The Four Essential Stages of Writing
by Ali
In last week’s post, 7 Habits of Serious Writers, I mentioned the importance of actually writing, plus the need to redraft. I thought it’d be worth putting those stages into context – because they’re not all you need for an effective piece.
Every finished piece of writing passes through four stages:
- Planning
- Drafting
- Redrafting
- Editing
Sure, you can publish a blog post without doing any planning, or any rewriting and editing. Unless you’re very lucky, though (or writing something extremely short), you’ll be lacking a clear focus, the structure won’t quite work, and there’ll be clumsy sentences all over the place.
I wouldn’t call that “finished”, myself. I’d call it a draft.
How funny. For me, writing is agony, and editing is joy. What’s up with that?
chequerootlurks
