Christopher from Austin, TX, writes, “You write a lot. So do I. My teacher says I should write less, and that will make me get better. What do you think?”
Well, Christopher, Adam Grant, in his new book, Originals: how non-conformists move the world (Viking, 2016) writes this:
“…the most prolific people not only have the highest originality; they also generate their most original output during the periods in which they produce the largest volume … It’s widely assumed that there’s a tradeoff between quantity and quality—if you want to do better work, you have to do less of it—but that turns out to be false. In fact, when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality. Original thinkers … will come up with many idea that are strange mutations, dead ends and utter failures. The cost is worthwhile because they also generate a large pool of ideas—especially novel ideas.” [Page 37]
When Grant uses the word “novel,” he means original. But hey, I’ll take it to mean literature. So keep writing, Christopher.
2 thoughts on “Keep writing, Christopher”
Great advice, Avi. Thanks for the encouragement.
Come Monday morning, I know what I’ll be discussing with my sixth-grade students. All year I have been stressing how writers cannot have quality without quantity, and it’s fantastic to see a source that states the same.
One thing though: Is it possible the Texan teacher was advocating word economy? Maybe he meant: You should write less TO SAY MORE, and that will make your writing better.