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to write itself

to write itself

8 5.2
To develop easily and naturally without much effort
  • phrasal verb
  • /raɪt ɪtˈsɛlf/
  • Informal
translation icon : escribirse solo
  • This review pretty much wrote itself since there was so much to discuss.
  • it practically writes itself
  • it just writes itself
  • the story writes itself

I I didn't, this card wrote itself.

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Examples

  • With this background, the concept for the campaign practically wrote itself.

    Academic text (2013)
  • My next column just wrote itself.

  • Well that one wrote itself.

  • The story almost writes itself.

    Blog text (22)
  • Slap a happy ending on it, the script will write itself.

  • But the new blog's not going to write itself.

  • This report writes itself.

  • Sometimes a game wrap-up article writes itself; this isn't one of those times.

    Blog text (29)
  • I've definitely improved since I started with the juicy bits first; then the rest of the post or article seems to write itself.

    Blog text (2)
  • Once I started outlining my ideas, the essay began to write itself.

Antonyms

A time when a person cannot think of new things to write

How Effortless

to write itself
  • Informal
8 5.2
to pour out
  • Informal
33 3.9
to flow
259 1.6

Surface Forms

write itself infinitive
writing itself present participle
writes itself third person singular
written itself past participle

Morphology

write + itself

The sense that a story 'writes itself' is suggested by combining 'write' with the reflexive 'itself' — it implies the story composes on its own, so a learner who knows both words can partially infer the meaning. However, this is a metaphorical extension (not literally self-writing) and relies on an idiomatic reflexive use that may not be fully predictable without exposure.

Etymology

Write itself gives the image of a pen moving by itself, or of ideas flowing so easily that the page fills without hard work. That's why people use it to mean 'to come easily and naturally'.