How to Think in Writing

If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial.

Good thinking is about pushing past your current understanding and reaching the thought behind the thought. This often requires breaking old ideas, which is much easier to do when the ideas are as rigid as they get on the page.

When I write, I get to observe the transition from this fluid mode of thinking to the rigid. As I type, I’m often in a fluid mode—writing at the speed of thought. I feel confident about what I’m saying. But as soon as I stop, the thoughts solidify, rigid on the page, and, as I read what I’ve written, I see cracks spreading through my ideas. What seemed right in my head fell to pieces on the page.

Seeing your ideas crumble can be a frustrating experience, but it is the point if you are writing to think. You want it to break. It is in the cracks the light shines in.

Once I unfold my understanding in writing, I often see holes right away. I start correcting myself and discarding ideas already while typing. I cut ideas that are obviously flawed. I rewrite what feels ambiguous to make it sharper–more precise, concrete, unhedged, and true to my understanding. The flaws I see immediately, however, are only the more superficial flaws. The deeper patterns take a longer time to emerge—because they are further from my established thoughts and so are harder to articulate.