to write itself
- phrasal verb
- /raɪt ɪtˈsɛlf/
- Informal
- 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.
- I I didn't, this card wrote itself.
- And I sat there and within literally minutes, it all just wrote itself.
Examples
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With this background, the concept for the campaign practically wrote itself.
Academic text (2013) -
My next column just wrote itself.
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Well that one wrote itself.
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The story almost writes itself.
Blog text (22) -
Slap a happy ending on it, the script will write itself.
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But the new blog's not going to write itself.
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This report writes itself.
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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
How Effortless
Surface Forms
Morphology
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'.