First, I want to apologize for arguing with everyone who was trying to give me advice about my writing style. Taking the advice of some, I have chosen to change my focus from cadence to clarity. Now, I am trying to write an essay but I am having trouble. I never experienced this kind of trouble before when writing an essay. When I was in college I did not have this kind of trouble. The problem I am having is this: I have an idea for a paragraph, but I cannot seem to elaborate it. I cannot seem to fill up the paragraph with details pertaining to that idea. Now this makes me think I have lost some of my intelligence over the past few years, because it should not be so hard to think of content pertaining to a simple idea. Maybe by struggling to do this I will train my brain to do it better. I really don't know why this is so difficult.
Post the paragraph you have, @waitingforzion. Without knowing what you're trying to say it's difficult to advice on on any elaboration needed.
In one of my other threads I asked for someone to assign me an essay, and someone did, and the idea they gave me was "Walking for Pleasure". Pertaining to that idea, I came up with three subordinate ideas: Enjoying the weather while walking, daydreaming while walking, and contemplating while walking. But, starting with the first idea, I could not think of anything other than enjoying the warm sunlight and breeze in summer time, and how the sunlight improves your mood. Now am I dumb for not being able to think of anything else? Or did I choose the wrong idea for a paragraph.
How about the character's specific emotions relating to the weather? Memories? Adjacent thoughts? Even something tangential? The sun is warm, but that goes without saying. What is it about the warmth that soothes/annoys/comforts/anythings the character? If you don't have a character, then free write about your personal emotional experiences related to those things.
Your paragraph may be fine, but unless we can read it we won't know. Let me ask you a question. How do you think I can improve the following sentence:
I think that you're over-planning. I wouldn't plan at all--at all--if I were writing an essay on that topic. I would just start writing. When you write these posts, do you sit down and plan everything that will be in every paragraph before you start writing, or do you just start writing?
No I just write them. But I still need to add more details to that paragraph so that it is long enough.
When I can't think of an interesting way to elaborate on something, I tend to just figure I'm done with it and move on. Can't say I'd spend a lot of time on the weather unless it was actually important somehow. Then again, essays =/= fiction in my head, so ...
You can write to your sensations or thoughts. (For the sensory: five senses. For thoughts: expectations, regrets, and actuality.) You can talk about the past, present, or future. You can go into not only how it affects you, but how you perceive it affects others. You also have the old standards: who, what, where, when, why, how. Throw some of those in. Don't just think "the sun is warm," but go where that idea leads. You might start with where you're at, and who's with you walking. Maybe you're on a beach with your wife and the sun on her hair smells like apricots. The sunlight carries sensations it shouldn't, that sort of thing, and you drift counter to expectations. Then the whole world is open.
something like that i'd just write it , start with one idea that then triggers another and that another and so on. "Walking for pleasure is something I do often, just me, a deranged collie puppy and the hills. Whether its the feeling of rain on my face or the sun beating down on my back being in touch with the elements provides me with a much needed freedom from the confines of the office... etc " (and that was extemporized with no planning what so ever)
Thinking is pretty much a prerequisite for writing so you need to learn (and again you learn through practice)
