What Ecology Teaches You About Writing

March 1, 2010 by Chris
Filed under: Writing Tip

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Today’s writing tip is about what the science of ecology can teach you about improving your writing and your writing career.

Ecology teaches that organisms optimize their energy resources. We naturally follow the same course. The least amount of time and labor that we can invest to achieve our goal is a good strategy.

Invest your resources proportional to your gain.

In ecological terms, this principle is manifested in r and K-strategists. R-strategists include animals like mice and rabbits. Because of high mortality rate (read: kill rates, rejection rates), the optimal strategy is to produce lots of offspring or product. Generally, the parental investment is minimal.

Young are born helpless, requiring some upbringing (read: marketing) or able to take care of themselves. Small body size is typical. For the writer, this means high quantity of small articles.

K-strategists, on the other hand, invest a lot of time and resources in their few offspring. Offspring are typically larger, that is with a higher word content or better content quality. The offspring (read: articles) are long lived or evergreen.

The resource will move to a state of equilibrium.

Succession is the process by which a community (read: career direction) will be replaced by another, eventually reaching a point of climax or ecological equilibrium.

This may describe the way you work. You begin with low-paying jobs to gain experience. Eventually, as your writing improves, you are able to get better-paying gigs. Finally, you reach a point where you are writing for a wage commensurate with your talent and experience. You have reached your writing climax.

Ecology teaches us that we should make the best use of our resources whether they are energy related or monetary. Apply these principles to your writing and you will achieve optimal growth.

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