Writing Process, prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish |
 Mar 20 2008, 10:57 AM
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Slug & Jigger's Bezoar Collector  Posts: 4,652 Joined: 3:58pm June 14, 2005 Location: New York, NY   |
The Writing Process (to the best of my understanding) consists of 5 steps:
Prewriting Research, notetaking, brainstorming, outlining, .... Drafting Writing Revising Adding, Removing, Moving, Changing major parts such as whole sentences, paragraphs or chapters Editing checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, captilization, ... Publishing Make the work public in some way Do you use any of this process in your writing? If so, which parts do you use? How do you use them? How do they help you to be an effective writer? If not, which parts don't you use? Why do you find them unhelpful? What do you do instead? -------------------- Not-so-proud member of P.C.A.A.: acceptance is the first step to recovery.
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Mar 20 2008, 01:53 PM
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#2
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Daily Prophet Photographer  Posts: 866 Joined: 7:26pm June 10, 2005 Location: Curled up on the sofa with coffee, my dog, and Harry Potter  |
I use all of those steps to some extent. I definitely spend the most time prewriting, especially outlining. I outline the heck out of anything I write! It helps me organize my ideas, plan where I want everything to go, and keep different sections balanced. If I'm writing something that has a page-count or word-count, I note how long each part should be on the outline, otherwise I can get carried away. Usually, by the time the outline is finished, whatever-it-is feels practically done.
As for revising, I have a tendency to over-write, so most of my revision is just slicing away the extraneous bits. It's a far cry from highschool, when I was shamelessly padding every paper, and slyly changing the margins to make them seem longer. The most helpful editing is the kind that someone else does. It's hard to edit one's own work! --------------------  |
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Mar 20 2008, 03:38 PM
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#3
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Knight MacMod The Great Protecting The Memory Of Sense Posts: 2,513 Joined: 7:17pm February 17, 2006 Location: 3rd door on the left, Hogsmeade  |
QUOTE(NYBookworm @ Mar 20 2008, 08:57 AM)  The Writing Process (to the best of my understanding) consists of 5 steps: As a teacher of writing, I try my best to include all of those steps in each assignment I give the students. I require annotations of texts, outlines and summaries of assigned readings. I walk them through various techniques of "discovery" (brainstorming, use of traditional lists of common topics, questioning techniques, etc.) They write drafts and review each others drafts. Then they write. Then I review and evaluate. When I am through, they may revise and rewrite again.Prewriting Research, notetaking, brainstorming, outlining, .... Drafting Writing Revising Adding, Removing, Moving, Changing major parts such as whole sentences, paragraphs or chapters Editing checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, captilization, ... Publishing Make the work public in some way Do you use any of this process in your writing? If so, which parts do you use? How do you use them? How do they help you to be an effective writer? If not, which parts don't you use? Why do you find them unhelpful? What do you do instead? The whole process is exhausting for them and for me, but I do not know any other way to convey what it means to read, write, and think critically. --------------------  click the Q "And, if there is need to speak in brief summary of this power, we shall find that none of the things which are done with intelligence take place without the help of speech, but that in all our actions as well as in all our thoughts speech is our guide, . . ." Isocrates, Antidosis |
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Mar 22 2008, 02:09 AM
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Severus Snape's Personal Assistant  Posts: 2,288 Joined: 11:44pm November 29, 2005 Location: In the Hogwarts kitchen eating cookies. |
My problem, even though i know better, is that I sometimes do all of those steps (except for publishing) all at once. I have a problem with letting it flow. I always have to edit and move around things. The story I'm working on now I'm actually doing in steps. I'm in the pre-writing/drafting stage. I figure that's better than doing all four at the same time, lol.
--------------------  W.L.Y.J. We love you Jo |
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Mar 22 2008, 10:38 AM
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Waiting for Wednesdays  Posts: 9,230 Joined: 7:57am January 28, 2005 Location: Hiding from Hurricanes |
QUOTE(Overcast @ Mar 22 2008, 02:09 AM) My problem, even though i know better, is that I sometimes do all of those steps (except for publishing) all at once. I have a problem with letting it flow. I always have to edit and move around things. The story I'm working on now I'm actually doing in steps. I'm in the pre-writing/drafting stage. I figure that's better than doing all four at the same time, lol. Philip Pullman has said that writing is like fishing, sometimes it just happens. and sometimes it takes a little planning. I find that ideas flow, but then after I must pull back and plan. So the idea comes first, then I plan the organization of the idea after I write a first draft and before a redraft. --------------------  My Avon Breast Cancer Walk Page and Blog! I'm In It to End It! |
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Mar 22 2008, 11:32 AM
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Gringotts Goblin Translator Posts: 1,220 Joined: 12:37pm July 27, 2006 Location: Inside Dumbledore's Pensieve |
QUOTE(Overcast @ Mar 22 2008, 02:09 AM) My problem, even though i know better, is that I sometimes do all of those steps (except for publishing) all at once. I have a problem with letting it flow. I always have to edit and move around things. The story I'm working on now I'm actually doing in steps. I'm in the pre-writing/drafting stage. I figure that's better than doing all four at the same time, lol. Yes ... I jave a problem of 'excessive flowing' while I write. I start with nice small plot and then suddenly I'm overwhelmed by a storm of various ideas. One thing that helped me was noting down the idea galore that hit me. It made the work organized. And I liked what you said in your post DorisTLC . Helpful, really. And the steps I follow too much are editing and revising. I revise my story a million times. I get very,very critical while doing so. --------------------  Thanks to Azkaban Dietician for the chamber 29 sig! |
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Mar 23 2008, 09:52 AM
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Buying a Half-Kneazle Posts: 545 Joined: 7:56pm June 16, 2005 |
Now that I think about it, I don't really prewrite. I usually think over my ideas for days and everything gets really organized that after some time I can just sit down and start writing.
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Mar 28 2008, 05:47 PM
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#8
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Perusing the Magical Menagerie Posts: 91 Joined: 9:37am March 5, 2008 |
QUOTE(NYBookworm @ Mar 20 2008, 10:57 AM) The Writing Process (to the best of my understanding) consists of 5 steps: Prewriting Research, notetaking, brainstorming, outlining, .... Drafting Writing Revising Adding, Removing, Moving, Changing major parts such as whole sentences, paragraphs or chapters Editing checking grammar, spelling, punctuation, captilization, ... Publishing Make the work public in some way Do you use any of this process in your writing? If so, which parts do you use? How do you use them? How do they help you to be an effective writer? If not, which parts don't you use? Why do you find them unhelpful? What do you do instead? I am still in the Prewriting phase on my first story. I can't wait to get a first draft ready. I have a feeling this one is going to be great. |
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Mar 30 2008, 03:15 PM
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#9
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Rat Tonic Bottler Posts: 1,121 Joined: 10:06am March 10, 2007 Location: Netherlands, Europe |
I'm halfway in the drafting stage - still writing. I'm kind of apprehensive about the editing, though. With this story I've kind of made it up as I go along, so really every thing I've wrote before I 'discover' a certain plot point is a bit... outdated. Most parts probably don't need that much changing, but the whole beginning probably needs rewriting. And I don't even know how it's going to end yet! Not to mention correcting all the typos and bad sentences.
 Maybe it's best not to think about editing until after the story is finished. 
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Mar 30 2008, 06:15 PM
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#10
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Hiding in the Iron Maiden at Borgin and Burkes Posts: 321 Joined: 8:01am August 4, 2007 Location: Prince Edward Island, Canada |
I only write for myself. And I only write when the story has to be written down. If I didn't I wouldn't have enough room in my head for anything else.
Writing is like my own version of a pensive. I need a place to store a story that has become to large to keep in my head. When I do start to write, the story and characters are pretty much set. I start a general outline of the time line of the story from start to finish. I then divide the story into chapters. The one I am writing now started with 23 chapters but I know there will be at least two more by the time I am finished. My first outline is always sparse. Usually less than 150 pages and about 20,000 or so words. Then I write a second outline. I expand on things like narrative, character traits and action. My second outline usually expands to six or seven pages per chapter, 350 plus words per page. Then I will put it away for at least a month before I start a third outline. When I take both outlines out again I will sit down an reread them both. This is my editing process. I will keep the parts of the story that I like then change or delete others. I also add on things as well. Just because I have set the story away for awhile doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it. As I write my third draft I check off each line of my first two drafts. Left side check mark: first copy. Right side check: second copy. Again I expand on the story, chapter by chapter. I suspect I will have over 350 pages with at least 300 words per page. The first two chapters of the book I am writing now have over twelve thousand words. But I imagine it won't be quite as much when I am finally finished. Writing for me is not a fast process. I write by hand and like to reread the chapters a lot to keep the story fresh in my mind. I am guessing it will be another two years before I can write The End on my final draft. As for publishing. It would take a lot for me to consider it. I like my simple laid back life too much. 
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Mar 30 2008, 08:08 PM
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#11
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Newest Housekeeper at The Leaky Cauldron Posts: 736 Joined: 4:41pm September 14, 2006 Location: looking for lost braincells in the L&S Broom Closet |
QUOTE(DorisTLC @ Mar 22 2008, 11:38 AM) Philip Pullman has said that writing is like fishing, sometimes it just happens. and sometimes it takes a little planning. I find that ideas flow, but then after I must pull back and plan. So the idea comes first, then I plan the organization of the idea after I write a first draft and before a redraft. I'm a big fan of "mapping" before I start writing. I write all my ideas on a page; then I use colored pencils to connect ideas and categorize. Then I'll outline. Something else I do in the pre-writing stage is "free write" around my main idea; I just write without editing or criticizing or thinking too much in general. After the free write, I go back and figure out what parts of it (if any) will be useful. Of course, you always have to allow for the inspiration which hits unexpectedly, just when you thought you knew where the piece was headed! 
-------------------- Summer's lease hath all too short a date... |
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Apr 1 2008, 04:12 PM
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Official Singer of the Sorting Hat Song Posts: 6,606 Joined: 3:12pm July 22, 2005 Location: Lost in Hermione's beaded bag |
I sometimes think there are two ways of creativity: the rational and the irrational. I think of Beethoven and Mozart, Ibsen and Strindberg, George Eliot and Charles Dickens. The formers worked by revising and revising and tinkering, while the latters poured forth from their unconscious minds. One way is not better than the other. It's just a question of writer's temperament. Of course, we all tend to be a blend of both types, but it's always good to follow what works and not to fight one's nature.
-------------------- Come the words that bubble
Up through broken laughter, Sweeter than spring-water, "Gods, I am so happy!" |
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Apr 2 2008, 11:03 AM
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Knight MacMod The Great Protecting The Memory Of Sense Posts: 2,513 Joined: 7:17pm February 17, 2006 Location: 3rd door on the left, Hogsmeade |
QUOTE(davidenglish @ Apr 1 2008, 02:12 PM) I sometimes think there are two ways of creativity: the rational and the irrational. I think of Beethoven and Mozart, Ibsen and Strindberg, George Eliot and Charles Dickens. The formers worked by revising and revising and tinkering, while the latters poured forth from their unconscious minds. One way is not better than the other. It's just a question of writer's temperament. Of course, we all tend to be a blend of both types, but it's always good to follow what works and not to fight one's nature. You're right, of course, that creativity comes in a variety of forms, though I wouldn't necessarily limit the approaches to polar opposites. Sometimes, however, I think it is good to embrace that "shadow" side, the thing we don't see ourselves as being any good at. That side or angle we tend to reject is part of us also--sometimes a powerful part.Then, of course, we get people like Whitman, who tinker and revise meticulously in order to create an illusion of spontaneous genius. It takes a great deal of effort to sound as if the words are flowing out thoughtlessly. I think that sense of "studied casualness" may be what makes reading Whitman a kind of acquired taste--perhaps like drinking scotch. I never really acquired a personal preference for either, but admit the quality of both. -------------------- click the Q "And, if there is need to speak in brief summary of this power, we shall find that none of the things which are done with intelligence take place without the help of speech, but that in all our actions as well as in all our thoughts speech is our guide, . . ." Isocrates, Antidosis |
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Apr 7 2008, 08:41 AM
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#14
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Sundae-Nut-Chopper at Florean Fortescue's Posts: 948 Joined: 12:30am December 18, 2006 |
QUOTE(matilda @ Mar 20 2008, 02:53 PM) I use all of those steps to some extent. I definitely spend the most time prewriting, especially outlining. I outline the heck out of anything I write! It helps me organize my ideas, plan where I want everything to go, and keep different sections balanced. If I'm writing something that has a page-count or word-count, I note how long each part should be on the outline, otherwise I can get carried away. Usually, by the time the outline is finished, whatever-it-is feels practically done. I am the same way with prewriting. I have to outline and plan so that I know what research I will need to do--I don't want to get in the middle of a writing burst, then have to stop to plod through research or be stuck waiting on sources to arrive or for the time to trek somewhere to get what I need. Once you have that fully-fleshed-out outline, your materials gathered, your story map, your table of who does what when or what idea goes where, etc.--you have done the hard part!QUOTE(Smartaps_2 @ Mar 22 2008, 12:32 PM) Yes ... I jave a problem of 'excessive flowing' while I write. I start with nice small plot and then suddenly I'm overwhelmed by a storm of various ideas. Something that I've done in the past so that I can keep up with where my mind is taking me, in a huge rush of ideas, is to jot down each idea on an index card--so that each card has only one idea on it--because that way I can enjoy the benefits of the idea deluge (no editing, accepting every idea as a possibility, making connections, etc.) without being confronted later on by a page full of jibberish!--or worse yet, only a vague memory of some of the ideas, with nothing written to reference them. I can then lay the cards out somewhere, make some piles or paths with them, then translate that bit to a merrythought-type (color-coded!) map.One thing that helped me was noting down the idea galore that hit me. It made the work organized. I don't do this everytime I'm writing something (I also don't get the flood of ideas for everything that I need to write), but when I do, I feel more brilliant.   And twillick, I am also a fan of a slower writing process--I am working on something now that I started without any real enthusiasm for back in the fall--but having left it and come back to it in the past couple of weeks (a side-effect of lengthening due dates), I finally have my "hook," a way to organize and present the info meaningfully and with some interest. Had I needed to turn it in when I first began, it would have been an extremely dull piece...a complete waste of paper. -------------------- "...the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" - Sirius Black (OOTP14)
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May 3 2008, 11:45 AM
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Knight Bus Driver in Training Posts: 550 Joined: 11:12am October 24, 2007 Location: Who knows? One thing's for certain...I've got a book with me! |
My writing process is definitely not like Jo's...I do plan where the story is going to go and some of how it will get there, but I don't detail it all out on paper. Ever since I can remember, I tell myself stories in my head when I lay in bed at night before going to sleep...and any other time as well. I don't know why I do that, but I always have. Anyway, sometimes those stories grow and grow until I have a plot sitting there in my head and I go to write it. The most prewriting I do is about the characters. In my character notebook I'll take a page for every character and describe them--appearance, personality, likes and dislikes--before I start my story. Sometimes I don't even have a story for the characters in my notebook, but they're in there all the same.
For example, the story I'm working on at the moment started four years ago when I was a very romantic fifth grader. It was one of those stories that I made up in my head, and it was about a rich girl who didn't get along with her parents and ended up meeting and falling in love with a boy from an orphanage. Obviously, that's not much of a plot, and it circulated in my head for a while. I forgot about it until last October, when I decided that it was actually kind of interesting, so I kept thinking about it without writing anything down until I decided that the book wasn't about the boy at all, but much more than that, and now I'm working on the story. So I think the things I write come very slowly most of the time...I don't really think plots pop fully-formed into anyone's head. -------------------- |
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May 19 2008, 02:29 PM
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Being Eaten by the Pea Soup Posts: 39 Joined: 5:46pm May 16, 2008 Location: Trying to master that knitting spell *grumble grumble* |
I tend to do better when I am not given the leisure to worry about how each sentence is going to be laid down. Nor do outlines and I get along very well.
My best work seems to come during the crazy and hectic space of NaNoWriMo. I start with a basic idea, a few characters figured out, where they should be going, and what I want the outcome to be. The rest of it just seems to happen as it unfolds. In fact, I find that the characters dictate much of the story to me- they will change their background, minor characters muscle in to become major players, and others will bow out at (what I consider to be) the most inopportune times. Still, it tends to wind itself up in a rather satisfying manner. Of course, there is revising and editing to be done on such a creation, but the basic bones and a good part of the flesh are already in place on my creation. It's really more a case of "dressing it up" to meet the world. --------------------  And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and persue that flighty temptress, adventure. Albus Dumbledore |
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Jan 3 2009, 10:24 AM
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Cauldron Bottom Measurer Posts: 135 Joined: 12:39pm December 30, 2006 Location: County Wicklow, Ireland |
QUOTE(DorisTLC @ Mar 22 2008, 10:38 AM) Philip Pullman has said that writing is like fishing, sometimes it just happens. and sometimes it takes a little planning. (chuckle) However, whether you're planning or not, no fishing happens if you left the pole home. It's smart to always have a notebook or recorder with you so you can at least save a passing thought until you can get home (or into whatever other workplace you use) and do something more involved with it. --DD --------------------  Diane Duane | The Owl Springs Partnership | County Wicklow, Ireland |
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