Definition: “An inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of skill or commitment”
Possible causes:
- Subconscious awareness and overly rigid “rules” — such as a rule against sentence fragments or how to compose paragraph transitions
- Too-early editing: a writer begins criticizing and altering a text before there is enough of a rough draft to evaluate
- Inflexible composing strategies
- Fear of evaluation
- Insecurity
Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block.” College Composition and Communication 31.4 (1980): 389-401. Print.