Writing Is About Intuition

I was at the gym yesterday listening to the podcast, Starving For Attention by chef Richard Blaise. In

this episode, he was talking to chef Niki Nakayama. They were discussing whether or not cooking was an art or a craft. I don't want to get into all of the details about this, here, but I did want to bring up two points that Chef Nakayama spoke of.

The first was that with cooking we use the craft to create the dishes, but in the end, it is the intuition of the chef, making decisions of how much and when to use those skills.

The second thing she pointed out was her approach to her menus. Instead of putting together food that she thinks should be on the menu, she took the time to think like the diner. As she prepares her 13 course (yes that is right) meal for her restaurant, she always thinks, "Now that I have eaten this course, what would I want next to eat."

Although this is talking about cooking, I do think there is a lot to be said about the craft of writing. Far too many writers out there are simply missing the point as they sit at their computer. They crank out stories, the create characters, they create plots, but, in the end, they are simply writing words. They are not being like Chef Nakayama.

For writers, we have the craft. I am sure a lot of you go out there and learn the craft of writing. You buy books, you read blogs like mine and you certainly spend the money to attend conferences to hear other authors talk about the craft. But now what? The key to being a great writer is knowing how to use those crafts. It is the intuition.

I was working with two of my writers this week on their stories. In both cases, they were working through plot issues and wanted my thoughts. In both cases, when I suggested the choice I would make, they both said much of the same thing. That was the direction they felt the story should go, but were second guessing themselves. Their intuition told them to take the right approach, but it was the "craft" side coming out bringing up the doubts. Craft wise, they were doing some things that might not have been considered the right way to go. Intuition said to essentially, deviate a bit from the craft to make it work.

The second point that Chef Nakayama mentioned was how she thought like the diner. This was pretty exciting for me because I have been saying this for a long time. As you write your stories, you have to think, not as a writer, but as a reader. Too often, writers are focused more on where they want the story to go, that they are not thinking about the moment. They are not realizing that their future thinking of the story is missing the "present thinking" the reader is experiencing.

I think a great example of this are the authors who are wanting to write a series. As they work on Book 1, they are focused more on "planting the seeds" for Books 2, 3 and 4. Sure, those seeds may be there in Book 1, but are those seeds becoming a distraction to what needs to happen in the first book? Most likely, the answer is yes.

At some level, writers have to stop "over-thinking." Let that intuition take over. You might find your stories become infinitely stronger.