Write With Me #4 - Body Paragraphs

Writing body paragraphs is one of the hardest things to do. You have your detailed plan (as we discussed in the second part of this series), but turning that into coherent and well formed arguments can be a chore. Well, not any longer.

To start with you're going to be using that detailed bullet pointed plan. Have it open either on another device or as a split screen with a blank document open in front of you. The split screen is my preferred method as I have everything visible, however for some essays I have made use of both a split screen and having my tablet open with the plan since I was copying and pasting names (non-English names and titles required this).

I love writing in Google Docs since I can edit on my phone, tablet and laptop. It makes writing so much easier since I can adapt to the place and time - I don't have to worry about how to get the information backed up on my memory stick to my tablet, I just open Google Docs and go from there.

Looking at your plan choose which "paragraph" or section that you feel will ease you into writing. For me writing this essay on Frankenstein and humanity it would be the discussion of the term monster, but it could be anything. This is so you get into that 'flow' of writing and have the small win rather than feeling that you're competing with yourself to write something and struggling.

I would advise not starting with a comparison to other literature simply because you want this section to build on your previous observations.

So, you have your starting paragraph chosen and the plan ahead of you. Now my suggestion is to do something like freewriting. This is normally writing without a structure, no outlines, cards or anything like that, you just follow wherever your mind takes you - but we're going to adapt this a little bit and instead follow a very basic structure. Each bullet point is a starting topic, and I want you to write anything that comes to mind about that, for example:

We have all fallen foul to naming the creature in Frankenstein, the 'monster' despite the text calling him a creature, among other names. These other names are given to the Creature by Frankenstein and are mostly derogatory, for example he refers to him as 'thing' and 'spectre', but creature seems to be the primary term used in the text.

The above text isn't meant to be something that is checked for facts (yet!) this is just your lead in to see where your brain takes you. I am starting out with a discussion of the term in regards to frequency, so I make a note here to check the frequency of terms used in reference to him. Then I repeat this for the other bullet points in this section. At the end I will have around 10 pieces of freely written work that I can fact check, add to and turn into workable paragraphs.

If it turns out my freely written content is completely wrong then I can edit that, and also maybe include a note about belief vs textual evidence, if including my own opinion and writing from a first person perspective. E.g - "I had believed that the term creature was used in the text more frequently than the descriptor of 'monster'".

One of the reasons I love writing in Google Docs is that it makes this stage much quicker to edit; I can create comments and track changes which helps immensely when fact checking and annotating.

Turning freewriting into 'proper' paragraphs

So now that we have a mass of text that are our own opinions, annotated to include information and notes on what to change, we actually need to make those changes.

I hit enter underneath the paragraph, change the text to another colour and start crafting my 'academic-y text'.

We have all fallen foul to simply referring to the creature in Frankenstein with the name of his creator, or by calling him 'the monster'. When looking at the depictions of humanity within the novel, this is a key area to explore first. Names have power and affect a reader's opinion. The term 'creature' can seem de-humanising at first, however other characters (who are most certainly human and not created by Victor) are also referred to as 'creatures', suggesting that this is not a term used with the same negative connotations that the word 'monster' holds.

That opening sentence in the freewriting turned into the above paragraph easily through looking at my annotations and paying attention to making the language I used feel more like I was writing an essay. I expanded on the term creature earlier on, building up to the discussion of 'monster' to give context, to start the analysis and also to intrigue the reader. I'm first talking about a more neutral term than 'monster' to bring in the relation to other characters being called by this term which then leads nicely into the more important term to discuss - 'monster'.

I once wrote an entire draft of an essay with slang terms, references to films and in-jokes with friends because it was difficult to sit down and write something that sounded professional straight away. I turned "Jareth does a Hannah Montanna and dates Sarah's mother like it's an episode of Soap" into "There is evidence presented to keen eyed viewers that Jareth is the mysterious man in a relationship with Sarah's mother from a newsclipping on her vanity." But writing it the first way sounded funny and more importantly it got something down on paper.

Just write...

The above phrase is one I have said to myself countless times when it comes to body paragraphs. I start thinking, then overthinking and at the end of an hour I don't have anything to show for it.

Whereas, when I just write, when I get whatever it is down on paper then at least I have something I can work with later. You can't edit a blank word document.

So, if you're getting stuck for what to write and you're not really sure of how much you can get out of the bullet point "her mother died just after she was born" just start writing something. Write about how difficult that must have been, and that an event like that would affect her life, and most likely her writing. There - you've got something to elaborate on later when you can think about it a little bit better.

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Hey! Tara here and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.