Writing is Really Really Scary

by Brian CoughlinPhoto of Brian Coughlin

Brian Coughlin is a biology major from Melrose, MA. He believes that “everyone has the capacity to write something beautiful, but so many people are turned off of it because they think of some boring English essay they had to write about The Catcher in the Rye in eleventh grade.” Brian’s goal in this essay is to show that writing is “so much more than cracking open a thesaurus to impress your teacher.” This piece of writing is important to Brian because it was one of the first essays he wrote while trying to break away from the conventional writing standards. While writing, Brian says, “it felt ‘wrong’ to use more casual language because it didn’t FEEL academic. But I figured why not? If my points are all there, and the reader can understand them, why dress up as some scholar?” By developing a unique writing voice in his composition classes, Brian feels that he is now able to increase his presence in all types of writing. He is also relentlessly passionate about drawing and animals, and believes that drawing, like writing, is a fantastic outlet that “allows you to make something out of nothing that contains a style that just can’t be 100% replicated.”


“In the writings of Amicucci and Young, they both discuss a common theme of using your own voice in writing. Throughout this essay, I will be demonstrating how their ideas connect and support a main idea of intimidation around writing due to the way the education system is structured.” Well, that’s one way to start this paper. And honestly about a year ago I’d go that route. But fuck that. It’s boring, it’s borderline insulting to the reader, and I lose all my passion when writing like that. I’d bet that intro clicked for a lot of you though, bringing back the dread of writing high school essays. But that system they shoved down your throat is wrong. Plain and simple. Writing’s not as hard or as boring as you were taught it is, and I’m sure PLENTY of you would enjoy writing a hell of a lot more if you knew how freeing it could actually be.

Typing this out, it’s so easy for me to erase a word I type and replace it with a more “sophisticated” word. But honestly what’s the point? In forcing a voice I don’t naturally use, is it really even my voice? No. It takes a lot of unlearning, but writing becomes SO much easier when you’re not putting on a front. Don’t get me wrong, using filters (basically the way you present yourself in writing) in your paper has its benefits. But take it from Vershawn Ashanti Young, writer of a fascinating article called “Should Writers Use They Own English,” who says that “a whole lot of folk could be writin and speakin real, real smart if Fish and others stop using one prescriptive, foot-long ruler to measure the language of peeps who use a yardstick when they communicate” (Young 112). There’s a reason that 90% of us despised English class in high school and saved the essays until the last minute. And THAT’S the reason! People are intimidated by the “rules” of writing. Can I speak for everyone? No. But I can speak for myself when I say I was terrified of straying from the “rules” we were all taught about writing, and it’s because straying from these rules is often punished with a bad grade. No I’s, use big words, whatever. All these silly rules do is make people think they can’t write, or worse, it makes them resent writing. It feels like a chore rather than something you’re passionate about. That lack of passion comes DIRECTLY from us putting up a front to seem more professional than we probably are. So, what do you do when it comes to writing an essay? Just drop the act, man! Save it for your lab reports. Otherwise, what makes you stand out from the other five million generic essays? Your voice is something unique in writing and is something you NEED to utilize to its full potential, even if it’s scary to cross that line. But once you do, once you begin typing in your true authentic voice, you’ll find that the words will flow much easier.

Now, it’s easy to think, “Okay, maybe writing is good for SOME people, but not me.” And when you think of writing, I’m sure you think of big scholars, sitting on a chair by a fireplace while pipe smoking. But why do you think that? YOU write all the time, and you do great at it. You just don’t know it. Ann Amicucci, author of “Four Things Social Media Can Teach You About Writing — And One Thing It Can’t,” explains this idea well saying: “You might think of social media as completely separate from the writing you do for college, but the truth is, the two aren’t that different…the choices you make as a composer of text and images online are the same choices you need to make as a college writer” (Amicucci 18). Amicucci is saying that even if you don’t use social media, I’m sure you text. Or write letters. Or comment on posts. All of this IS writing, period, which shows how MUCH you really write without even thinking. It’s easy to be conditioned by English class to think that all of that’s not “important” writing. But why? You put as much, if not MORE, thought into your social media writing as your essays. You choose emojis, hashtags, word choice, which abbreviations to use, etc. It’s a lot of work! But we do it without even thinking, and you do it ALL the time. So why should an essay be any different?

Okay. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Hamburger Method. Three paragraphs, intro/conclusion, maybe a Works Cited if your teacher made you. The five-paragraph essay. We ALL know it. And I don’t blame you if you think this is peak academic writing. This is something that’s drilled into our brains from middle school to the end of high school. And for a while, it feels like this is the only way to really write and sound smart. But the five-paragraph essay, plain and simple, DOESN’T WORK. Why doesn’t it though? All our teachers said it did! Well, this format certainly has a purpose. It’s great at forcing kids to dig through texts they don’t like, grab random quotes, and splash them on a paper. It’s less great at, y’know, actually teaching kids about writing. And it’s probably the reason so many of you detest writing. Who wouldn’t? If I thought that was the only way to write academically, I’d stop taking English classes at this point. But I want you to ask yourself what the five-paragraph essay does for you. Does it allow you to experiment? To risk? To try new things? To include your OWN voice, your OWN opinions, your OWN ideas? Or does it shove a prompt in your face and say, “good fucking luck”? Think about it. What can YOU insert into a five-paragraph writing that’s unique to YOU? You could shove quotes and summaries in all you want, but it’s still not your ideas. It’s spitting back out what’s thrown at you. But we all have opinions on the things we read. Could be good, bad, or maybe you really don’t care, but we ALL form some opinion on the content we consume. But you aren’t allowed to express that in a five-paragraph essay. Nope. Gotta get the right amount of quotes/word count! And the only consequence is ruining writing for countless students who could’ve been great writers. So yeah. Maybe that Hamburger Method you were taught isn’t all that foolproof.

So, I know you probably have a burning question: okay, I can write, and five-paragraph essays are flawed. Great! But…HOW do I write well? And it’s a solid question with a lot of different answers. But the main thing to consider, the thing I ALWAYS structure my papers around, is the audience. You’ve heard of audience; I’m sure you get the general idea of it. Audience is who you’re writing to. But do you ACTIVELY consider them in your paper? I’m sure you give it a glance, maybe add one or two things, but it’s CRUCIAL to appeal to your desired audience. Amicucci points to social media abbreviations, which directly appeal to an audience. She says: “Each language choice a writer makes marks that writer as an insider in some groups and an outsider in others — like if you’re a gamer who uses the acronym ftw, you might assume I’m a gamer, too” (Amicucci 22). Using the acronym “ftw” is a small inclusion in such a post, but it clicks with the intended audience. That intended audience can be anything — a professor, your peers, etc., but in this case, it’s gamers. So, what does this mean you should change your writer’s voice to appeal to an audience? NO! Young builds on this idea of writing for an audience, saying:

We hear that background in they speech, and it’s often expressed in they writin too. It’s natural (Coleman). But some would say, “You cant mix no dialects at work; how would peeps who aint from yo hood understand you?” They say, “You just gotta use standard English.” Yet, even folks with good jobs in the corporate world dont follow no standard English.” (Young 111)

Young is questioning here what counts as standard English and the criticism that people won’t understand unique dialects, a dialect essentially just being the way we write and say stuff. Young and Amicucci both share the same kinda mindset, being that an audience is signaled to by word choice. By writing in your own dialect, you signal to an audience. Like I said, it can be anyone. You can have a broad audience or a small group that you know will get it, but regardless, you write for SOMEONE. Think about it. We all use um’s and uh’s, say like, say totally, and any other goofy unprofessional word you can think of. Our audience GETS that. Is it appropriate in every situation? Maybe not. But that’s the fun in writing, you know? You try things out! It might work out. Or maybe you’ll get your paper back with a big-ass F. But why get discouraged by that? You’ll learn. You’ll know your audience better. You get to get up, try again, and take your mistakes into account. So, when you’re starting that paper, forget the prompt, forget the stress. Sit for a second and really question, who AM I writing for? And I think you’ll find a lot of that stress will start to dissipate.

So, the high school system is flawed, sure. But what can be done about it? Truthfully, I dunno. It’d be nice to live in a world where all students have the freedom to write in their own voice and exercise their creativity, but that’s not the world we live in. The school system in general tests such shallow abilities rather than a student’s intelligence. I guess my main issue with this is how it discourages students from writing. And I get that completely. Hell, if I didn’t take Comp in college, I’d stay away from writing, too. But we’re all bursting with differing ideas, opinions, and important things we wanna talk about. I think it’s important for students to know that you can do that. You don’t have to stick to some kind of formula for writing, because honestly, there isn’t one. Writing is scary. Seeing that blank paper is scary. Seeing that rubric is scary. But once you let it all go, once you clear your mind and begin typing in your voice rather than the one that’s taught to you, I think you’ll find you have a lot more to say than you realize.

Works Cited

Amicucci, Ann N. “Four Things Social Media Can Teach You About Writing — And One Thing It Can’t.Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 4, edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vetter, Parlor Press, 2020, pp. 18-33.

Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English?.” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2010, pp. 110-117.