Against "Flow"

I was recently contacted by a student who asked if I would write a blog entry on “flow,” and seeing as I haven’t done one of these craft blogs in a while, I figured I probably should. . . .

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What is writing?

Seriously.

What’s the essential activity, once you boil all the romance away?

If you guessed making shit up, you are wrong.

If you guessed deploying language to divine human truth, you are both wrong and pretentious.

If you guessed the brief, painful phase that comes after several hours of procrastination, you are technically correct, but vague.

Writing is decision making.  Nothing more and nothing less.  What word?  Where to place the comma?  How to shape the paragraph?  Which characters to undress and in what manner?  It’s relentless.


--Steve Almond, This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey

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In my workshops and classes, I have a rule banning the use of the word “flow”—what I call the other F-word. (Incidentally, the regular F-word is fine for use in my classes. Sometimes even ideal.)

I tell students, unless you are reading about fountains, faucets, or feminine hygiene commercials, you should never use the word “flow” in your feedback to another writer. I have a “flow jar” into which we put a dollar if we slip up and use the word. (At the end of the semester, we’ll spend it frivolously on burgers and shakes; there’s always enough cash to ensure that everyone eats until full.)

I detest this word. Flow.

So why do we instinctively reach for this particular abstraction in order to talk about art--how a story or poem either “flows” or “does not flow”--and what does it really mean? 

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