Felt sense is an important aspect of the writing process. Writing based on what you feel, even if it is nothing, is the core idea behind felt sense. Even that nothing is something, and one must contemplate what exactly that nothing is. Using the felt sense helps one develop a genuine idea that they believe in and can elaborate on. It sounds like a confusing concept, but through its use, felt sense becomes a natural part of the writing process and helps a writer develop an idea based on how they feel about a subject.
Retrospective structuring is the organization of ideas and grammar used when developing an idea. Using this effectively helps provide a clear understanding of the subject to the reader. It is also one of the methods of discovery for the writer. Often times, an idea is inchoate until the writer puts their ideas into words.
Projective structuring is described as putting yourself into the reader's shoes. This is more important with certain types of writing than with others. For example, with research papers, when making an argument for your point, one more be aware that not all of the readers will be on the same side. Being too one-sided and biased may turn readers with opposing views against your ideas. However, neutrality will weaken your case because as a researcher, one must take a stance and develop arguments that support it.
You do well defining felt sense. I wonder why you say it "sounds like a confusing idea"? You do not seem confused here to me!
ReplyDeleteYou do seem like you are having some trouble with retro and projective structuring. Retrospective structuring is just going back over things and thinking about structure: have I said all that is needed to make the point clear? is the order in which i am presenting these things effective? am i ready to move on to my next point or is there more that needs to be addressed here first? (and we use felt sense all the while as a way of answering these questions, keeping ourselves honest, as it were.)The ideas aren't only inchoate until we put them into words. They can even be inchoate when they are in words. Sometimes we talk things through and find they are inchoate, sometime we do free writing or look at our first draft and realize it is inchoate.
You seem to be doing fine with projective structuring, but I want to encourage you to move away from thinking of it is just being about one-sidedness and bias. It's just about thinking from the perspective of a reader--what will make sense to an outside mind, not my own, who is coming to this writing of mine for the first time? Am I clear? Am I helping them to understand me? If they disagree will I be offending them or have I forgotten to address anything that they might take for granted or need to know more about?