Writing Tips: “Somewhere There’s a Someone” – Practicing Uninhibited Writing

Self-published author Louie Centanni shares his writing tips, including how to practice uninhibited writing to get the most out of your ideas.

Writing Tips: Practicing Uninhibited Writing

There aren’t many things in life that can simultaneously be the most personal and the most revealing experience a person goes through. Writing fiction, however, can certainly be characterized as such. When writing, a person expresses thoughts, emotions, fears, uncertainties, longings, love, and loathing through a thinly veiled vehicle filled with characters, scenes, and dialogue. In other words, if people search hard enough, they’ll see your innermost—and possibly utterly hidden—personality.

This makes for extremely inhibited writers. In my experience with reading and writing, inhibitions—to a large extent—destroy the truth. Would anyone have cared about Animal Farm if Orwell had been careful and opted for the pigs to return to the troughs? Do you think society would have fought to ban Uncle Tom’s Cabin if Harriet Beecher Stowe’s protagonist decided to “just deal with it”? It is the unwillingness to bend cornerstone themes and messages that turns decent stories into classic literature.

On a much smaller scale, when I first began writing, friends would regularly ask to see stories and poems I had finished. My initial reaction was always one of insecurity. It’s not that good. Even if I did cave and allow a friend to sample my work, I felt obliged to defend each word with the conviction of a defense attorney whose client’s fingerprints had been discovered all over the knife in question. I have come to believe that these knee-jerk and fearful reactions are not all that uncommon among new writers.

Through teaching middle school, I have found that many students hesitate to share their ideas with peers until they receive validation. This is a similar phenomenon. Often, a student will begin an excellent piece in the Writer’s Workshop section of my English class, only to highlight an entire section of text and hit “Delete.” They say what they wrote was “embarrassing.” This is sad!

I had an epiphany while in college. One single moment, though seemingly innocuous, compelled me to write with much greater frequency and confidence. I turned in a one-page essay for my Freshman Seminar course on a Tuesday, only to have my professor use it as the “example” that Thursday. I had written the essay purely to amuse myself—mainly because I hated the prompt. In short, I left my inhibitions at the door and wrote just to be a smart aleck. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the instructor to share my exercise in self-amusement with my peer group. I, admittedly, felt embarrassed.

The assignment was to “write a one-page essay describing an advertisement you would put on a billboard that deals with any social issue concerning today’s youth.” How ridiculous. A silly prompt deserved an outrageous response, I figured. My ad consisted of ten bicycles—nine in mint condition and the last one torn, tattered, and rusted. Observing the two bikes were two young boys, one in awe of the nine pristine vehicles and the other appalled at the one sorry excuse for a bike. The caption would read, “Nobody wants to ride the village bicycle.” Of course, the ad would address promiscuity among teens. I went on to articulate that the irony is that the only students who would understand the advertisement were the ones smart enough not to be promiscuous in the first place. This made me chuckle with smugness while alone in my dorm room. I thought I would be reprimanded for not taking the assignment seriously. Instead, my professor and classmates lauded the essay for its wit, satire, and shamelessness. I was dumbfounded.

As it turned out—unbeknownst to me—several of the people in the room shared my appreciation for sarcasm and the absurd. The message of my advertisement, one person explained, is something everyone hears about, but never with humor! I realized at this moment: if I like something, the odds are incredibly high that someone else in this world will share a common sentiment. This is the reason programs such as CSI and Law & Order have become so popular. Someone liked the idea, wrote a show about it, and shared it with the public. The result? Hit television. What if those creators were embarrassed initially?

My point is this: if you are having trouble putting your thoughts onto paper due to a fear of ridicule from others, don’t be. There is absolutely nothing in this world more fulfilling than creating. Release your creative inhibitions. Some people might dislike your work; some may insult it; some might quote it on Facebook; most will respect it. You may be surprised at how many people relate to it. If there’s one thing people love to do, it’s to try to involve themselves in every story they read, hear, or see. Even if only one person appreciates what you have written, you can take pride in the fact that you have created something that elicited even a single iota of human emotion. That’s what writing is supposed to do.

In the words of the magnificent Dean Martin, “Somewhere there’s a someone for everyone, somewhere there’s a someone for me.” Though he wasn’t talking about your literature specifically, it helps to know that there is someone, somewhere, waiting to read what you’ve written. Hey, I never thought anyone would want to read this, but you made it all the way to the end, right?

Case in point. 

If you want to read more of our writing tips, including more writing tips from Louie Centanni, check out the “Writing Tips” section of Studio 602, and don’t forget to share your writing tips in the comments below!