Writing as Process

Purpose + Audience + Form + Drafting + Revision + Feedback + Revision + Feedback + Revision . . . + Editing + Proofreading = The formula for strategic writing.

Sounds easy, right? Not!

Writers know what non-writers don't: there is no magic formula for writing right. Instead, writing well results from writing and more writing and from an effective working process.

All writers

Discovering (Inventing and Drafting)
A writer looks for ideas everywhere. An overheard conversation, a television news report, a runaway dog, a memory, an odd bit of information -- any aspect of one's daily life can provide the impulse to write. Sometimes a writer experiments with writing exercises or with freewriting, a process by which one writes for a specific period of time (say twenty minutes) without any planning. At other times, a writer pursues opportunities offered by contests or calls for manuscripts. Often, a writer looks through his or her journal or notebook to find bits of text or images or ideas for exploration. Most importantly, a writer writes to find subjects, forms and ideas for development.

Developing Content (Drafting and Revising)
Once a writer feels the tug of an idea emerging, she follows that tug just as a fish takes bait. As she pursues that impulse in words, the writer doesn't worry about her point or her form. Instead, she tries to develop content in order to find purpose and give shape to thought. She listens only to her creative side, telling the critical part to be quiet. There's time for that voice later.

Inventing Purpose, Imagining Readers, Crafting Genre (Revising)
As he develops content, the writer will inevitably begin to consider three important questions: Why am I writing? For whom? and What form (or genre) best suits my content, my purpose and my audience? The more specifically he identifies his purpose (to inform, persuade, entertain, commiserate, complain and the like), the more specifically he imagines his audience, the more specifically he crafts genre, the more likely it is that the writing process and product will both go well.

Seeking Feedback (Constructive Criticism and More Revising)
Every writer needs at least one trusted reader to offer an ear and critical response while the writer is writing. Even professional writers depend upon members of their writing groups or upon trusted friends and relatives. Even professional writers have editors who lend willing ears and who help writers polish their texts. Seeking feedback from someone who also writes provides a test audience during the process of composing.

Editing Language
Once she decides her draft is near completion, a writer edits her language, looking for ways to make the writing more stylish and more conventional. She might re-write, delete, move or add passages. She might reduce repeated words or look for ways to combine sentences. She might correct spelling, change paragraphing or double-check sources. She might submit her work to another writer, who will edit the writing as well. Then, she'll re-print, incorporating all the editing suggestions and corrections.

Proofreading
A writer always reads his work for correctness and accuracy before sharing it with a reader. On this reading, he is merely looking for lapses in the conventions of standard written English.

Publishing
Writers write journals for themselves and polished pieces for others. They always look for ways to publish or share their work with readers. They might submit work to journals or magazines; they might send letters to the editor; they might perform their work in staged readings; they might give speeches or conduct workshops; they might read aloud to members of their writing groups; they might post poems in bathrooms or hallways. The point is that a piece of writing isn't truly complete until it has met an audience, where it truly lives.

Demonstrating
Click here to see a piece of Dr. Hood's writing as it developed through these stages.