Schopenhauer's 7 Tips for Writers (and Content Creators)
In a recent Existential Espresso members essay, I wrote about Schopenhauer’s 8 tips on reading. (You can check it out here.)
I extracted those 8 timeless pieces of advice from Volume 2 of his book "Parerga and Paralipomena." It is a collection of his essays and aphorisms, and definitely the easiest thing you could read to get familiar with Schopenhauer’s work, especially Volume 2. I’ve included "Parerga and Paralipomena" in my free book recommendation list that you can check out here.
This time, I am giving you his 7 tips on writing from the same book. However, as you go through them, I’m sure you will notice that almost all of this advice applies to any kind of creative work. In fact, I would say that it’s also quite relevant for the role of a digital creator or content creator, a type of creator that didn’t even exist until recently.
If you are someone striving to express themselves through writing, or through any form of creative expression, I’m sure you’ll find this advice from Schopenhauer valuable. However, even if you think of yourself just as a consumer, there is a way to get value from this. Look at the characteristics that Schopenhauer values and those he criticizes in writers. Then start paying attention to the writers and creators whose work you are consuming. Do they pass the Schopenhauer test of quality?
Without further ado:
1. Write for the sake of the subject
There are two kinds of writers, Schopenhauer says. Those who write for the sake of the subject and those who write for the sake of writing.
Those who write for the sake of the subject "have had thoughts or experiences that seem to them worthy of communicating."
The latter, according to Schopenhauer, "need money, and that is why they write." We might add that some people are not writing primarily for money but for the social recognition and status that can be achieved through it. Either way, it is not that they truly care about conveying a certain message. For them, it’s all about their name being on a book cover or at the end of a newspaper article and all the benefits that come with that.
We will recognize the latter type of writer "by the fact that they spin out their thoughts as long as possible." If we pay attention while reading something that is written by this type of writer, we can notice that they write in order to "fill up paper."
"Only he who writes solely for the sake of the subject writes anything worthy of being written. What an inestimable gain it would be if, in all branches of literature, only a few exquisite books existed!"
2. Think before you write
When it comes to the relationship between thinking and writing, this time Schopenhauer divides writers into three different types.
First are those who write without thinking. They write from memory, from reminiscences, or even directly from the books of others. This class is the most numerous, Schopenhauer says.
Second are those who think while they write. The only reason they think is in order to write. According to Schopenhauer, this type of writers is very common.
"That writer of the second kind who postpones thinking until writing is comparable to the hunter who goes out at random: he will hardly bring very much home."
The third type are those who have thought before they set out to write. Contrary to the second type, the reason they write is because they have spent a lot of time thinking. This is the rarest type, and the one Schopenhauer would like us to strive towards.
"Conversely, the writing of the third and rare kind of writer resembles a battue for which the game has been captured and penned up in advance, in order to be flushed out later in droves from these enclosures into another similarly fenced space where it cannot escape the hunter, so that now it is merely a matter of aiming and shooting (his presentation). This is the hunt that generates something."
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