The benefits of working in the order of the stages • Why brainstorm before drafting? If you are open to all your ideas before attempting to write them into sentences and paragraphs, you might come up with more material, which makes drafting easier. • Why draft before revising? As writers ourselves, many of us know the torment of the stifling inner critic, or the pains of having a final draft and realizing you’re missing content. However, sometimes time itself is the best revision tool. If you draft and just write without attempting to re-order your paragraphs or edit your sentences, you’re more likely to have many ideas in full sentences you can revise later, rather than a small amount of really perfect sentences. • Why revise before editing and proofreading? It can be immensely frustrating and time consuming to get caught up in the details of making a sentence or paragraph just right, and then deciding to scrap the whole thing because it isn’t ultimately relevant. If you revise before you edit, you will likely have cut irrelevant sentences and paragraphs before you spend the time narrowly focusing on editing and proofreading them. Timesaver! • Why follow the stages at all? Mostly, we identify stages and follow the writing process in order because writing is complicated and each stage requires different modes of thinking. Engaging in different stages is like wearing different hats. You may have one hat for generating ideas and another for analyzing them. If you try to wear them both at once, you may not be able to effectively wear either. Oftentimes, this ends up becoming confusing or even downright frustrating (which can cause writer’s block).
But wait! It’s not always possible to write in each stage, in order! • Writing “out of order” is OK—and inevitable, too. While we present the stages as having a beginning and an end, you may find yourself going back and forth between them. In fact, it may be inevitable to go between drafting, revision, and editing. This is what lets you cultivate your ideas and reform how you present them. • Whatever works best for you is the way to go! We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: writing is not one-size-fits-all.
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