A Word or Two on the Writing Process

You probably are familiar with the term "the writing process." You may feel, as Peter Elbow says, "helpless before the process of writing because it obeys inscrutable laws" (13). Maybe you've had this process ground into your brain since second grade, yet you still struggle to write. Perhaps you don't see any relevance to the writing "process" because writing is just something you do and are done with. Get it down, and you're done.

Certainly, we write for many different purposes and contexts, so we should more properly say there are many writing processes rather than a single writing process. We don't go through five drafts of our shopping list. How we write an email or a social media post is different than writing a college essay or a book. When we write an email, we write to get our thoughts out and down, and then we are done. What process we have occurs when we reword and correct as we compose and (hopefully) do a quick edit before we click send. Most of us also have had teachers march us through a step-by-step writing process starting with brainstorming, finding a thesis, outlining, and writing a single draft which we "revise" by cleaning up the grammar. Each of these examples of the writing process, I believe, doesn't reflect the true nature and power of seeing writing as a process. Each comes from a distorted and immature view of what the activity of writing involves, particularly the kind of writing college or your eventual profession will require from you.

The first distortion comes from seeing writing as a linear process. Anchor charts from our elementary or middle school classrooms taught us that the writing process moves from prewriting to drafting to revising to editing to publishing. Like coloring in a paint-by-numbers drawing, the writing process is a matter of moving from step to step, and you must not move to the next step until you complete the previous one. Rarely, do you go back to a completed step to redo it. But have you ever followed all the steps of the writing process and still come out with an awful paper? The truth is writing is not a linear process--it is much more messy. For instance, you may come to your real thesis as you write your conclusion (causing you to backtrack almost to the beginning in the writing process sequence). If you correct a spelling error as you write your draft, you have done a proofreading act (a later stage) while you are drafting (an early to middle stage). Textbooks and teachers have broken down the act of writing into easy-to-follow steps to help us learn how to write, but as we mature and develop as writers, we must let go of this elementary view of writing to understand its true nature as a messy, organic act that, even as we may sequence through stages of the writing process, resists being neatly linear.

The word writing teachers like to us to describe this messy nature of the act of writing is "recursive." Writing is recursive. That means as we write we repeat steps and double-back or jump ahead out of sequence. Speaking about this recursive nature of the act of writing, Ann Berthoff states: "Composing--in contradiction to filling in the slots of a drill sheet or a preformed outline--is a means of discovering what we want to say, as well as being the saying of it. ...It is a process of discovery and interpretation, of naming and stating, of seeing relationships and making meanings" (20). Discovering what we mean to say and putting it into language that truly expresses what we mean is both hard and disorderly. What the anchor chart presented as distinct steps, instead, are embedded ways of thinking and problem-solving we apply throughout the writing process to different degrees. Generating ideas does not end when we finish the pre-writing/brainstorm "step," but happens all through the writing process just as revising and editing our thoughts or words is not restricted to only the last step of writing.

Images of the recursiveness of the writing process:

Thus, writing isn't a neat set of steps to follow but a complex organic act of creation. Rather than saying the writing process has "stages," we might describe the process better to say it involves "phases" that we might cycle and recycle through numerous times in the course of writing any single piece of writing.

The second misunderstanding comes from a belief that the writing process is a two-step process. First, you figure out what you are saying, then you put it down. But as Peter Elbow writes, "Meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with" (15). We don't begin--and can't instantly or easily jump to--"control, coherence, and knowing your mind." We need time and effort and engagement with the process of writing to get at this end point. As Berthoff states, writing is about discovery and meaning-making. This two-step transmission model of writing puts a lot of false pressure on a writer. First, writer's can't start writing until they have everything figured out, and when they do begin to write, it must come out perfect the first time. Countering this viewpoint, Elbow goes on to say, "Think of writing then not as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message" (15). In other words, the writing process is a growth process. We use the activities of the writing process--brainstorming/invention, planning, drafting, reflecting, peer reviewing, revising, editing and proofreading--to develop our thinking and find what we really mean as well as the words to express it in. To say writing is "recursive" means we use all of these actions and mental tools of the writing process again and again as we develop our meaning.

Three comparisons to describe the writing process as a recursive, growth process:
To help you develop a better mental model of what the writing process truly is like and its nature as a growth process, these three metaphors may help you. The first two come once again from Peter Elbow:

The writing process is like filling a basin of clear water:
"Producing writing, then, is not so much like filling a basin or pool once, but rather getting water to keep flowing through till if finally runs clear" (28).

We want a clear meaning. We want a final product that is "perfect," but we can't expect to write once and get that perfectly clear final product. Elbow's image of running water through the pool until the water runs clear is like what you do when you engage in and keep returning to the different stages of the writing process. With each draft of your writing you produce, your meaning becomes clearer and more developed. One draft does not get you there. Each time you brainstorm and seek new creative thinking to add to what you already are thinking, your writing improves.

The writing process is like painting a picture:
"The lesson, then, is to try to treat writing not exclusively as linear but as holistic: not starting in at one end and writing till you get to the other; but rather as successive sketches of the same picture--the first sketches very rough and vague--each one getting clearer, more detailed, more accurate, and better organized as well" (29).

This comparison directly contradicts the paint-by-numbers, linear model of writing. In this comparison, we see how each sketch is an attempt to get to that final, beautiful painting, but they each are "rough and vague," incomplete. We start small and less-defined and gradually build bigger and more defined versions. When we brainstorm, we may have the roughest of pencil drawings of our paper that we might erase and resketch in many ways easily. A first draft might be a more detailed pencil drawing, but still only a rough sketch. In succeeding drafts, we add paint and color and definition as we flesh out the writing piece's details. Perhaps we have to start over from a new sketch. Eventually, we touch up and refine our text until we are satisfied it is done.

Like the image of water running continually through a basin, this image of multiple sketches describes how writing is an iterative, growth process that improves with each iteration.

The writing process is like building a rocket:
SpaceX has developed its new rockets using what is called an "agile" development model coming out of the software industry--from the Falcon 9 and its ability to land its rocket boosters after launch to the development of its new Starship with the goal of going to Mars. One of its mantras is: "Perfect is the enemy of the good."

Cliff Berg writing about SpaceX's use of the Agile development methods, talks about this method's "fail fast" approach: "Instead of spending months or years on design and then carefully building one perfect prototype, they build many, and then test them in myriad ways." Talking about how SpaceX has gotten to its amazing results, such as developing a rocket that can land, Berg goes on to say, "SpaceX has made a sophisticated design work, not by trying to perfect if for years before building anything and getting it just right, but by making their best design and then trying it, pushing it to its limits where it blows up, measuring everything about what happens, and then going back to the drawing board and trying again--again, and again."

Although you aren't building a rocket when you write an essay for your college class, if you have this agile mindset about your writing process, you will see that developing prototypes (drafts) and testing them (getting feedback and reviewing them) is all part of developing a successful design and product that is your final draft. Each draft, each attempt, is a beta version, and after the completion of each draft, we find the "failures" or weaknesses and seek to redesign to improve for the next version (draft).

When the writing process goes bad and how to overcome it:
Have you ever had trouble writing? Have you ever started to write a sentence and then crossed it out or taken an hour to write one paragraph and then crumpled up the page? Some people call it the terror of the blank page. Studies have even shown that writers may have a good sense of the writing process (that they should prewrite, write and revise), but they can still get stuck writing an essay. Knowledge of the writing process doesn't guarantee the ability to produce a good piece of writing.

Sondra Perl, a researcher into the writing process, explains that unskilled writer's lack of success in writing may be due to their too-early efforts to correct and edit their writing. These interruptions cut short these writers' flow of composing without significantly improving the overall content or form of what they have written. Peter Elbow makes a similar point when he explains where writer's block comes from. Elbow points to the "double nature" of writing. On the one hand, as you write you have to be creative. You aren't necessarily creating like a novelist or a painter, but you still have to create the paper with its words and ideas. On the other hand, you are being critical. As soon as you write a sentence, a voice inside your head begins questioning--Did you spell it right? Is it what the teacher wants? Is it grammatically correct? Is it organized well? Can this be done?

Anne Lamott captures what this critical voice is like for many of us in her book Bird by Bird when she talks about writing a "shitty" first draft (see also Approaching 1st Drafts):

What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head. First there's the vinegar-lipped Reader Lady, who says primly, "Well, that's not very interesting, is it?" And there's the emaciated German male who writes these Orwellian memos detailing your thought crimes. And there are your parents, agonizing over your lack of loyalty and discretion; and there's William Burroughs, dozing off or shooting up because he finds you as bold and articulate as a houseplant; and so on... . Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. (25)

The critical voices in your own head as you write may be different, but these negative thoughts and emotions as we write can be paralyzing. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

It's very hard to be creative while being critical because the critical voice cancels the creative side out.

Separating the Creative and the Critical
I suggest separating the two voices from each other as you work on your essay. Take time when you start just to be creative. You can't do anything in this phase "wrong." Your goal is to put down and explore as many ideas about your topic as you can. In traditional terms of the writing process, we can call this phase the "prewriting phase," but the truth is that you may return to this non-judgmental thinking at any time while working on a piece of writing.

As you work in this phase, you might do these types of activities: brainstorming, listing, questioning, clustering, data gathering, freewriting, and even a freewriting first draft. As you work in this creative phase, you will have to make a conscious effort not to be critical and ask, "Is it right?" As Anne Lamott says above, you will have to quiet these critical voices as you write. Let everything come out in whatever order or fashion you want. It will be chaotic, but out of chaos comes order--so be chaotic. As much as possible, don't let the critical voice stop your flow of work. Allow yourself to "fail" in the sense that you aren't spitting out the perfect, finished product right away.

After you have spent time exploring your topic and getting a draft on paper, then put on your critical hat. Here your critical questions are appropriate and needed. First, you might look at the mess of your ideas and identify main ideas or supports. Perhaps you will come up with a mini-outline that you will use to write a more careful draft. Check to see that your draft is on-track with the assignment--this is VERY important. After a revised draft is finished, then you begin questioning if words are spelled correctly, paragraphs organized well, and sentences put together clearly and without error. In terms of the writing process, this phase involves outlining, drafting, revision, editing, and proofreading. See the guide Phases of Revision for more on a sequence for improving your early drafts.

Separating the creative from the critical will help you because you won't have to do everything at once. It means trusting your early efforts and believing in your ability to fix what needs to be fixed at a later time.

You may be interested in doing an imaginative exercise exploring these two sides of your writing self called The Watcher and the Muse.

Generate and Evaluate as We Compose
While it can be helpful in a big picture sense to separate the creative phase from the critical phase because it can free us as writers to engage in the iterative, growth process of our thinking and text, the reality is that we oscillate between what Linda Flower and John Hayes call the process of "generate and evaluate" all the time as we write. They identify three forces that compete for writers' attention as they write: the writer's goals, knowledge, and the current text. At almost any place in the writing process, our thinking is interrupted by this process of generate and evaluate: "This means that new knowledge and/or some feature of the current text can interrupt the process at any time with the process of generate and evaluate. This allows for the flexible collaboration among goals, knowledge, and text" (380). Writing constantly calls on us to "generate," and in our writing process we constantly create new goals, knowledge and text. Likewise, whether we put down an idea as we brainstorm, write a sentence as we draft, or correct an error as we edit, we pause as we "generate" to see if what we have created fits with what we intend, what we know, and what we have already put down.

The "flexible collaboration" Flower and Hayes speak of between these three influences on writers is difficult to achieve, but is what writers constantly seek as they push their writing and thinking forward. Being aware of this back and forth thinking between generate and evaluate can help you as you problem-solve through the many questions and tasks of constructing a writing piece. Going back to our idea of separating the creative and the critical as we write, we might say that in the "creative phase" of the writing process, we don't let the "evaluate" part of our thinking dominate and stifle our generative thinking. Later, when we are in more of the "critical phase" of the writing process, we are not pushing to create and generate as much, but we stress evaluating our ideas and text. What will help you, then, as you write is to have a sense of where the emphasis needs to be as you are in different places within the writing process.

The Importance of Assessing the Writing Situation
Other researchers into the writing process discovered one interesting fact about the writing process that can also help you. They found that THE MOST significant thing writers can do with the largest impact upon whether their writing piece is successful or not is to assess the "writing situation" carefully.

But what does the "writing situation" mean?
Your message or meaning is the first element of the writing situation. For college essays, orienting yourself to the writing situation means carefully examining the writing topic and everything it may be asking you to do. One trick is to identify the "essay question." Perhaps you also need to understand the context and importance of the "essay question" and topic as well (which may take some investigation). Clarifying the "essay question" will help you find your "thesis" for the essay because the thesis is your answer to the essay question. We'll call this answer or thesis your "message."

Another crucial part of the writing situation is to recognize that you are not mumbling to yourself in a corner. You are attempting to communicate to someone with some purpose in mind. Thus, in addition to your message, you need to define who you are sending this message to (your Audience) and why you are sending this message to them (your Purpose). Right now, your sense of audience and purpose may be warped by continually writing for the audience of your teacher or may be too narrow by seeing yourself as the only important audience. Once you see writing as being about achieving your desired affect upon an intended audience, you will truly begin to grow as a writer.

The last part of the writing situation is context. Your message is not being sent to the vacuum of space, but it happens within a particular space and time. Understanding this context and fitting your communication to this context is extremely important. Lloyd Bitzer in his essay "The Rhetorical Situation," states that "rhetoric is situational" (3). Persons, places, events, or relationships invite and shape utterance. Clarifying what this situational, contextual nature of rhetoric means, Bitzer says, "rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to a situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence in response to a question, or a solution in response to a problem" (5). You likely know this truth intuitively in your speech. For example, when we first meet someone, we naturally introduce ourselves, just as when we are departing we say good bye. The context shapes our communication. Being aware of the context you are writing within and what it "invites" you to say will help you enormously as you write.

The Writing Situation

What is my message? Who am I sending this message to? Why am I sending this message to them?
		thesis
	audience		purpose
What is the context for communicating and receiving my message?		context

Images of the Writing (or Rhetorical) Situation

Although your message (thesis) may stay the same, your purpose may change depending upon your choice of audience or visa versa. Depending upon the audience, you may adjust your diction (your choice of words) or the kind of support you choose to include depending upon your audience. Writing, thus, involves many choices and a close attention to and balancing of many constraints that can shape your communication. Although Flowers and Hayes presented the simple triad of goals, knowledge, and the written text as elements writers needed to balance, the following graphic depicts a more complete description these various elements and constraints of the writing situation.

Discovering and maintaining an appropriate and productive balance and alignment of these various constraints--finding one's rhetorical stance--is one of the most challenging and important things to do as we write. We want what we write to appeal to our audience to achieve our purpose within the given context. And since we are writing for school, we importantly need our writing to fit the assignment. Finding this balance and discovering what we mean to say as well as the language to say it is not easy--and takes a process to achieve.

For more see:
Orienting yourself towards a writing topic
The Watcher and the Muse.

See also The Writing Process (ppt) --video

Works Cited

Berg, Cliff. “SpaceX's Use of Agile Methods.” Medium, Medium, 9 Dec. 2019, medium.com/@cliffberg/spacexs-use-of-agile-methods-c63042178a33.
Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric, vol. 25, 1992, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40237697. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.
Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Flower, Linda and John R. Hayes. "A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing." College Composition and Communication, vol. 32, no. 4, 1981, pp. 365-87.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1997.
Perl, Sondra. "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers.” College Composition and Communication 28.8 (May 1977): 12-28. Reprinted in Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Ed. Victor Villanueva, Jr.. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.

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