Embark on an Idea Exploration

In our fast-paced world, the thought of slowing down to explore a number of ideas can feel like too much of a luxury. Who has that kind of time? But, if we take the time to explore our thinking before we draft, great thinking can be brought to light. I can (almost) guarantee it!

One way to embark on idea exploration is to engage in exploratory drafting.

The purpose of exploratory drafting is to begin to develop your ideas without the confines of structure (i.e., you are not aiming to fill in blanks, but to build from the bottom up). To do this, you need the beginnings of an idea or focus, but you do not need to know exactly what you want to say yet. The activities below help move you from the general to the specific by giving you the opportunity to articulate your ideas, explore them in depth, and reflect on next steps.

A. Idea Generation

The first step in developing your ideas is to get one or more of them out on paper—to (literally) see what you’re thinking. To get started, fastwrite for 6-7 minutes, using one of the following prompts:

• I think I want to write about…

• I plan to explore…

• The main question I want to address is…

Or perhaps you are not in such a definitive space, which is okay! If you’re not, consider responding to one of these prompts instead:

• I may write about… but I might also want to write about…

• I haven’t yet decided if I want to explore… or …

• I want to ask a question about… but I’m not sure how to …

B. Idea Exploration

The next step is to take a deep dive into your ideas (argument/exploration/question) to test their potential. This requires a bit of a longer fastwrite (12-15 minutes), and there are numerous ways you can approach this. First, select one of the ideas you articulated in Part A, and then choose one of the drafting approaches below. Like with the previous exercise, the goal here is to generate as much text as possible. Not all of it will be usable, or even make sense, but that’s okay; you’re just beginning.

• Instant draft: This option is just what it sounds like. You pretend your chapter or essay or project is due at the end of the day or in 1 hour, and aim for a full draft in 12-15 minutes. It sounds impossible, but it’s not! This exercise almost always shows writers that they actually know more than they think they do.

• Loopwriting: Loopwriting is a technique that uses a series of short fastwrites to help writers dig a little deeper—to move from shallow to complex thinking. To complete loops, put an idea/topic at the top of the page then write for 3-4 minutes straight (without stopping). Stop and read back through your fastwrites and identify one thing that strikes you—a “hotspot.” This hotspot could be a moment of inspiration, an unexpected idea, a kernel of complex thinking, or anything really. Once you have identified a hotspot, put that new idea/topic at the top of the next page and write for 3-4 minutes straight. Repeat. You can complete as many loops as you think might be helpful.

• Dialogue with...: Regardless of the kind of writing you're doing, dialoging is a great exploratory writing option. You might wish to dialog with a source you're using, or your pretend editor, your fiercest critic, or your ideal reader. The point is to engage in written dialogue with an imagined someone. You could write this as an actual dialogue (i.e., a script) or in more of a “she said/they said/he said/I say” prose form. For this option, you will want to have a good sense of who your dialog partner is and what they might say about your ideas/writing.

C. Reflection

The last step in the exploratory drafting process is to reflect on what you’ve done so far and to think forward to the next step. To do this, read through the writing you’ve done and circle/underline/highlight areas that hold promise. What did you come up with that is worth pursuing further? Did you unearth an idea that seem interesting or even problematic? Did your dialog reveal a key moment or challenge?

Once you’ve identified what’s working, fastwrite for 5-7 minutes to reflect on what you found and how that might help you move forward with your writing. You might consider responding to one or more of the following prompts:

• After reading back through my writing, I now see that…

• Ultimately I think I’m writing about…

• I’m still unclear how…

• In the end, I most want readers to know (be thinking about)…