Using ?? as a Writing Tool

Often when I write, I kind of get into a typing frenzy.  I’ve heard some writers are very slow and methodical, picking each word carefully.  For me, what usually happens is I will “see” a scene in my mind and work feverishly to get it all down in print before I forget the details.

Of course I always go back and edit it, sometimes again and again, trying to fill out the initial picture I saw in my mind to get it just the way I want.  But when I’m actually “doing” the writing, I don’t want anything to stop me from getting as much on the paper as I can.  And that’s where the double question mark (??) comes in handy.

Sometimes I’ll type a word and my fingers will freeze because my mind has recognized I either used the wrong word or misspelled what I wrote.  I find that if I dwell too long on trying to fix that specific problem, I’ll lose other parts of the scene.  Poof!  Gone forever.  I hate that.

So I use the ?? (double question mark) to save me.  If I get stuck on something I need to look up, I’ll just type ?? and move on, knowing I can do a search for ?? later (on my version of Word it’s Edit/Find ??), and it will take me right back to the spot I marked.  The reason I use ?? is because it’s easy to remember, easy to type, and easy to spot on the page.

I use the ?? for tons of things I can’t decide on right at that moment, like spelling, double checking specific facts, punctuation, grammar, and so on.  I may be writing about a character and can’t recall if he was wearing a green or blue shirt in the previous scene, but instead of taking the time to look it up, I just ?? and move on.  My rough drafts are filled with dozens and dozens of double question marks.  It allows me to stay in the “flow” of the writing while giving me an easy way to mark areas I want to come back to.

Sometimes I even write myself a short parenthetical note along with the double question mark like: (?? Is parenthetical a real word).  But most of the time I can see the problem just by marking it with the double question mark.

It’s a writing tool I learned years ago, and I’m sharing it with you just in case it helps you too.