Whew! The end of the school year is upon us! But so is the advent of my summer course, which just began earlier this week. I had a blissful two weeks without any schoolwork and got to read an actual book for fun (The Boys in the Boat! It was really good! You should read it!), which was lovely, but it’s time to get back on the hobby horse and ride.
When I’m in the midst of classes (so, like, always, I guess), it’s hard for me to find the time for fiction writing. But that doesn’t mean I’m not doing any writing at all. I’m typically doing a lot of it. Last semester, I spent probably about six hours a week in writing, which is about what I would be doing when I was in a good swing for fiction writing. Of course, while there are many similarities, academic writing is pretty different from writing fiction for fun. So why not sit here in the hazy midlands in between the two and write a blog about it? What fun!
The differences become apparent before the writing itself even starts, and then just stack up from there.
In academic writing, you’re usually assigned a topic to write about, with necessary key elements that must be covered. It doesn’t really matter if you find it interesting or inspiring. You just kind of have to do it. While hobby writing fiction, I can kind of wander wherever the squirrel brain takes me or drop a project entirely if I find it boring. That is not the case with academic writing. And while that can mean that you get really boring assignments that you just have to buckle down and do, I have found that for me personally, that also means that I don’t really deal with writer’s block very much when writing classwork. I think there’s just something deep in my brain that says, “Well, we have to do this no matter what, so there’s no point in getting stuck on it.” This isn’t to say that I don’t procrastinate my schoolwork like crazy when I don’t want to do it, but I don’t ever find myself stuck the way that I do in fiction writing sometimes. If I ever find myself not sure what to write next, it’s not really a matter of ‘deciding’ where to take it next. I have materials to tell me where to take it next—rubrics, assignment descriptions, syllabi, textbooks, class notes, etc. Of course, I have some freedom in the way I meet the expectations and present the materials and research, but I’m not generally making things up from scratch, so I haven’t found writer’s block to be nearly as big an issue in academic writing as it can be in fiction.
Now, I am all about that research in fictional writing. Love me some good research. But researching for fiction has absolutely nothing on researching for an academic paper. For every six hours I spent writing each week, probably at least four of those hours were dedicated to reading, referencing, and research. We could probably even count my weekly lectures in the research category and add another five hours per week. Nine hours researching (and research related activities), for about two hours of actual fingers-flying-on-the-keyboard. Oh, and let’s talk about the ‘fingers-flying’ part. Because they’re not.
Academic writing is slow. Sometimes you can get a little narrative in the introduction section and make good time there, but for the most part, you’re slogging along at a bit of a crawl. Again, this comes back to research. When I’m doing academic writing, I’m not just pouring words out onto the page as I feel inspired to. I’m referencing notes, embedding quotes, looking things up in texts, etc. Research time is usually pretty well mixed into writing time, too. For any kind of technical writing, you should have references to support everything you’re saying. Even opinions need to be backed up by research to explain why you’ve reached that conclusion. In fiction, I can just write whatever the heck I want and never substantiate any of it.
All of this means that your output is going to be much lower with academic writing than with fiction writing. Despite working for hours upon hours each week in a pretty text heavy class (I’m in a distance program, so looooots of reading and writing papers), I still probably only averaged between five and ten pages per week of academic writing. That’s a heck of a lot fewer words than I might get from a similar amount of time in a good fiction writing week, which may see between twenty and thirty pages. (I figure about 2k a day, six days a week, which is easily attainable when I’m in my groove.)
A few similarities between the two, though: clarity and voice are vital to strong writing; knowing and writing to your audience is important; and revision and editing really matter in the quality of the final product.
Do I hate academic writing? Actually, no. I find I really enjoy it, at least when I’m not panicking at an approaching deadline. Writing papers is probably my favorite part of school (which sounds so masochistic to say), but it really doesn’t scratch the same itch as fiction writing does. They’re similar in mechanics, but really different in execution and product.
Anyway, hope this was interesting. I’m a big proponent of lifelong learning, so if you find yourself thinking about maybe taking a college course or something, I think you should go for it. Learning is fun and you might find that you enjoy writing about the things you’re learning too. And it’s gratifying to think that some of your research and writings might help someone else expand their own knowledge too. (So maybe that’s another similarity—fiction or nonfiction, I love the idea of other people reading and enjoying my work!)
Wish me luck as I get started on my summer course! As usual, I’m going to need it.
And until next week, happy writing!
Jill Marcotte 