I am not a talented artist. However, sketching, doodling, and making rough drawings have become essential to my writing process. If you don’t incorporate drawing into your planning and brainstorming, grab a pencil and a blank sheet of paper and learn about how sketching can improve your writing.
1. It helps you visualize your ideas.
The connection between mental visualization, writing, and reading is at the core of literacy. An article by Lesley University describes how young children in one study felt more successful at writing when they sketched their ideas first. It helped them visualize what they wanted to say and improved their confidence in their storytelling. Similarly, one of the most significant blocks to early literacy is that some children have difficulty visualizing what the text is describing. Drawing the characters, scenery, or scenes of your story in advance can make them clearer to you and your reader.
2. It can help you overcome writer’s block.
Sketching your characters and scenes can give you a new perspective. It can be an effective problem-solving tool when your writing gets sludgy and slows down. Switching to a different medium breaks linear thought patterns that can narrow your focus and prevent you from seeing ways for the story to progress.
3. Sketching is a great writing warmup activity.
According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, your brain reaches peak efficiency, or flow, during activities that are sufficiently challenging yet achievable. Focused sketching can be a flow activity. When in flow, your brain produces more alpha waves. This “alpha state” is highly sought after by artists. See our interview with Anne Bernays, in which she mentions it as an essential part of the writing process. Focused sketching is an easy way to get into the flow state, so it can be a great writing warmup.
4. It can quickly capture an idea.
Sketches don’t have to be perfect, and even a stick figure wielding a knife can remind you that you had an idea to kill off a beloved character. The next time you wake up from a dream, try sketching about it instead of describing it in words. It has been easier and faster for me to understand my bad nighttime drawings than my bad nighttime handwriting.
5. It can show you gaps in your story.
From filmmaking to catalog production, storyboarding is an integral part of the writing process in many industries. It can help you identify gaps in your story and logic faster than reading several pages of summaries. Throw your sketches up on a wall and get an overall view of your narrative from beginning to end in one big snapshot. Use sticky notes or other methods to mark questions, ideas, or notes.
Does your writing routine include sketching? If so, let us know in the comments how you use it, where in your writing process it helps, and other benefits you have noticed that we missed above.
As an old school visual learner I like to have time-lines, maps and character diagrams as I write. When possible even pictures of my characters. Helps me stay accurate and focused.