The 2 Greatest Obstacles You Face as a Writer, and How to Overcome Them
Master YOUR best writing process by understanding THE writing process
Only two things keep you from being the writer of your dreams: Starting and finishing. That’s it.
If you can figure out how to start and how to finish, you have won the game of writing.
It’s not about how much money you make. It’s not about how big an audience you have. It’s not about quantity versus quality.
Those things have their place — but first things first. Writing successfully is about starting and finishing.
Anything with a start and a finish has a process. For writers, it’s the writing process.
Fortunately, the writing process is easy to acquire. The trick is taking the writing process and making it your writing process.
Getting stuck before you start
Many writers get stuck at the beginning of the process.
They overthink. They get lost in their minds with their ideas. They might jot down a word or phrase or two, but before they truly set pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, their ideas have become so enormous that they don’t know how to get them down.
Or they create elaborate plans and flow charts, the kind that would make the genealogists of Game of Thrones afraid.
Or they talk themselves out of their ideas: it’s not good enough, it’s been done before, no one will want to read it, everyone will want to read it and I’ll be so famous that I’ll have to go into hiding.
Or they procrastinate so much that their ideas grow stale or they forget what they were going to write about altogether.
Giving up before you have finished
On the other hand, many writers get half way into a draft or even complete a draft, and then they stop.
They second guess themselves and give up on their ideas. Nobody will read this. This has all been written before.
Or they work themselves into a corner and don’t know how to end.
Or they recognize that what they have written doesn’t match the ideas that they had in their heads.
Or they get preoccupied with details before they should — is it “home in” or “hone in”? Is it “their,” “there,” or “there”? Does anyone really care if it’s “should of” vs. “should have”? Is spelling really that important in English?
Or they get so overwhelmed with revising and editing that they just don’t do it. Instead of finishing, they plop down on the couch and rewatch the entirety of Game of Thrones.
The Writing Process to the Rescue
The writing process is, by definition, a way to move you from the beginning to the end of a writing project. From start to finish. From soup to nuts.
Adherence to the writing process means that you will always have something to do. Having something to do will keep you moving forward in the process.
In fact, by having a process to follow, you could probably tackle several projects at once, with each at a particular stage in the process.
Imagine writing 5 essays at once. Think about it — how many titles do you have in your draft queue right now? Are some of them merely placeholder titles? Are some of them partially drafted? Are some of them fully drafted but need editing?
All writers have their own writing process. Some writers invest heavily into the early stages of the process. Some writers invest more heavily into later stages of the process.
You can improve your writing process by understanding the writing process more completely.
What the Writing Process is Not
The writing process is not about the external issues of writing.
It’s not about what pen or pencil you use.
It’s not about whether you write your drafts or use a computer or typewriter.
It’s not about how many words you write per day.
It’s not about quantity over quality — though paying attention to the complete writing process will improve the quality of your writing.
It’s not about what topics you want to write about.
It’s not about your writing environment, sitting at your desk or on your bed or at your favorite corner table at the neighborhood coffee shop.
When you worry about these external features of writing, you make excuses not to write. When you make excuses not to write, you become an excuse maker. When you become an excuse maker, you start lying to yourself about your ability to write. When you start lying to yourself about your ability to write, you stop writing. When you stop writing, you stop being a writer. Don’t stop being a writer.
Grab any freakin’ pencil and start writing. Don’t try to write. Actually write.
To quote the foremost writing expert of his day: Do or do not, there is no try.
What the Writing Process Is
If you’ve had a good writing class in high school or college, you have no doubt discussed the writing process. In its most basic form, the writing process is 5 steps:
- Prewriting
- Planning/Outlining
- Drafting
- Revising
- Editing
Notice that each of these words ends in -ing. They are actions. These are things you do.
Notice that the list is numbered. That means you do these items in order. There is considerable overlap and going back to previous steps. Writing is an iterative process, but there is always movement forward.
Each part of the writing process is important to the whole. Paying attention to where your writing process is inefficient and how to improve it will improve the quality of your writing. It will also help you to enjoy writing more.
Writing will always be hard work. But most things in life that are worth doing are difficult. There are few things as rewarding as completing a piece of writing, knowing that you have done it as well as you could.
Let’s look at each stage of the writing process briefly to see why it’s important to the whole process.
1. Prewriting
Prewriting is the note-taking part of writing. It’s also called the invention stage, where you invent or gather ideas. The main goals of prewriting are to generate topic and main ideas and generate supporting ideas for your topics.
Prewriting happens before the actual writing, hence “pre.” It can be scribbles on paper, or you can use trusted techniques such as freewriting, brainstorming, clustering or mind-mapping, looping, 5Ws and 1H, and more.
Prewriting also eliminates writer’s block forever. Gone. Poof.
If you prewriting, you are writing. If you follow simple rules of prewriting, you will never suffer from writer’s block again. Never. I know. that’s a bold statement.
Let me say it again: Prewriting eliminates writer’s block forever.
What’s not to love about that?
2. Planning/Outlining
Planning and outlining helps you to organize the ideas you gathered during prewriting into a clear, coherent structure for your reader.
Some people use elaborate outlines. Some people just jot down their ideas in a rough list. There are no specific rules for planning and outline.
A perfectly acceptable plan is to list your main points and then your supporting points ( in order of importance, or chronologically, or strongest point first, or strongest point last).
Planning and outline is a rough sketch of the skeleton of your planned writing.
Your plan may change. It very well may change. Be prepared for it to change. It will change. A plan is not set in stone. It’s something to follow as you draft.
3. Drafting
Drafting is pulling all of your prewriting and planning together to make something that looks like writing.
Drafting is the actual writing. It’s the part of writing that a writing coach can help you with the least.
How do you know what you have to say until you have written it? You don’t. That’s why drafts often end up different than the ideas that you had in your head.
When you draft, write sentences and paragraphs. Tick off each item on your plan. It will be rough, and why it’s called a rough draft.
Drafting is messy. It doesn’t matter what order you write your draft in. You could write your last paragraph first. Start with the easiest ideas. Work your way up to the more difficult ideas. Your draft will change during revising and editing. So if you start over thinking, just move on.
Save your introductions and conclusions for later in the process. Introductions and conclusions almost always change, no matter how hard you work on them at the start. You can hammer those out once you know exactly what you are trying to say.
It’s important to take a break between drafting and revising.
The break will give your brain a chance to percolate more ideas and to switch gears to a more analytical mindset needed for revising. You will be able to re-see your ideas more clearly during revising if you take a short break.
4. Revising
Revising focuses on the bigger concerns of writing: organization and structure, coherence and clarity, the flow of your writing.
Most professional writers believe revising is when writing really starts. You’ve done the hard work of gathering ideas, organizing those ideas, and putting those ideas into a (more or less) coherent draft.
When you revise, you will delete or add ideas and build connections and transitions between ideas. You will carve out an introduction and conclusion based not on what you intended to write but on what you actually have written.
During revising, you turn on your critical faculties in order to make your writing truly shine. You turn on your internal judge. You evaluate whether your ideas are good or not. You evaluate your writer’s voice, your tone, your level of formality, your audience, your purpose, your goals.
Think of it this way. So far you’ve been a miner digging up the gems that you are going to write about. Have you ever seen a diamond in the rough? It looks like a dirt clod.
Revising will help you turn that dirt clod of a draft into an exquisite diamond worth millions.
5. Editing
Editing focuses on the details of your writing: grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and spelling, and quite a bit more.
Many writers get bogged down in editing. They’re not good spellers. They don’t know grammar well. They’re not that interested in the difference between “their,” “there,” and “they’re.” But these details mark the difference between shoddy and excellent writing.
Furthermore, people judge bad language, bad speech, and bad writing. It may not be right or kind, but it’s true. Here’s an example of an outspoken CEO who will not hire someone with bad grammar: https://hbr.org/2012/07/i-wont-hire-people-who-use-poo
There are other people who are more understanding and compassionate about people’s language use:
Slipping on a “your” vs “you’re” isn’t going to stop the spinning of the earth, but jobs have been lost for lack of editing.
If you’re a writer, you need at least a passing acquaintance with your tools. Just as a carpenter knows the difference between ball peen, jack, claw, and drywall hammers, writers must have some idea of their own strengths and weaknesses and the tools that will help them overcome those strengths and weaknesses.
Fortunately, we have many tools at our disposal today, from Grammarly to our internal grammar and spelling checkers on our computers. There are books galore about grammar, punctuation, and spelling. And if you really hate editing, then you can hire an editor or writing coach to help you.
I have spent my life helping writers learn to write. The writing process can be infinitely tailored to any writer. Each part of the writing process can be studied in detail. You will be amazed at just how powerful the writing process can be when you learn to follow and work with the process rather than fight against it. In order to get from the start to the finish, you must follow a process.
Make the writing process your own. Your writing. Your process.
Just keep writing.
Lee G. Hornbrook taught college English for 25 years and is the editor of The Writing Prof. He is at work on a memoir. Sign up for his 5-day free course on The Writing Process.