Do you ever find yourself stuck trying to write something complicated? Maybe it’s a strategy brief or an article about a complex topic. It might even be an angry email to customer service. And, you find yourself stuck. “Uggh—if I could just force my brain to think better it would work!”
Rather than squinting to sort out the ideas in a linear fashion, what if you changed up the medium for writing to explode the ideas?
Satire is built on this. The satire site McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is full of imagined daily schedules and tales told from different viewpoints (including from inanimate objects). Lists, like this “Would You Rather” list about returning to school or open letters, like this “Open Letter to my Children” about parenting and remote everything, are fun examples of creative approaches.
Communications Technologies at its Most Basic.
We most often think of communication technologies as platforms to communicate digitally. But at its most basic, communication technologies are innovations in how to communicate.
Graphic Medicine is one such technology. It explores the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare—from personal stories of illness to explaining clinical data. The combined language of words and pictures that is the comic medium gives approachability and emotional impact to these writings. Drawing and writing together taps into different parts of the brain, supercharging your creativity.
Trick Yourself Out of Being Blocked
All this is to say, the next time you find yourself stuck, whether figuring out a problem or writing that perfect document, consider not only approaching it from a different angle, but also through a different medium.
How could this help you? What is your favorite medium for writing ideas?