Every writer should have a thinking path. When I learned that Darwin, Dickens, and Wordsworth had one, I wanted one too. And it has transformed my writing process.
Simon Whaley is a member of the OWPG, the Society of Authors, and the Crime Writer’s Association. His non-fiction titles have been published by Hodder & Stoughton, Frances Lincoln, How To Books, and the Bluffers Guides. He self-publishes his cosy crime fiction, writes illustrated features for The People’s Friend, BBC Countryfile, and Country Walking, and has two columns in Writing Magazine. This piece appeared in ‘The Author’.
I’ve always been a walker. My earliest articles were for walking magazines, and I’ve also written a guidebook for walkers. But for any writer, walking produces the perfect thinking time.
It was Darwin’s father who introduced him to thinking paths. Every' morning, at his childhood home in Shrewsbury, young Charles accompanied his father on a route around the garden, where he was encouraged to think about his upcoming day. When he moved to Kent as an adult, he created his own thinking path, which he strolled daily as he developed his ideas for the Origin of Species.
While I’m no Darwin, whenever I’m stuck on a novel plot point or can’t get an article to flow, I get up from my desk and go for a walk. There are a couple of circuits from my front door that take me through fields and trees and over hills. With no dangerous roads to cross, I’m free to get lost in my thoughts. It’s amazing how a half-hour stroll produces a solution to my writing problem - hence the Latin phrase solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.
Dickens described his two types of walking in The Uncommercial Traveller. One was ‘to a definite goal at a round pace’, while the other was ‘objectless, loitering, and purely vagabond’. This second walking style was Dickens’s thinking time.
Neuroscientists refer to this vagabond state as transient hypofrontality. Essentially, our brain concentrates its limited resources on co-ordinating our limbs so we don’t fall over. This reduces the thinking power available to the pre-frontal cortex, which is where much of our stresses and anxieties play out when overthinking.
This reduction in resources means our pre-frontal cortex can only cope with one or two ideas at a time. Ironically, this allows us to better focus on them. Hence, with fewer distractions, we can often solve our creative problems.
Many contemporary writers have discovered the power of thinking paths. Clare Flynn is a historical fiction writer who has found being stuck at a desk isn’t great for the creative juices. ‘If I’m stuck on a plot point or unclear where to take a character next,’ she explains, ‘going for a walk can help stimulate me. I just enjoy the walk, even listen to music as I go, and just let the problem simmer in the background.’ Novelist and 2017 Bath Short Story runner-up Catherine Finch agrees. ‘Sometimes you can sit hunched over the laptop for hours and seem to get nowhere.’
Walking is particularly helpful, she observes, ‘when two characters are at an impasse. I listen to the conversations in my head. In my first novel, Walking Apart, it was during a walk that the interaction between David, a good husband, and a woman he forms a relationship with became a brief affair. Before the walk, he was going to do the right thing and say no.
By the time I returned home, they had slept together!
Sometimes, I leave the front door with a particular issue, and I am so engrossed in it I haven’t considered which thinking path to take. It’s not until ten minutes later that I realise which route I’ve subconsciously chosen. Finch has had similar experiences. ‘I live in rural France, so my walking route varies. Sometimes I leave the garden knowing which issue in my writing I am going to consider, but not knowing whether I will turn up or down the road.’
Like Dickens, Clare Flynn uses her walking time for research. Dickens regularly walked 20 miles in search of the right setting for a particular scene. Flynn calls this observational walking. ‘I set my most recent trilogy in a fictional village in Hampshire. I already had a good idea of the kind of place it would be, but walking through country lanes with a notebook and my phone camera in my pocket helped bring the place alive.’
Observational walking may be a different kind of walking from that of a thinking path, but both can have a strong sense of purpose when setting off. However, walking with no specific creative problem to solve has its merits, too. My more aimless thinking-path strolls are some of my most productive moments of the day. It’s where I have my best ideas. (Where do you think I had the idea for this piece?)
Having a variety of routes isn’t important, as Flynn explains. ‘My seafront walk is a favourite as it’s on the flat but is endlessly varied because of the tides, the weather, the temperature, and people I see.’
‘It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.’
Ultimately, it’s the physical movement that helps the brain contemplate, not where, or how far or fast, we walk. Create a route away from dangerous traffic or crowded places that need careful navigation – choose city parks, seaside promenades, canal towpaths or local nature reserves. Only a safe environment can allow your mind to truly explore creative solutions. Consider it an investment in your writing. Walk it in solitude, and take a notebook to scribble down your thoughts and ideas.
Walking improves our mental health. It releases serotonin and dopamine, enhancing mood. My best ideas appear when I’m happy, walking.
So, when you’re creatively stuck, go for a walk and follow in the footsteps of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who once said, ‘It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.’
I love the idea of thinking paths. I find all my best ideas come when I am walking - just being out in nature and away from all the stresses of modern life is enough for my mind to relax and my creativity to flow. A great read, thank you.