Metaphors for Avoiding Writing Overwhelm (with Free Handouts!)

We talk about “writing” as if it’s a single skillset, but that’s not accurate at all. The things that go into writing are incredibly varied, and chances are that any given individual will excel at some of them and struggle with others. Helping writers to separate out the different parts of the writing process can give them the tools to focus their attention more effectively and stop feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.

That’s what tips on the “writing process” are supposed to do, but the problem is that it pretends that there’s a simple linear process when the truth is much more complicated.

If you’ve ever heard that writing can be broken down into prewriting–>drafting–>rewriting, you’ve heard some version of this well-meaning but ultimately inadequate advice. The truth is that while writing will hit all of those things at some point, they might not happen in that order, and some might happen at multiple points in the process. On top of that, the process is going to change depending on what you’re writing and why you’re writing it.

The end result is that oversimplified explanations of the writing process can leave writers feeling like they just don’t get it, that they’re doing something wrong. They think that their messy steps mean they’re making mistakes when, in reality, they’re doing it exactly right. It’s just messy.

The best thing we can do for struggling writers is to give them permission—encouragement even—to embrace the mess.

Finding a Process that Works

In my time as a writing instructor, I have used the HOCs and LOCs system to talk about writing. HOCs stand for “Higher Order Concerns” and LOCs stand for “Lower Order Concerns.” This is a common way to talk about the different elements of writing in composition textbooks, and it’s a useful tool for writers to see where to put their attention at each stage of the writing process. Here’s how they divide up:

Higher Order Concerns

These are the most important parts of writing.

HOCs include making sure you have something to say, have developed it with examples and details, have explained it with a specific and appropriate audience in mind, and have organized your ideas into logically arranged and focused paragraphs.

HOCs are a lot of work. Mastering them can often require brainstorming, multiple drafts, getting feedback, and setting it aside for some time to get a little distance before revisiting it. They are the heart of the paper, and if you haven’t addressed HOCs, it doesn’t matter how well-written your ideas are or how well you place your commas. The HOCs have to be in place first.

Lower Order Concerns

These are the polishing steps of writing, and they are what we often talk about when we talk about evaluating writing.

LOCs include making sure that sentences are written smoothly, that the paper is formatted properly, that everything is spelled correctly, and that punctuation and grammar are correct.

LOCs require attention to detail. They often require reading the paper aloud, learning and memorizing specific grammar and formatting rules, and proofreading carefully.

Putting HOCs and LOCs Together

The problem for many struggling writers is that they are trying to do too much at once. If you focus on HOCs and LOCs simultaneously, you are asking your brain to do completely different types of tasks. You are trying to make it focus on big picture, overarching themes while also looking at tiny details. What’s worse, you can end up perfecting the grammar of a paragraph and then finding out that paragraph doesn’t even belong in the paper. It’s frustrating, demoralizing, and time-consuming.

In order to avoid this kind of overwhelm, writers need to learn to focus on the HOCs before they move on to the LOCs.

If the HOCs aren’t in place, the LOCs don’t matter. There’s no amount of proofreading that can fix a paper that doesn’t have a main idea or supporting details, and those efforts are just spinning wheels that are never going to connect with solid ground.

Two Metaphors for Writing

To help make this clear to writers, I have often turned to metaphors. I could go on and on about why metaphors are so important to teaching (and I have), but for today, let’s just say that metaphors help make unclear concepts clear and memorable. It’s their superpower.

There are lots of metaphors for writing, but the two that I turn to again and again are building a house and baking a cake. Both of these do a great job of showing the different stages of writing and making it clear that HOCs need to come before LOCs. They’re recognizable and familiar. Let’s take a closer look at why they work so well.

Writing is Like Building a House

When you build a house, you first have to worry about the actual construction. It needs a foundation (main idea), walls (supporting ideas), a blueprint (organization), and rooms developed for a specific purpose (audience). Building a mansion is different from building a two-room cabin just like writing a formal research paper is different from composing an email, but both require planning and the gathering of specific materials, materials that vary depending on the final product. This construction phase represents the HOCs.

When you’ve finished building the house, you’ll need to finish it with paint, carpet, and decorations. These are the LOCs. It’s clear, though, that you can’t paint a wall until you build it, and you don’t hang curtains on walls that might get knocked down. The house needs to be built first, and when you think about it through this metaphor, that’s obvious.

Writing is Like Baking a Cake

When you bake a cake, you have to decide what kind of cake you’re making (main idea), gather ingredients (supporting details), and mix them together in the right order (organization). Most importantly, baking a cake makes a mess. There are lots of dishes to clean up, batter that doesn’t make it out of the bowl, broken egg shells, and spills. The final result (the finished, decorated cake) doesn’t show all of the work and mess that went into making it. That part is hidden in the end, but it’s still a part of the process.

The LOCs are decorating the cake, and this requires a much more detail-oriented approach than baking the cake did. However, you can’t start decorating until the cake is finished and has had some time to cool. Likewise, writers should give their draft some space before returning to proofread and do final edits. Polishing up the style and grammar requires a different kind of mindset than creating it in the first place.

Making vs. Polishing

Both of these metaphors make it clear that there are two stages to writing: a making stage and a polishing stage. If we give writers the tools to think about these stages as separate, we allow them the space to make a mess knowing that they’ll have time and resources to clean it up later. It helps to demystify what can be a complex and overwhelming process, and it gives writers a language to talk about writing that is familiar and meaningful.

Free Handouts

I’ve got two handouts that use the house building and cake baking metaphors to demonstrate the HOCs and LOCs stages of writing. You can get them for free right here: Writing HOCs and LOCs Metaphors. If you would also like checklists for both the making and polishing stages that can serve as a base for approaching most writing assignments, you can sign up for my email list and receive access to download them free as well.

Happy writing!