as Process, Not Product - Separating Your Inner Creator and Editor

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Separating Your Inner Creator and Editor

The writing process divides into three parts:

• Pre-writing: The stage during which you gather your thoughts, consider focus and theme, choose a structure, and outline the essay.
• Drafting: The first couple of rounds of slinging words onto the page until you have one complete version of the essay.
• Revising: The stage during which you function as a stern critic, reading over the essay, correcting and polishing until it’s perfect.

About half of the process — from pre-writing through the first rough draft, minus the structuring and outlining stage — depends upon free-flowing creativity. The other half — from the second draft through the final product — depends more upon a critical eye. (Structuring and outlining also fall into the critic’s corner.) To come up with the best possible essay, you’ve got to keep both halves of the writing process completely separate.

Here’s what I mean. Two little workers inhabit your brain, a left-brain editor and a right-brain creator. No kidding, sort of. Scientists who have studied brain function have determined that most of the creative impulses come from the right side of the brain. The left brain is in charge of critical, logical, and analytical thinking. So the right brain gives you great ideas, and the left brain puts those ideas in order and inserts commas and capital letters. Both your inner editor and creator are useful — even essential — to your essay.

The problem is that they fight. Like co-workers who can’t share an office without shooting paper clips at each other, the editor and the creator battle for dominance. Your mission, and you must choose to accept it, is to make sure that neither side wins. What you do is fool them. Send the editor out for coffee while the creator produces ideas (the pre-writing stage of gathering thoughts and mulling over focus and theme). After you’ve got a lot of ideas, invite the editor back in to select a structure and outline the essay. While the editor is busy, give the creator a rest. After a quick coffee break, muzzle the editor and let the creator crank out a draft. Then sit on the creator while the editor revises the essay.

Self-Discovery: Which half of your head is stronger? No, I’m not talking about the muscles that wiggle your ears and raise your eyebrows. I’m talking about the two halves of your brain — the creative right side and the logical left side. (Read the preceding paragraphs for more information on the right/left divide.) To phrase this question another way: Is your inner creator dominant, or your inner editor?

Not sure? Take this completely unscientific but fun test:

1. I read the last page of a mystery novel first so I can find out the name of the murderer.
2. I loved proving theorems in geometry class.
3. I hated art class when the teacher told us to play around with the paint and just “let it happen.”
4. I always link one idea to another with words such as “consequently,” “after,” “therefore,” and “on the other hand.”
5. I hate it when people hop around in conversation with no understandable order.

Do you have more “yes” answers? You like order and logic, so your left brain is probably the one that tends to take over. More “no” answers? Your creator calls the shots. Regardless of the results of this test, remember that you need both sides of your brain to write a good essay. Just be aware that one part of the process will probably be easier for you than the other. Don’t give in when you hit the difficult bit; try harder!