Comments on: The Writing Process

By: Phil South

Phil South — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:27:33 +0000

Brilliant post!

It’s nice to see a clear and concise breakdown of the writing process, and I will be sure to borrow it (with suitable attribution of course) for my students.

I can’t take issue with any step, apart from to say that in my experience free writing is an activity best done under the threat of a timer. Incidentally freewriting was created by Peter Elbow in “Writing Without Teachers” in 1975 and further popularized by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way” in 1992.

In any case my friend and colleague Nick Daws is an advocate of the technique, but recommends doing it in 10 minute bursts. This is similar to the Pomodoro technique using a cooks timer. I find this works wonders with the majority of students who find it hard to “get on” with their first draft and six treatments a day represents a solid hour of continuous writing.

On the question of Planning and Structure I love your example of the eight-point story arc, but of course there are almost as many theories about structure as their are teachers to talk about them. I like Joseph Cambell’s Hero’s Journey and variations on that notably Chris Vogler and Phil Cousineau. My favourite technique is to read 20-30 books in my chosen genre and analyse them for content, either by reading and making notes or forensic beat sheet analysis as in Roz Morris’ excellent “Nail Your Novel”.

The key thing is to Get the First Draft Done. After that it all seems MUCH easier.

best regards

Phil South
Creative Genius Programme

By: Esther

Esther — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:15:34 +0000

I’m going to be a little critical, but I don’t wish to be rude. I teach seventh grade English, and the steps in the writing process are one of the key points I teach. However, I reverse steps 3 and 4 when I teach it to my middle schoolers. You may wonder why that is.

Most middle school students (and some adults) cannot see their own errors–even in terms of unnecessary info that needs removed–until someone else edits their work for them. Whoever invented “The Writing Process” was a genius, breaking it into pieces that all writers can understand and follow, but I truly think most writers would benefit by having their paper edited before doing a thorough revision–myself included.

As a hobby, I also write YA books, and I do very few revisions before I have my beta readers edit for me. Once it has been thoroughly edited, proofread, and critiqued, THEN I revise.

Recently my agent sent me some of her edits and asked me to revise my manuscript one more time. How silly would it be, if I replied with, “No, dear agent, revise comes BEFORE edit…”?

I only wish I could convince the rest of the English teachers that the steps are out of order, because young teens don’t self-edit very well at all. When asked to self-edit (or as you would call it, revise the first draft), they often turn to me and say, “But I LIKE the way my story sounds. Nothing needs changed.”

One other side note–and again, I don’t mean to sound rude, only helpful–you’ve misspelled “spelled” in#4 “Editing”. As I’m sure you now realize, “spelt” is a kind of flour made from a wheat-like grain.

By: Aaron Roark

Aaron Roark — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:54:53 +0000

I am currently working on a fantasy novel. As this is a collaboration, and I am only writing certain characters and parts of the story line, I thought that some parts of the process were already done when I started. Then I realized that I can still use the whole process for the parts I write. (d’oh!)
I’ll send a link to this post to my partner!

By: elsa anderson

elsa anderson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:51:46 +0000

Organization plays an essential role in drafting an essay. Well organized writing has the purpose of guiding your reader toward understanding the story. The way an essay is organized affects not only the readers to understand the story; it also facilitates the writing and helps the writer what he/she trying to convey. The story should be more focused on the main title which that helps the readers to grasp the idea and also helps the readers not to be confused. If the story is not well organized and out of focus, it could became tedious that readers could lose interest easily. If the writing is focus on the main idea and easily understood, it could be more persuasive and draws a lot’s of attention.
It is very useful to write multiple drafts. It helps the author to enhance his/her writing ability. After you complete your first draft you might get a chance how to approach your story differently. It gives you a chance to reconsider your prevous thought by writing different version on some of your paragraphs than what you original wrote.

By: wangwang

wangwang — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:46:50 +0000

1). More and more people like to have a mixed marriage with the development of information and technology. Everywhere has many foreigners who are lived on there. There are many problems
(2) First, their culture is also not same. When they live with each other, they must think of how to respect another’s’ culture, for example, courtesy, custom and religious belief and so on. On the other hand, their language is different. And there are some thoughts form their parents. The people who want to have a mixed marriage have to think of this problem. It is needed to take into account how to get along well with each other after marriage.
(3). In a word, A mixed marriage also needs love. They should think of love between theirs to solve these problems.