WRD 104: Composition & Rhetoric II Rotating Header Image

“Writer’s Block”

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.