steps of creative writing process

How to Develop Your Creative Writing Process

by Melissa Donovan | Feb 7, 2023 | Creative Writing | 45 comments

What steps do you take in your creative writing process?

Writing experts often want us to believe that there is only one worthwhile creative writing process. It usually goes something like this:

• Rough draft
• Revise (repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat)
• Edit, proof, and polish

This is a good system — it absolutely works. But does it work for everyone?

Examining the Creative Writing Process

I’ve been thinking a lot about the creative writing process. Lately I’ve found myself working on all types of projects: web pages, blog posts, a science-fiction series, and of course, books on the craft of writing .

I’ve thought about the steps I take to get a project completed and realized that the writing process I use varies from project to project and depends on the level of difficulty, the length and scope of the project, and even my state of mind. If I’m feeling inspired, a blog post will come flying out of my head. If I’m tired, hungry, or unmotivated, or if the project is complicated, then it’s a struggle, and I have to work a little harder. Brainstorming and outlining can help. A lot.

It occurred to me that I don’t have one creative writing process. I have several. And I always use the one that’s best suited for a particular project.

A Process for Every Project

I once wrote a novel with no plan whatsoever. I started with nothing more than a couple of characters. Thirty days and fifty thousand words later, I had completed the draft of a novel (thanks, NaNoWriMo!).

But usually, I need more structure than that. Whether I’m working on a blog post, a page of web copy, a nonfiction book, or a novel, I find that starting with a plan saves a lot of time and reduces the number of revisions that I have to work through later. It’s also more likely to result in a project getting completed and published.

But every plan is different. Sometimes I’ll jot down a quick list of points I want to make in a blog post. This can take just a minute or two, and it makes the writing flow fast and easy. Other times, I’ll spend weeks — even months — working out the intricate details of a story with everything from character sketches to outlines and heaps of research. On the other hand, when I wrote a book of creative writing prompts , I had a rough target for how many prompts I wanted to generate, and I did a little research, but I didn’t create an outline.

I’ve tried lots of different processes, and I continue to develop my processes over time. I also remain cognizant that whatever’s working for me right now might not work in five or ten years. I will keep revising and tweaking my process, depending on my goals.

Finding the Best Process

I’ve written a novel with no process, and I’ve written a novel by going through every step imaginable: brainstorming, character sketches, research, summarizing, outlines, and then multiple drafts, revisions, and edits.

These experiences were vastly different. I can’t say that one was more enjoyable than the other. But it’s probably worth noting that the book I wrote with no process is still sitting on my hard drive somewhere whereas the one I wrote with a methodical yet creative writing process got completed, polished, and published.

In fact, I have found that using a process generates better results if my goal is to complete and publish a project.

But not every piece of writing is destined for public consumption. Sometimes I write just for fun. No plan, no process, no pressure. I just let the words flow. Every once in a while, these projects find their way to completion and get sent out into the world.

It is only by experimenting with a variety of processes that you will find the creative writing process that works best for you. And you’ll also have to decide what “best” means. Is it the process that’s most enjoyable? Or is it the process that leads you to publication? Only you know the answer to that.

I encourage you to try different writing processes. Write a blog post on the fly. Make an outline for a novel. Do some in-depth research for an epic poem. Try the process at the top of this page, and then do some research to find other processes that you can experiment with. Keep trying new things, and when you find whatever helps you achieve your goals, stick with it, but remain open to new methods that you can bring into your process.

What’s Your Creative Writing Process?

Creative writing processes are good. The reason our predecessors developed these processes and shared them, along with a host of other writing tips, was to help us be more productive and produce better writing. Techniques and strategies can be helpful, but it’s our responsibility to know what works for us as individuals and as creative writers and to know what will cause us to infinitely spin our wheels.

What’s your creative writing process? Do you have one? Do you ever get stuck in the writing process? How do you get unstuck?

45 Comments

Hi Melissa: I do a lot of research on the topic I’ve chosen to write about. As I do the research I take notes on a word perfect document. When I have a whole lot of information written down–in a jumble–I usually leave it and go do something else. Then I sit down and start to work with the information I’ve gathered and just start writing. The first draft I come up with is usually pretty bad, and then I revise and revise until I have something beautiful that I feel is fit to share with the rest of the world. That’s when I hit the “publish” button 🙂 I’m trying to implement Parkinson’s Law to focus my thinking a little more as I write so that I can get the articles out a bit faster.

My favorite pre-writing process would have to be getting a nice big whiteboard and charting characters and plots down. I find that it really helps me anchor on to specific traits of a character, especially if the persona happens to be a dynamic one. Such charting helps me out dramatically in creating an evolving storyline by not allowing me to forget key twists and other storyline-intensive elements =)

That being said, my favorite pre-charting process is going out the on nights leading to it for a few rounds of beer with good friends!

Hi Melissa – I’m like you – I do different things depending on what I’m writing. With the novel I’m working on now – alot of stuff I write won’t even go into it.

Some of the stuff the gurus recommend are the kind of things I’d do if I was writing an essay – but nothing else.

I don’t know if I have a set process. I start with morning pages and journaling. then whatever comes streaming from that gets written. As I go about my day I have a notebook that stays with me whereever I go and I am constantly writing in it, notes, ideas, themes, Sentances that begin with “I wonder…” and then then next monring the notebook is with me during quiet time and these thoughts are often carried right in to the process all over again. So…if that is a process, I guess…I never really thought about it. As I have said before, a lot of my writing also takes place in my jacuzzi..so…

I guess my process is that when its falling out of my head I try and catch it.

This will be the first year that I attempt NaNO so I will need to be more organized. This is good for thinking ahead. One of the reasons I started blogging in the first place was to get in the discipline of writing every day. That was the first step. Just creating the habit. This will be a good next step.

These days, I feel so scattered, I feel like I’m not getting anything done at all! (grin)

Melissa, I am really organized but my writing process has never followed the guidelines. I’ve tried them on for size and find that they don’t fit. Even in school, I never did outlines and drafts so I suppose I trained myself against the system! I always do research first and gather all of my notes, clips in one location. As for the writing process itself I let it rip, then go back and fine tune. It has worked for me thus far but I’m always open to trying new techniques on for size, hey if they fit I’m all on board!

@Marelisa, that doesn’t surprise me. Your posts are comprehensive, detailed, and extremely informative. I can tell you care a lot about your topic and about your writing. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy your blog; your passion is palpable.

@Joey, I love the planning stage too. In fact, sometimes I get stuck there and never make it out. Ooh, and white boards. Yes. Those are good. Usually I just use drawing paper though. When I do NaNo, I’m going to try to do less planning. In fact, I’m going to plan in October and just write in November. I’m hoping this new strategy will result in winning my word count goal!

@Cath, I sort of pick and choose which tips from the gurus I use.

@Wendi, you write in the jacuzzi? That’s cool. Or hot. I guess it’s hot. Your process sounds really natural. I started blogging for the exact same reason — to write every day. I’m excited to hear you’re doing NaNo too. That will be fun, and we can offer each other moral support!

@Deb (Punctuality), it sounds like you have a lot going on! I get into that mode sometimes, where I’m so overwhelmed, I can’t get anything done. It’s really frustrating. Sometimes I have to shut down for a day to get my bearings and that’s the only way I can get back on track.

@Karen, that’s probably why your writing flows so well, because you just let it do its thing. I remember learning to do outlines back in 6th grade but it didn’t stick. Later, in college, we’d have to do them as assignments, so I didn’t have a choice. I realized that they sped up the writing process. Now I do them for some (but not all) projects. But I will say this: I actually enjoy outlining (weird?).

Melissa, I’m not a real writer but I do love reading how you, who are, go about the business of putting words to paper. As always, a great post. Thanks.

It is funny that you wrote about this today. I picked up an extra assignment with a today deadline. Let’s not talk about how long it’s been since I’ve written copy on that tight a deadline.

My mantra: “If it doesn’t make it I don’t get paid for it.” Rinse and repeat.

Also, I grew to enjoy outlining when I went back to university. Sometimes I’m happy just to outline; also known as a stall tactic.

Ah, my writing process?

1) Spit out mindgarbage! 2) Sort through mindgarbage. 3) Take out the handy scissors and glue (or rather, ctrl+c, ctrl+v…) 4) Revise Revise Revise 5) Edit, proof, polish… 6) Rewrite, revise rewrite, revise…

My prewriting is just writing. Writing trash. Then cleaning it up. 3 pages = 1 paragraph trash. Yeaaaaah.

@Milena, what do you mean you’re not a real writer? Of course you are. You write; therefore you are a writer!

@Deb, sometimes those crunch deadlines really light the fire. I’ve been amazed at what I can write in a day when there’s a client waiting for it with a nice big PayPal deposit!

@Sam, that’s a good way to get it done! Do you free-write your early drafts? I’ve been teased for editing too much, but it’s definitely worth it. You can get the good stuff early by just spattering it all over the page, and then refine it until it’s polished and sparkling!

I never really liked the 5 step process when I wrote back in school, but I suppose that learning that did make me a better writer. I don’t have a set process, sometimes it’s just sitting at the computer and opening up my blog, or a blank page in Word. Sometimes things come from something that struck me during the day. I think I have to work on the discipline of actually sitting down to write more often! Practice makes perfect, or at least close enough, right?!?!

I’ve tried to figure out what my process is, but it’s different depending on what I’m writing.

Blogging – 90% of the time, there is no process at all and it shows. I’m usually writing as fast as I can think, and sometimes I can’t keep up and I may just jump to the next thought at random. I may go back and read and finish thoughts that were left incomplete. I try to write my blogs as if the reader is having a conversation with me, which makes it feel natural for me to write.

Poetry – Most times I don’t like editting unless I’m really unhappy with the first draft. Usually I’m only changing or adding punctuations. But overall, I’ll get my inspiration and after reciting a few lines in my head and an idea of where I want to go, that’s when I’ll pull out some paper (or cardboard or napkins or laptop) and write a potential masterpiece.

Story/scripts – I plan the entire story in my head. One might call it a brainstorm, but I’ll go farther and say it’s a hurricane. I won’t stop with just a story, I’ll create characters, scenes, even background music. A lot of times I’ll get the idea but I won’t be able to write anything down, like if I’m driving, rock climbing, sky diving or underwater. A lot of ideas come to me when I’m in the bathroom. Without sharing much details about that, I’ll just say I have time to think and let my imagination go to work. When I’m able to get to some paper or my laptop, I’ll write out the story and flesh it out a little until I’m done, or I’ll keep working on the story in my head and bounce it off some people to see how they would react of this happened or that happened.

I don’t like outlines, but when it comes to screenplays, they help out a lot and it’s the only time I MIGHT use one. I’ve been known to go without them though.

@Jenny, practice does make perfect! I believe that. I rarely use the five-step process on paper, but I think I often do some steps in my head, often without even realizing I’m doing them!

@t. sterling, I consistently get some of my best ideas in the shower. There must be something very inspiring about bathrooms or water. Like you, I have a bunch of different processes that I use depending on what I’m writing. And after reading all the comments, it seems like that’s how it works for a lot of writers.

I like the show me yours, show you mine tradezees.

It’s kind of long, but there’s a lot to it: http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier/archive/2007/12/24/building-books-in-patterns-amp-practices.aspx

Thanks, J.D.

That depends on the complexity. If it’s something simple like some of my blog posts, I just start writing without outlines. For tutorials, usually there are steps so I will write down all the steps first and re-arrange them to the order I want.

For stories, sometimes I write down the events that should happen, but sometimes I don’t. Even if I don’t explicitly write out an outline, I would still have some kind of structure in my head. And even if it’s written out, eventually I will get that into my head because it’s easier for me to sort through things that way. I think it might be a habit I developed from working as a computer programmer. I tend to rely a lot on short-term memory. I get all these details into my head, and then I try to sort things out in my mind.

Actually, you know what? I’ve just brainstormed for a story right before reading this. I already have most detailed sorted out in my head, so I will most likely write and post it tomorrow. I think I’ll post my writing process after that as well. For now I’ll sleep on it. (I think maybe that’s part of the process as well.)

Oh yes, sleeping on it is definitely part of the process. I like to insert that right between rough draft and revision. Then I do it again between revision and polish or proofread. Sounds like you do things similarly to the way I do — a little of everything with the steps varying depending on the project.

Great post! Thanks for sharing your insights on the writing process. As for me, I feel like I work in spurts of inspiration… Lots of writing, then editing, then writing again.

That is how I’ve always written poetry — with spurts of inspiration and freewrites. Then I will go through the pages and pull out lines and phrases to build a poem. I do use brainstorming, notes, outlines, research, etc. for other forms, but it really depends on the project.

Actually, I’m not that organize when it comes to creative writing. Most of the time I keep in tune with my thoughts. When something pop-ups (words, phrase, ideas, vocabulary) is immediately write it down on my black notebook.

I go with my own style of writing because I believe my work will speak out only if it’s unique on its own. Being imperfect, I don’t put too much effort on the grammatical construction. I believe that what’s between the words are more important the the words itself. A distinctive writer possesses this quality. 🙂

Writing down your ideas, words, phrases, etc. in your notebook is an excellent habit! However, I have to disagree with you on the importance of grammar. I think it’s essential for writers to master grammar and then (and only then) can you start breaking the rules. Of course, this may depend on what you want to write (i.e. blog versus fiction). Grammar gives writers a common or shared framework in which to construct the language, and believe it or not, there are some astute writers and editors out there who will judge your work rather harshly if the grammar is not up to par. That doesn’t mean it has to be perfect, but if you’re missing the basics, it’s likely they won’t bother reading past the first paragraph. By the way, a fast and easy way to learn grammar is by listening to the Grammar Girl podcast. Just a few minutes of listening a couple times a week will teach you more than you can imagine!

I separate first draft from editing, but I’m not particular about whether I finish the whole draft before I start editing. Sometimes going back and editing the first 3 chapters gets me moving on a better line.

When I edit, I do whole read-thrus until I’m happy with the story flow. Then I use the Autocrit Editing Wizard to really polish the manuscript. After that, I’m done!

I’ve never heard of the Autocrit Editing Wizard. Sounds interesting. I usually edit short pieces like web page copy or blog posts on the fly, i.e. I will stop every couple of paragraphs and go back to re-read and edit. However, with longer works, I feel like if I start editing midway, I might lose the project and get caught up in polishing before the rough draft is nailed down. All that matters, however, is that each writer finds his or her own best method. Sounds like you’ve got it down!

LOL! I think I’ve worked through every possible type of creative process possible. From outlining the whole darned thing to working with notecards, story boards and of course just winging it, which resulted in a story with a really flat ending – unforgivable:-) And while I firmly adhere to Anne Lamott’s *&^^%# first draft, I have finally settled into a process that works for me. I now use a plot worksheet and a character worksheet. It takes me a bit longer to actually start writing but what I write works and requires less editing.

I’ve tried all the methods too, and I’m glad I did. I’ve learned that each one works for me, but in a different capacity. With creative writing, such as fiction and poetry, I just jump right in and start writing. Right now I’m working on a nonfiction, educational project using detailed outlines and note cards. I think what you’ve done is brilliant — figuring out what advice works for you and what doesn’t work and then letting your own, personalized process unfold.

I have used all the methods, too, and I agree that the method used depends mostly on the subject matter. For novels, it also seems to depend on the genre. I can rip out a romance novel without an outline (in fact that’s the most fun way to do it). I finished a Romance for NaNoWriMo last year in three weeks. For novels with a more complicated plot at least a general outline is helpful (keeping in mind I have to be flexible enough to let the characters take over and go off in some completely different direction).

For me the single most important thing is letting a certain amount of time go by between drafting and editing. It could be days, it could be weeks. For novels it’s even better for me to let months go by. It gives me the the opportunity to look at the material with “fresh eyes”.

Probably for that reason, I tend to work on multiple projects at once: drafting one (early mornings on the weekends when I’m at my best); editing one and polishing another (weekday evenings). That way everything keeps moving forward, I never get bored and I always have new material in the pipeline.

I’m with you, Meredith! I can see how it would be fun to write a romance novel on the fly, and I’ve heard that mystery writers often use outlines because they need to incorporate plot twists and must keep track of various story threads. Another method is to outline as you write, so you have notes that you can refer back to when necessary. Allowing time to pass between writing, editing, proofreading, and polishing is absolutely essential! We know the brain will read incorrect text correctly, plugging in words and proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. That time away really does give us fresh eyes! I love your strategy for working on multiple projects simultaneously.

There are good things to be said for the traditional formula, but as you say it isn’t the only method that works. I have written eight novels and dozens upon dozens of short stories and never once sat down to do a brainstorming session to come up with ideas. I do a lot of research, but most of it as I go along during the writing process. The last three steps I think are golden though.

I do have one new organization tip to share though. If your tech savvy enough to do a local install of wordpress on your computer it can become a great writing tool. Not only does it have a simple to use word processor in the form of the posting tool, it allows you to categorize your research and there are plenty of tagging plugins that will allow you to easily cross reference notes and text.

I LOVE the idea of using a local installation of WordPress for research and novel writing. I can imagine all the benefits with links and images, even video. Hmm. I don’t know how to do a local installation, but I’m thinking another option would be to load WP onto a live domain and simply put it in permanent maintenance mode (plugin) or set up some kind of password protection to block it from the public. I definitely need to think about this as a tool. Thanks for the tip, Brad!

I use Scrivener ( https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ ) for all my writing. It’s great for research and saving web pages, building characters, plotting and planning, all in one place. And best of all you can break down a story into scenes (separate documents) within Scrivener itself – something you can’t do in Word or similar. Wordpress is all very well, but you can’t see all posts/pages at once in a sidebar – something you *can* do in Scrivener. You can download a free trial of Scrivener to see whether it’s for you. Don’t be put off by the complicated look of it – you can use as much or as little of it as you like and there are some very handy videos and tips on using it. I’ve found it’s the best thing for writing blog posts, short stories, novels, scripts, you name it. It can’t hurt to give it a go.

I agree, Chris. Scrivener is amazing. I use it for fiction and poetry, and it’s made the writing process so much smoother. I highly recommend it to all writers. Plus, it’s reasonably priced.

I’m loving reading all these, but I don’t really have a process … I sit at the keyboard and hope something comes out of my fingertips … and if it doesn’t I let myself get distracted by shiny things like Twitter.

(Okay, I never said it was a PRODUCTIVE method.)

Really? I would have guessed that you use outlines at least some of the time. I definitely have to use outlines for longer works of nonfiction, and I always outline website copy when I’m writing for clients. It’s such a good (and productive) way to organize your thoughts, but for fiction and poetry (and many blog posts) I often let it flow freely, and it turns out that method is productive too 😉

Hello Melissa, My name is Kylee and I’m 15. Being naturally gifted in journalism, its a dream or fantasy of mine to become an author. For me to get into my ‘zone’ I have to be in a completely serene enviroment for hours. I’ve written short stories and essays but would like to complete the ultimate thrill of Mine: a novel. Its frustrating really, the difficulties of finding my creative writing process. I have difficulties in making a plot complex enough, and character development. I know they are major issues but I’m having trouble perfecting my writing. If you could help me in any way, I’d gladly appreciate it. Thank you.

You’re getting an early start. The best advice I have for you is to read a lot. If you want to be a novelist, then read as many novels as you can. Try keeping a reading journal where you can write down your thoughts and observations about how other authors handle plot and character development. You’ll find that you start to read differently. Instead of reading for enjoyment or entertainment, it also becomes a fun study in your craft. You can visit my Writing Resources section or Books page to check out my recommendations for books on the craft of writing. Good luck to you!

Mine’s pretty simple:

1. Do background research. Mostly stuff for the setting like common plants and animals, names of places, photographs. I’ll also read books to familiarize myself with whatever topic of the book in involved.

2. Start writing.

3. Do spot research as I’m writing. Search for the name of something, looking at pictures of something to help me describe it; etc.

4. Move around the scenes as I write, which is sort of like shaking out the wrinkles in a sheet. I add new things that occur to me, correct typos, etc.

That’s excellent, Linda. It sounds like you’ve nailed your process!

I have no writing process, actually. I’m the type of person who thinks while I’m writing, or I think of an image and the story comes out suddenly. I also think before I write, and imagine how the scenes will turn out. I’m a very visual person when it comes to writing. In addition, I found out that when I do plan, my stories never get drafted at all, or they do but I don’t like it. Planning never really works for me. I need to let all my ideas be out of my mind, and not from pre-writing.

All that matters is that you’ve found the process that works for you, and it sounds like you have!

Here’s a trick (procedure, technique, system, gimmick) I use when I’m writing a novel. I don’t write linearly. Some parts of the story are more appealing to me than others so depending on my mood (perhaps that should be muse) I jump around. Admittedly, connecting the scenes may take a bit of of revision since I never know where the story will eventually take me, and on occasion I’ve had to trash a significant amount. That’s okay, since my goal is to enjoy myself every time I sit down to write – and I do.

This method works well for a lot of writers. I mostly try to write my own drafts linearly, but I skip around if I’m struck with inspiration.

Every writer experiences different levels of enjoyment during the process. In my experience, most writers encounter a lot of frustration at certain points in the process. So I have come to view writing as rewarding rather than enjoyable. A lot of the work is fun, but a lot of it is difficult, tedious, even maddening. But at the end, it’s all worth it if you can push through the hard parts.

Book suggestion: The Writer’s Process, Getting Your Brain in Gear by Anne H. Janzer.

This book explains the actual psychology behind the creative process and then suggests how to apply it to your work. Some good insights.

Thanks for the recommendation, Rod. I’m always looking for books on the craft of writing to add to my collection.

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Do You Know The 7 Steps Of The Writing Process?

How much do you know about the different stages of the writing process? Even if you’ve been writing for years, your understanding of the processes of writing may be limited to writing, editing, and publishing. 

It’s not your fault. Much of the writing instruction in school and online focus most heavily on those three critical steps. 

Important as they are, though, there’s more to creating a successful book than those three. And as a writer, you need to know.   

The 7 Steps of the Writing Process

Read on to familiarize yourself with the seven writing process steps most writers go through — at least to some extent. The more you know each step and its importance, the more you can do it justice before moving on to the next. 

1. Planning or Prewriting

This is probably the most fun part of the writing process. Here’s where an idea leads to a brainstorm, which leads to an outline (or something like it). 

Whether you’re a plotter, a pantser, or something in between, every writer has some idea of what they want to accomplish with their writing. This is the goal you want the final draft to meet. 

With both fiction and nonfiction , every author needs to identify two things for each writing project: 

• Intended audience = “For whom am I writing this?”
• Chosen purpose = “What do I want this piece of writing to accomplish?”

In other words, you start with the endpoint in mind. You look at your writing project the way your audience would. And you keep its purpose foremost at every step. 

From planning, we move to the next fun stage. 

2. Drafting (or Writing the First Draft)

There’s a reason we don’t just call this the “rough draft,” anymore. Every first draft is rough. And you’ll probably have more than one rough draft before you’re ready to publish. 

For your first draft, you’ll be freewriting your way from beginning to end, drawing from your outline, or a list of main plot points, depending on your particular process. 

To get to the finish line for this first draft, it helps to set word count goals for each day or each week and to set a deadline based on those word counts and an approximate idea of how long this writing project should be. 

Seeing that deadline on your calendar can help keep you motivated to meet your daily and weekly targets. It also helps to reserve a specific time of day for writing. 

Another useful tool is a Pomodoro timer, which you can set for 20-25 minute bursts with short breaks between them — until you reach your word count for the day. 

3. Sharing Your First Draft

Once you’ve finished your first draft, it’s time to take a break from it. The next time you sit down to read through it, you’ll be more objective than you would be right after typing “The End” or logging the final word count. 

It’s also time to let others see your baby, so they can provide feedback on what they like and what isn’t working for them.

You can find willing readers in a variety of places: 

• Social media groups for writers
• Social media groups for readers of a particular genre
• Your email list (if you have one)
• Local and online writing groups and forums

This is where you’ll get a sense of whether your first draft is fulfilling its original purpose and whether it’s likely to appeal to its intended audience. 

You’ll also get some feedback on whether you use certain words too often, as well as whether your writing is clear and enjoyable to read. 

4. Evaluating Your Draft

Here’s where you do a full evaluation of your first draft, taking into account the feedback you’ve received, as well as what you’re noticing as you read through it. You’ll mark any mistakes with grammar or mechanics. 

And you’ll look for the answer to important questions: 

• Is this piece of writing effective/ Does it fulfill its purpose?
• Do my readers like my main character? (Fiction)
• Does the story make sense and satisfy the reader? (Fiction)
• Does it answer the questions presented at the beginning? ( Nonfiction )
• Is it written in a way the intended audience can understand and enjoy?

Once you’ve thoroughly evaluated your work, you can move on to the revision stage and create the next draft. 

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5. Revising Your Content

Revising and editing get mixed up a lot, but they’re not the same thing. 

With revising, you’re making changes to the content based on the feedback you’ve received and on your own evaluation of the previous draft. 

• To correct structural problems in your book or story
• To find loose ends and tie them up (Fiction)
• To correct unhelpful deviations from genre norms (Fiction)
• To add or remove content to improve flow and/or usefulness

You revise your draft to create a new one that comes closer to achieving your original goals for it. Your newest revision is your newest draft. 

If you’re hiring a professional editor for the next step, you’ll likely be doing more revision after they’ve provided their own feedback on the draft you send them. 

Editing is about eliminating errors in your (revised) content that can affect its accuracy, clarity, and readability.

By the time editing is done, your writing should be free of the following: 

• Grammatical errors
• Punctuation/mechanical and spelling errors
• Misquoted content
• Missing (necessary) citations and source info
• Factual errors
• Awkward phrasing
• Unnecessary repetition

Good editing makes your work easier and more enjoyable to read. A well-edited book is less likely to get negative reviews titled, “Needs editing.” And when it comes to books, it’s best to go beyond self-editing and find a skilled professional. 

A competent editor will be more objective about your work and is more likely to catch mistakes you don’t see because your eyes have learned to compensate for them. 

7. Publishing Your Final Product

Here’s where you take your final draft — the final product of all the previous steps — and prepare it for publication. 

Not only will it need to be formatted (for ebook, print, and audiobook), but you’ll also need a cover that will appeal to your intended audience as much as your content will. 

Whether you budget for these things or not depends on the path you choose to publish your book: 

• Traditional Publishing — where the publishing house provides editing, formatting, and cover design, as well as some marketing
• Self-Publishing — where you contract with professionals and pay for editing, formatting, and cover design. 
• Self-Publishing with a Publishing Company — where you pay the company to provide editing, formatting, and cover design using their in-house professionals.

And once your book is live and ready to buy, it’s time to make it more visible to your intended audience. Otherwise, it would fail in its purpose, too. 

Are you ready to begin 7 steps of the writing process?

Now that you’re familiar with the writing process examples in this post, how do you envision your own process?

While it should include the seven steps described here, it’ll also include personal preferences of your own — like the following: 

• Writing music and other ambient details
• Writing schedule
• Word count targets and time frames

The more you learn about the finer details of the writing process, the more likely you are to create content your readers will love. And the more likely they are to find it. 

Wherever you are in the process, our goal here is to provide content that will help you make the most of it. 

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Resources for Writers: The Writing Process

Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. It is known as a recursive process. While you are revising, you might have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas.

• Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document. It includes thinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information (e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data).
• Although prewriting is the first activity you engage in, generating ideas is an activity that occurs throughout the writing process.
• Drafting occurs when you put your ideas into sentences and paragraphs. Here you concentrate upon explaining and supporting your ideas fully. Here you also begin to connect your ideas. Regardless of how much thinking and planning you do, the process of putting your ideas in words changes them; often the very words you select evoke additional ideas or implications.
• Don’t pay attention to such things as spelling at this stage.
• This draft tends to be writer-centered: it is you telling yourself what you know and think about the topic.
• Revision is the key to effective documents. Here you think more deeply about your readers’ needs and expectations. The document becomes reader-centered. How much support will each idea need to convince your readers? Which terms should be defined for these particular readers? Is your organization effective? Do readers need to know X before they can understand Y?
• At this stage you also refine your prose, making each sentence as concise and accurate as possible. Make connections between ideas explicit and clear.
• Check for such things as grammar, mechanics, and spelling. The last thing you should do before printing your document is to spell check it.
• Don’t edit your writing until the other steps in the writing process are complete.

What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer’s Toolbox

Not all writing is the same and there’s a type of writing that has the ability to transport, teach, and inspire others like no other.

Creative writing stands out due to its unique approach and focus on imagination. Here’s how to get started and grow as you explore the broad and beautiful world of creative writing!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that extends beyond the bounds of regular professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. It is characterized by its emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or poetic techniques to express ideas in an original and imaginative way.

Creative writing can take on various forms such as:

• short stories
• screenplays

It’s a way for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a creative, often symbolic, way . It’s about using the power of words to transport readers into a world created by the writer.

5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing

Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression:

1. Imagination and Creativity: Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work. It allows writers to explore different scenarios, characters, and worlds that may not exist in reality.

2. Emotional Engagement: Creative writing often evokes strong emotions in the reader. It aims to make the reader feel something — whether it’s happiness, sorrow, excitement, or fear.

3. Originality: Creative writing values originality. It’s about presenting familiar things in new ways or exploring ideas that are less conventional.

4. Use of Literary Devices: Creative writing frequently employs literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, and others to enrich the text and convey meanings in a more subtle, layered manner.

5. Focus on Aesthetics: The beauty of language and the way words flow together is important in creative writing. The aim is to create a piece that’s not just interesting to read, but also beautiful to hear when read aloud.

Remember, creative writing is not just about producing a work of art. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to share your perspective with the world. Whether you’re considering it as a hobby or contemplating a career in it, understanding the nature and characteristics of creative writing can help you hone your skills and create more engaging pieces .

For more insights into creative writing, check out our articles on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree and is a degree in creative writing worth it .

Styles of Creative Writing

To fully understand creative writing , you must be aware of the various styles involved. Creative writing explores a multitude of genres, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses expressive language to evoke emotions and ideas. Poets often employ rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices to create pieces that are deeply personal and impactful. Poems can vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter, making this a versatile and dynamic form of creative writing.

Short Stories

Short stories are another common style of creative writing. These are brief narratives that typically revolve around a single event or idea. Despite their length, short stories can provide a powerful punch, using precise language and tight narrative structures to convey a complete story in a limited space.

Novels represent a longer form of narrative creative writing. They usually involve complex plots, multiple characters, and various themes. Writing a novel requires a significant investment of time and effort; however, the result can be a rich and immersive reading experience.

Screenplays

Screenplays are written works intended for the screen, be it television, film, or online platforms. They require a specific format, incorporating dialogue and visual descriptions to guide the production process. Screenwriters must also consider the practical aspects of filmmaking, making this an intricate and specialized form of creative writing.

If you’re interested in this style, understanding creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree can provide useful insights.

Writing for the theater is another specialized form of creative writing. Plays, like screenplays, combine dialogue and action, but they also require an understanding of the unique dynamics of the theatrical stage. Playwrights must think about the live audience and the physical space of the theater when crafting their works.

Each of these styles offers unique opportunities for creativity and expression. Whether you’re drawn to the concise power of poetry, the detailed storytelling of novels, or the visual language of screenplays and plays, there’s a form of creative writing that will suit your artistic voice. The key is to explore, experiment, and find the style that resonates with you.

For those looking to spark their creativity, our article on creative writing prompts offers a wealth of ideas to get you started.

Importance of Creative Writing

Understanding what is creative writing involves recognizing its value and significance. Engaging in creative writing can provide numerous benefits – let’s take a closer look.

Developing Creativity and Imagination

Creative writing serves as a fertile ground for nurturing creativity and imagination. It encourages you to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and create unique and original content. This leads to improved problem-solving skills and a broader worldview , both of which can be beneficial in various aspects of life.

Through creative writing, one can build entire worlds, create characters, and weave complex narratives, all of which are products of a creative mind and vivid imagination. This can be especially beneficial for those seeking creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Enhancing Communication Skills

Creative writing can also play a crucial role in honing communication skills. It demands clarity, precision, and a strong command of language. This helps to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, making it easier to express thoughts and ideas effectively .

Moreover, creative writing encourages empathy as you often need to portray a variety of characters from different backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to a better understanding of people and improved interpersonal communication skills.

Exploring Emotions and Ideas

One of the most profound aspects of creative writing is its ability to provide a safe space for exploring emotions and ideas. It serves as an outlet for thoughts and feelings , allowing you to express yourself in ways that might not be possible in everyday conversation.

Writing can be therapeutic, helping you process complex emotions, navigate difficult life events, and gain insight into your own experiences and perceptions. It can also be a means of self-discovery , helping you to understand yourself and the world around you better.

So, whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, the benefits of creative writing are vast and varied. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, check out our articles on creative writing prompts and how to teach creative writing . If you’re considering a career in this field, you might find our article on is a degree in creative writing worth it helpful.

4 Steps to Start Creative Writing

Creative writing can seem daunting to beginners, but with the right approach, anyone can start their journey into this creative field. Here are some steps to help you start creative writing .

1. Finding Inspiration

The first step in creative writing is finding inspiration . Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. Observe the world around you, listen to conversations, explore different cultures, and delve into various topics of interest.

Reading widely can also be a significant source of inspiration. Read different types of books, articles, and blogs. Discover what resonates with you and sparks your imagination.

For structured creative prompts, visit our list of creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Editor’s Note : When something excites or interests you, stop and take note – it could be the inspiration for your next creative writing piece.

2. Planning Your Piece

Once you have an idea, the next step is to plan your piece . Start by outlining:

• the main points

Remember, this can serve as a roadmap to guide your writing process. A plan doesn’t have to be rigid. It’s a flexible guideline that can be adjusted as you delve deeper into your writing. The primary purpose is to provide direction and prevent writer’s block.

3. Writing Your First Draft

After planning your piece, you can start writing your first draft . This is where you give life to your ideas and breathe life into your characters.

Don’t worry about making it perfect in the first go. The first draft is about getting your ideas down on paper . You can always refine and polish your work later. And if you don’t have a great place to write that first draft, consider a journal for writing .

4. Editing and Revising Your Work

The final step in the creative writing process is editing and revising your work . This is where you fine-tune your piece, correct grammatical errors, and improve sentence structure and flow.

Editing is also an opportunity to enhance your storytelling . You can add more descriptive details, develop your characters further, and make sure your plot is engaging and coherent.

Remember, writing is a craft that improves with practice . Don’t be discouraged if your first few pieces don’t meet your expectations. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, enjoy the creative process.

For more insights on creative writing, check out our articles on how to teach creative writing or creative writing activities for kids.

Tips to Improve Creative Writing Skills

Understanding what is creative writing is the first step. But how can one improve their creative writing skills? Here are some tips that can help.

Read Widely

Reading is a vital part of becoming a better writer. By immersing oneself in a variety of genres, styles, and authors, one can gain a richer understanding of language and storytelling techniques . Different authors have unique voices and methods of telling stories, which can serve as inspiration for your own work. So, read widely and frequently!

Practice Regularly

Like any skill, creative writing improves with practice. Consistently writing — whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly — helps develop your writing style and voice . Using creative writing prompts can be a fun way to stimulate your imagination and get the words flowing.

Attend Writing Workshops and Courses

Formal education such as workshops and courses can offer structured learning and expert guidance. These can provide invaluable insights into the world of creative writing, from understanding plot development to character creation. If you’re wondering is a degree in creative writing worth it, these classes can also give you a taste of what studying creative writing at a higher level might look like .

Joining Writing Groups and Communities

Being part of a writing community can provide motivation, constructive feedback, and a sense of camaraderie. These groups often hold regular meetings where members share their work and give each other feedback. Plus, it’s a great way to connect with others who share your passion for writing.

Seeking Feedback on Your Work

Feedback is a crucial part of improving as a writer. It offers a fresh perspective on your work, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Whether it’s from a writing group, a mentor, or even friends and family, constructive criticism can help refine your writing .

Start Creative Writing Today!

Remember, becoming a proficient writer takes time and patience. So, don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep enjoying the process. Who knows, your passion for creative writing might even lead to creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Happy writing!

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

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What is Creative Intelligence? An Introduction

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Writing Nestling

What Is Creative Writing? (Definition & 11 Best Steps)

Creative writing is the celestial dance of words, an art form that transcends the ordinary to forge literary constellations that illuminate the human experience.

At its core, creative writing is a cosmic exploration of imagination, a journey into the uncharted realms where storytelling becomes a vehicle for self-expression, creativity, and connection.

It encompasses a diverse array of genres, from the poetic landscapes of verse to the intricate narratives of fiction and the introspective reflections of creative nonfiction.

Creative writing is both an ancient practice, rooted in the oral traditions of storytelling, and a contemporary force, shaped by the dynamic currents of literary movements and the digital age.

In this cosmic voyage of words, writers become cosmic architects, crafting worlds, characters, and emotions that resonate across the galaxies of human thought and emotion.

This exploration delves into the historical evolution, elements, genres, and the transformative process of creative writing, inviting both novice stargazers and seasoned explorers to embark on a literary odyssey through the cosmos of human imagination.

Table of Contents

What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is the process of expressing thoughts, ideas, and emotions through the artful use of language. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown:

Idea Generation

Start by brainstorming and generating ideas. This could be inspired by personal experiences, observations, or purely imaginative concepts.

Organize your thoughts and structure your writing. This might involve outlining the plot for a story, creating characters, or planning the flow of a poem.

Choosing a Form or Genre

Decide on the type of creative writing you want to pursue – whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, or any other form.

Setting the Tone and Style

Define the tone and style of your writing. This could range from formal to informal, humorous to serious, depending on the intended effect.

Creating Characters or Themes

Develop characters, themes, or central ideas that will drive your narrative and engage your audience.

Begin writing your first draft. Allow yourself the freedom to explore ideas without worrying too much about perfection at this stage.

Review and revise your work. This involves refining your language, improving clarity, and ensuring your writing effectively communicates your intended message or story.

Pay attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Edit your work to eliminate errors and enhance overall readability.

Seek feedback from peers, writing groups, or mentors. Constructive criticism can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your work.

Make final adjustments based on feedback and your own revisions. Polish your creative writing until you are satisfied with the result.

Publishing or Sharing

Decide whether you want to share your work publicly. This could involve submitting it to literary magazines, self-publishing, or simply sharing it with friends and family.

Creative writing is a dynamic and iterative process, allowing for continuous refinement and exploration of ideas.

Historical Evolution of Creative Writing

Embarking on a literary time-travel, the historical evolution of creative writing unfolds like an intricately woven tapestry, blending the whispers of ancient oral traditions with the bold strokes of individual expression that emerged during the Renaissance.

Picture storytellers captivating audiences with folk tales around ancient campfires, only to witness the metamorphosis into written words that took place during humanity’s transition from the spoken to the written word.

As the winds of change blew through literary landscapes, the Renaissance breathed life into personal narratives, and Romanticism embraced the turbulent storms of emotion.

Modernism then shattered conventional boundaries, paving the way for experimental forms that mirrored the tumultuous twentieth century.

Today, creative writing stands at the intersection of tradition and innovation, a dynamic force shaped by the echoes of the past and the untamed creativity of the present.

Origins in oral traditions

The origins of creative writing can be traced back to the rich tapestry of human storytelling woven through the fabric of oral traditions.

In the dim glow of ancient campfires, our ancestors spun tales that danced between reality and imagination, passing down knowledge, wisdom, and cultural identity from one generation to the next.

These oral narratives, often rooted in folklore and myths, were the heartbeat of communities, connecting individuals through shared stories.

From the captivating epics of Homer to the enchanting fairy tales whispered in the corners of the world, the oral tradition laid the foundation for the written word, embodying the essence of human creativity, imagination, and the innate desire to communicate through the power of narrative.

Development through literary movements

The historical journey of creative writing unfolds through the dynamic currents of literary movements, each a vibrant chapter in the evolution of human expression.

The Renaissance, a cultural rebirth, marked a pivotal shift as writers embraced the power of individual expression and departed from medieval constraints.

Romanticism followed, a tempest of emotion that stormed the structured landscapes of literature, championing nature, passion, and the sublime.

Modernism emerged as a bold departure from traditional forms, ushering in experimental narratives and fragmented perspectives that mirrored the complexities of the 20th century.

Today’s creative writing landscape, shaped by these movements, is a kaleidoscope of diverse voices and styles, a testament to the enduring influence of literary evolution on the human experience.

Elements of Creative Writing

Dive into the alchemy of creative writing, where the elements of storytelling blend and dance like cosmic particles in a celestial ballet.

Picture the plot and structure as the architectural skeleton, a blueprint for worlds yet to be born. Characters, like sentient constellations, come to life, breathing the very essence of authenticity into the narrative cosmos.

Amidst the vast expanse of setting and atmosphere, landscapes materialize like dreams, painting scenes that are both vivid and haunting.

Style and voice emerge as the enchanting melodies, each writer composing a unique symphony that resonates in the reader’s soul.

In this literary crucible, the elements fuse, giving birth to tales that are not just written but are crafted, where words become spells, and the act of creation is nothing short of magical.

Genres in Creative Writing

Step into the kaleidoscope of creative expression, where genres in creative writing are the vibrant hues that paint the literary canvas with boundless imagination.

Fiction, a realm where novel universes unfurl with every turn of the page, beckons explorers to traverse landscapes of intrigue and emotion.

Poetry, the language of the soul, weaves verses that resonate in the heart’s chambers, from the traditional sonnets to the avant-garde free forms that defy gravity.

Creative nonfiction becomes a literary mirror, reflecting the kaleidoscope of reality through memoirs and essays, blurring the lines between experience and artistry.

These genres are not mere labels; they are portals into worlds where storytelling transcends boundaries, and writers become architects of realms that captivate the mind, stir the emotions, and linger in the echoes of the reader’s imagination.

Fiction, the enchanting realm where the alchemy of words transforms imagination into reality, beckons readers into worlds unknown.

It is the literary tapestry where storytellers weave tales that dance on the precipice between reality and fantasy. Novels, the architects of this fantastical landscape, sculpt characters with palpable depth, crafting intricate plotlines that unfold like secrets waiting to be revealed.

From the classic works of timeless masters to the contemporary symphonies of emerging voices, fiction transcends time and space, inviting readers to escape the ordinary and venture into the extraordinary.

In this boundless expanse, emotions become tangible, and the echoes of imaginary footsteps resonate long after the last page is turned. Fiction is not merely a genre; it is a passport to alternate realities, a magic carpet that carries readers to places uncharted and emotions unexplored.

Poetry, the language of the heart and the echo of the soul, is an art form that transcends the boundaries of ordinary expression.

In the symphony of words, poets become maestros, conducting emotions and experiences into verses that sing with rhythm and grace.

From the structured elegance of traditional forms to the unbridled freedom of free verse, poetry captures the ineffable and distills it into the purest essence.

Every line is a brushstroke painting vivid imagery, and each stanza is a melody that resonates in the chambers of the reader’s spirit. Poets wield words like alchemists, transforming mundane moments into profound revelations.

In the delicate dance between language and emotion, poetry stands as a testament to the human capacity to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the beauty of finely crafted language and the endless possibilities of the poetic imagination.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction, a captivating blend of factual precision and artistic expression, serves as a literary bridge between the realms of truth and imagination.

In this genre, writers embark on a compelling journey of storytelling that mines the depths of reality to craft narratives as rich and engaging as any fiction.

From memoirs that illuminate the intricacies of personal experiences to thought-provoking essays that dissect the tapestry of the human condition, creative nonfiction is a mosaic of authenticity painted with the brushstrokes of literary finesse.

The genre encourages writers to artfully blur the lines between fact and narrative, weaving a tapestry that captures the essence of life in all its complexities.

It is a genre where truth is not merely recounted but elevated to the status of art, inviting readers to explore the profound and the ordinary with fresh eyes and a heightened appreciation for the power of storytelling.

The Creative Writing Process

Embark on the enigmatic odyssey of the creative writing process, where inspiration is a clandestine muse that whispers in the stillness of creativity.

The inception, a cosmic spark, ignites the imagination, unleashing a torrent of ideas that cascade like shooting stars across the writer’s mind. The drafting phase is a dance with chaos, a raw manifestation of thoughts and emotions onto the blank canvas of the page.

Yet, the revision process emerges as the phoenix rising from the literary ashes, where words transform and refine, revealing the alchemical magic of refining ideas into a harmonious narrative.

Seeking feedback becomes a cosmic conversation, where the writer navigates the cosmos of criticism to unveil hidden constellations in their work.

The creative writing process is not a linear trajectory but a celestial dance , where writers traverse the nebulae of creativity, forging galaxies of prose and poetry that linger in the reader’s universe long after the final punctuation mark.

Idea generation, the pulsating heartbeat of the creative process, invites writers into the boundless cosmos of imagination.

It is an ethereal dance with inspiration, where sparks of creativity ignite the mind like constellations in the night sky. Whether drawn from personal experiences, fleeting observations, or the whispers of dreams, ideas are the raw stardust that writers mold into narrative galaxies.

The process is as unpredictable as a meteor shower, with writers navigating the celestial expanse to capture elusive fragments of brilliance.

From the quiet corners of introspection to the cacophony of the world, the art of idea generation transforms the mundane into the extraordinary, inviting writers to embark on a cosmic odyssey where every fleeting notion has the potential to blossom into a literary supernova.

Drafting and Revising

Drafting and revising, the twin constellations of the writing process, encapsulate the transformative journey of turning nebulous ideas into polished prose.

In the initial act of drafting, writers plunge into the creative abyss, weaving words into a tapestry of raw emotions and vivid imagery.

It is an untamed exploration, where the exhilarating rush of creation takes precedence over perfection. Yet, the true alchemy occurs in the refining crucible of revision. Like a sculptor chiseling away excess stone to reveal a masterpiece, writers meticulously carve and reshape their narratives.

It is a dance with words, a delicate balancing act of preserving the authenticity of the initial draft while enhancing clarity, coherence, and resonance.

Revision is not merely correction; it is the conscious evolution of a narrative, where every nuanced change breathes new life into the prose.

The tandem of drafting and revising, akin to the ebb and flow of cosmic forces, is the dynamic heartbeat that propels a piece of writing from its embryonic stages to the polished brilliance that captivates the reader’s soul.

Publishing and Sharing

Publishing and sharing mark the culmination of a writer’s odyssey, where the crafted words are prepared to venture beyond the solitary realm of creation.

It is a moment of revelation, where the manuscript, once a private universe, prepares to meet the wider cosmos of readership.

The publishing process, be it through traditional avenues or the burgeoning world of self-publishing, involves the meticulous preparation of the work for public consumption.

The act of sharing becomes a cosmic ripple, as the writer’s voice resonates across the literary landscape, forging connections with readers who may find solace, inspiration, or sheer enjoyment in the words.

It is a dance of vulnerability and courage, as writers release their creations into the literary cosmos, hoping their narrative constellations will find a home in the hearts and minds of others.

The symbiotic relationship between writer and reader transforms the act of publishing into a shared cosmic experience, where words transcend the individual and become part of a collective literary universe.

Challenges and Rewards of Creative Writing

Navigating the cosmos of creative writing reveals a celestial dance of challenges and rewards, where each word penned is a step into the cosmic unknown.

The challenges emerge like elusive comets, from the gravitational pull of writer’s block threatening to derail creativity, to the constant cosmic quest for a harmonious balance between originality and marketability.

Yet, these challenges are the cosmic forge that tempers the writer’s mettle, honing resilience and creativity in the crucible of adversity.

The rewards, akin to dazzling supernovae, illuminate the journey. The cathartic joy of crafting a sentence that resonates, the cosmic connections formed with readers who find solace or delight in the prose – these are the celestial jewels that make the struggles worthwhile.

In the vast expanse of creative writing, challenges and rewards orbit each other like binary stars, their gravitational pull shaping the unique trajectory of every writer’s cosmic odyssey.

Overcoming writer’s block

Writer’s block, that elusive shadow cast over the creative landscape, can feel like navigating a cosmic void where inspiration is but a distant star.

It is the gravitational force that stymies the flow of words and leaves the writer stranded in a sea of blank pages. Yet, overcoming writer’s block is an act of cosmic resilience.

Writers embark on a journey through the nebulae of creativity, employing various strategies to break free from the entangled cosmic web.

Whether it’s the cosmic power of free writing to unravel mental knots or the meteoric inspiration found in changing the writing environment, overcoming writer’s block becomes a transformative process.

It is the writer’s spacecraft pushing through the cosmic fog, a testament to the indomitable spirit that seeks to create even in the face of cosmic resistance.

In this dance with the muse, writers rediscover the cosmic symphony of their imagination and emerge from the creative void with newfound brilliance.

Balancing originality and marketability

In the cosmic dance of creative writing, striking the delicate balance between originality and marketability is akin to navigating the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies.

Originality, the pulsating core of creativity, propels writers into uncharted literary realms, forging unique constellations of thought and expression.

Yet, the cosmic reality of marketability orbits nearby, where commercial considerations seek gravitational stability.

It’s an intricate interplay; too much originality may risk veering into the obscure, while an excessive focus on marketability might compromise the authenticity of the creative vision.

Writers become cosmic architects, constructing narratives that not only resonate with their individual voice but also align with the gravitational pull of audience preferences.

Balancing these cosmic forces is a perpetual challenge, requiring writers to dance on the edge of innovation while staying tethered to the gravitational pull of a wider readership.

In this cosmic balancing act, writers discover the celestial equilibrium where originality and marketability harmonize, creating literary galaxies that captivate both the cosmos of creativity and the earthly realms of audience engagement.

Impact of Creative Writing on Society

Creative writing is the cosmic echo of the human soul, resonating through the annals of time and leaving an indelible imprint on the fabric of society.

It serves as a literary constellation, illuminating the collective consciousness with narratives that mirror, challenge, and redefine societal values.

From ancient epics that shaped cultural identities to contemporary works that spark revolutions of thought, creative writing is a cosmic force that fosters empathy, dismantles prejudices, and holds a mirror to the complexities of the human experience.

It is the catalyst for societal metamorphosis, a cosmic dance that encourages dialogue, fuels revolutions, and shapes the very contours of cultural evolution.

In the vast cosmos of creative expression, the impact of writing is not merely confined to the pages; it permeates the collective psyche, becoming a celestial force that guides, questions, and ultimately shapes the destiny of societies on this cosmic voyage through time.

Educational and Professional Opportunities in Creative Writing

Embarking on the cosmic odyssey of creative writing isn’t just a journey into the realms of imagination; it’s a launchpad to educational and professional constellations that illuminate diverse career trajectories.

Creative writing programs become celestial academies, nurturing literary supernovae through workshops, mentorship, and the exploration of narrative galaxies.

The academic pursuit of the craft transforms writers into cosmic architects, honing not only their creativity but also the analytical skills essential for dissecting the intricacies of language.

Beyond the academic cosmos, the professional opportunities in creative writing are as vast as the universe itself.

Writers may navigate the celestial waters of journalism, become starry-eyed screenwriters crafting cinematic adventures, or soar as literary explorers, publishing novels that leave an indelible mark on the literary cosmos.

In the intersection of education and profession, creative writing unfolds as a cosmic tapestry where words aren’t just written but become portals to boundless opportunities in the vast expanse of the literary universe.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about What Is Creative Writing?

What exactly is creative writing, and how does it differ from other forms of writing.

Creative writing is the vibrant, expressive art of using words to craft narratives that go beyond mere conveyance of information. It stands apart by prioritizing imagination, self-expression, and often blurs the lines between reality and fiction.

How does the historical evolution of creative writing influence contemporary practices?

The historical journey of creative writing, from ancient oral traditions to the digital age, has shaped the very DNA of the craft. It influences contemporary practices by offering a rich tapestry of literary movements, styles, and themes that writers can draw inspiration from or subvert.

Can anyone become a creative writer, or is it a skill reserved for a select few?

Absolutely anyone can become a creative writer! While innate talent can be an asset, the essence of creative writing lies in practice, exploration, and the willingness to cultivate one’s unique voice and perspective.

What are the key elements that make up creative writing, and how do they contribute to the overall narrative?

The elements of creative writing, such as plot, characterization, setting, style, and voice, are the building blocks that construct the literary cosmos. They contribute by creating immersive worlds, memorable characters, and distinctive narratives that resonate with readers.

How can one overcome writer’s block, a common challenge in creative writing?

Overcoming writer’s block is like navigating through a cosmic fog. Strategies include engaging in free writing, changing the writing environment, seeking inspiration from different mediums, or simply taking a cosmic break to recharge creative energies.

Is creative writing limited to novels and poetry, or are there other genres to explore?

Creative writing spans a diverse universe of genres. While novels and poetry are prominent, there’s also creative nonfiction, flash fiction, screenplays, and more. The cosmos of creative writing is vast and welcomes exploration.

How does one balance the fine line between originality and marketability in creative writing?

Balancing originality and marketability requires navigating a cosmic dance. It involves maintaining authenticity while considering the audience’s preferences, creating a celestial equilibrium where the writer’s unique voice resonates within a broader readership.

What educational and professional opportunities are available in the field of creative writing?

The educational galaxy offers creative writing programs and degrees, nurturing writers with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Professionally, opportunities range from traditional publishing avenues to scriptwriting, journalism, and the expansive realm of digital content creation.

In conclusion, creative writing is a cosmic odyssey, an ever-expanding universe of imagination, expression, and connection.

From its ancient roots in oral traditions to the dynamic currents of contemporary literary movements, creative writing has evolved into a diverse and influential art form.

It is a transformative process that involves the careful balance of elements, the exploration of various genres, and the persistent journey through the challenges and rewards of crafting narratives.

Creative writing is not confined to the realms of novels and poetry; it encompasses a vast cosmos of possibilities, from memoirs to screenplays, flash fiction to creative nonfiction.

As writers embark on this celestial exploration, they become architects of worlds, sculptors of characters, and composers of narratives that resonate across the collective human experience.

The educational and professional opportunities within this realm further amplify its significance, turning creative writing into both a personal pursuit and a communal force shaping the literary landscape.

In the grand celestial tapestry of human expression, creative writing emerges as a luminous constellation, inviting writers and readers alike to traverse the cosmic expanse of imagination and storytelling.

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Writing process: From discovery to done (complete guide)

The writing process has many stages, from discovery and investigation to publication. Read authors’ insights on finding ideas, revision and more, and tips and methods to find the process that works for you.

• Post author By Jordan
• 5 Comments on Writing process: From discovery to done (complete guide)

The writing process is a complex, not always linear creative process. From ‘plotters’ vs ‘pantsers’ (to ‘bashers’ vs ‘swoopers’), this guide unpacks stages of the writing process, what authors have said about the practices and habits of writing, and more. Use the links above to jump to the section that interests you now.

Writing process stages: 7 areas of practice

Some writing schools and authors divide writing into four stages, some five. Yet these seven see a story from first idea to publication:

• Discovery. Before you can draft, you need an idea, a premise. This is the investigative stage of finding the seed for a story with the most potential.
• Prewriting . The preparation to write before drafting begins. Depending on whether you’re a ‘plotter’ or ‘pantser’ (more on this below), this may include outlining, brainstorming, freewriting, or other common prewriting techniques.
• Drafting. You write narration, exposition, scenes, chapters (depending on your story’s format). Drafting may be fast or slow, depending on your preferred methods. Try different approaches and techniques to shake up your usual writing habits.
• Writing feedback and story development. Once you are comfortable to share your work-in-progress (WIP), you may share early drafts with a trusted friend, writing coach or critique circle for perspective and insight.
• Revision . The process of reviewing what you’ve written, deciding what to keep (and which ‘darlings’ to ‘kill’).
• Editing. While revision entails making decisions about the content of your story, editing involves making decisions about the presentation of that content – how best to make the story more impactful and polished.
• Publication (and promotion). Isn’t the writing process over at this stage? Not at all – your query letters, story pitches, blurbs, review requests and other matter will be some of the most important material of the entire writing process. This is the writing that puts the story you’ve labored over in the right hands.

Keep reading for tips, methods and ideas about each of these stages, supplemented by reading from the Now Novel blog.

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To the top ↑

Sometimes we fail for a week, a month, a year, a decade. And then we come back, circle the fire. Our lives are not linear. We get lost, then we get found. Patience is important, and a large tolerance for our mistakes. We don’t become anything overnight. Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing (2013), p. 58.

Discovery: Finding and investigating writing ideas

The writing process may start from an idea that arrives like a soothsayer. A flash of inspiration, insight, wisdom – a dream, unexpected connection, some kind of beguiling chance encounter or happenstance that makes you say, ‘I’ve got an idea’.

Yet the idea-finding process may equally be deliberate, even robotic. Consistently trying your hand at writing prompts until an idea niggles away at your waking mind, for example, persistently saying, ‘pick me’.

Finding and developing writing ideas is a skill you develop like any part of the writing process. That way you can make an idea come, not just for a first book, but a second, third (if with a little coaxing).

Essayist and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin said of the writing process:

Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed; an architectural one, where it is constructed; and finally, a textile one, where it is woven. Walter Benjamin, quote via Goodreads .

Before you make a picture with those threads, you need the wool you spin into finer thread: The fluffy stuff of an idea.

Writing process methods: Ways to find ideas

There are many ways to find ideas and find joy in the discovery stage of writing process.

Discovery and investigation may include a little or a lot of research, depending on what you need to know. The seed of an idea may come from multiple sources at once, as Toni Morrison says of her Pulitzer-winning novel Beloved :

Beloved originated as a general question, and was launched by a newspaper clipping. The general question (remember, this was the early eighties) centered on how – other than equal rights, access, pay, etc. – does the women’s movement define the freedom being sought? Toni Morrison, ‘On Beloved ‘ in Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations, p. 281.

Here are fifteen ways to find ideas:

15 ways to find writing ideas and begin the writing process

• Try writing prompts such as the step-by-step prompts to find a central story idea in the Now Novel dashboard.
• Ask ‘What if…?’ For example, ‘What if a mysterious satellite held captivating mysteries about an alien race?’
• Draw from life. What experience could you use/alter for non-fiction or fiction?
• Use visual prompts. Use a photo or artwork as your starting point. Free-write a paragraph describing what you see, then continue and keep or turf the opening material.
• Play/combine. William S. Burroughs’ famous ‘cut up’ technique reassembles random cuttings from print into new ideas, for example.
• Trawl headlines. Google intriguing subjects in the ‘news’ tab. E.g. ‘travel disasters’ brought up ‘How ‘dark tourism’ can pass on the lessons of past tragedies’. Mine your headline for ideas.
• Explore myths and legends. Reads stories from world mythologies. You could update an ancient tale with modern touches.
• Argue with other stories. Maybe a story’s annoyed you, or you want to explore a secondary character’s viewpoint (from a work now in the public domain). Write back.
• Test out ideas in short fiction. Famous novels (such as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce) began as short story test runs.
• Draw inspiration from music. Listen to a song. What ideas, characters, premises do the lyrics evoke?
• Try creative constraints. The collective OuLiPo used devices such as writing stories omitting a chosen vowel entirely to find the unexpected.
• Browse famous quotes. Take something like ‘Happy families are all alike…’ from Anna Karenina . Where else could it lead?
• Join writing groups. Prompts set by members for each other may inspire new ideas.
• Research historical figures or eras. You may unearth a riveting idea from the past.
• Tap into your subconscious and keep a dream journal or meditate, silence and going inward often brings clarity.

FAQs about the discovery stage of writing

Share your idea with trusted people for external perspective. Test it out in a writing group or class. Ask questions about ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’ ‘where’ and ‘when’ to finesse a hazy or partial idea into something deeper, fuller.

The varied ways myths and legends are recycled (Thor in Norse mythology becoming Marvel’s popular character) reminds us there are no new ideas. Originality lies in the specifics of voice and execution. Be specific, be yourself and find your voice through practice and intentional execution.

This is where it helps to remember the writing process is not linear. The discovery stage is also a good time for research, finding out what is being done (and overdone) in your genre. What agents are looking for (or tired of seeing). Resources listing recent publishing deals give insights into what’s sold recently and book market appetites. To start though, focus on telling a good story. Great stories find their audience.

🗣️ How did you find your last story idea? Let us know in the comments, and keep reading for tips and methods for prewriting, drafting, and more.

• 38 plot ideas (plus 7 ways to find more)
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GET YOUR FREE GUIDE TO SCENE STRUCTURE

Read a guide to writing scenes with purpose that move your story forward.

Ideas are like fireflies; go hunting for them and they elude you. Sit and enjoy the night, and they appear from out of nowhere. You have to let the ideas come to you. Expand your world, read outside your comfort zone, take walks. The fireflies will come. Just give them the chance. Sabrina Jeffries in 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers by Andrew McAleer (2008), p. 69.

Prewriting: Useful preparatory writing processes

Prewriting is the processes before you start drafting a story which help you prepare.

There are many kinds of prewriting. Because the writing process is not linear, you might come back to one or more of these methods at some stage of drafting:

Common prewriting steps and methods

• Picking a premise. If you have multiple ideas, go with the idea that pulls you most and (if you want a marketable book) the one you know has the better market potential.
• Choosing a genre or subgenre. This goes hand in hand with picking a premise, since if you set your book in outer space and explore future technology, chances are you’ll be shelved with sci-fi.
• Brainstorming. A process of generating ideas, whether you use mind maps, answer prompts and questionnaires, or churn out every idea you can think of in scenario- or topic-driven lists.
• Creating a story outline. This may be a meticulous, detailed outline, or a cursory collection of notes. The more complete your outline, the more handrails you’ll have. This prevents wandering off into irrelevancies, plot holes and impossible paradoxes, and so on.
• Creating initial summary material. Summary material includes things like character profiles or IDs, scene summaries , or a one-page synopsis of what your story is about (also a useful exercise in the Publication and promotion stage of process).
• Freewriting. Before more structured drafting, you might explore a topic or scenario with freewriting. Set a timer for 15 to 20 minutes and just write whatever comes into your head about a topic you think will be important to your book. It might spawn scene, chapter, or character ideas.
• Research. This may overlap with the discovery/investigation stage, as your idea may also need a little research to solidify what you want to write about. It might include fiction set in a similar era or place, making a bibliography of potentially helpful non-fiction, speaking to subject exploring films and documentaries, or visiting physical or digital archives. For some tips on how to research place when you can’t visit those places, read our tips.
• Interviewing. This is especially pertinent for types of writing such as historical fiction, non-fiction, memoir. Interviews with subject experts, people who lived through specific events or an era, could provide helpful nuance, context, and ideas for relevant story details.

You don’t necessarily need to do every kind of prewriting. Some authors favor ‘just-in-time’ research (an idea Bujold spoke about in relation to fantasy worldbuilding ).

Authors on prewriting and whether or not to plan stories

The prewriting perspectives below show there are many way to skin (or rather save) a cat. Try different methods and find what works for you .

Loose story outlining

Author Scott King gives this reminder that prewriting (planning, creating structure, organizing) should serve the needs of your story, and stay adaptable to its unique needs:

An outline is a map of your story. It’s not set in stone. Even when you work from an outline, you will discover new twists and turns as you progress. The outline is there to remind you of where you are going so you can’t ever get too far from where you need to be. Since I was working under pressure, I didn’t want to get crazy with how I structured Ameriguns . I defaulted to a three act structure, the kind you’d use in a screenplay, but altered it to fit the needs of the story. Scott King, ‘Outline’ in The 5 Day Novel , 2016, p. 58.

Pullman on how establishing rules is part of play

More broadly, Philip Pullman, in ‘The Practice of Writing’, talks about how having some rules at the start of creative process gives paradoxical freedom to play. He compares guidelines such as rules (or outlines) to choosing where touchdown lies for a football game:

And as we know about all games, it’s much more satisfying to play with rules than without them. If we’re going to enjoy a game of football in the playground, we need to know where the touchline is, and agree on what we’re going to regard as the goalposts. Then we can get on with playing, because the complete freedom of our play is held together and protected by this armature of rules. The first and last and only discovery that the victims of anarchy can make is: no rules, no freedom. Philip Pullman, ‘The Practice of Writing’ in Daemon Voices , pp. 18-19

‘Plotting’ vs ‘Pantsing’: Find your balance between prewriting and drafting

So much has been written and said about whether you should plan stories in detail in advance (‘plotting’), or go where imagination takes you (‘pantsing’, after the expression ‘to fly by the seat of your pants’ or work with instinct and gut more than organized knowledge).

Your writing process may change to suit your project

Author K.M. Weiland raises the useful reminder that your writing process doesn’t need to ape a famous writer’s approach, or be the same across every story you tell:

Each author must discover for himself what methods work best for him. Just because Margaret Atwood does X and Stephen King does Y is no reason to blindly follow suit. Read widely, learn all you can about what works for other authors, and experiment to discover which methods will offer you the best results. K.M. Weiland, ‘Chapter One: Should You Outline?’ in Outlining your Novel: Map your way to success , p. 11.

Planning stories helps character development

Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for writing, said of the space and planning deeper characterization requires:

Type, general character, may be set forth in a few strokes, but the progression, the unfolding of personality […] if the actors in the tale are to retain their individuality for [the reader] through a succession of changing circumstances—this slow but continuous growth requires space, and therefore belongs by definition to a larger, a symphonic plan. Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction: The classic guide to the art of the short story and the novel (1925), p. 33.

Not planning, creative freedom and excitement

Author Lee Child, on the other hand, extolls the benefits of not planning (and not being as pedantic about the marks you hit as an editor or publisher might be):

I write without a plan or an outline. The way I picture my process is this: The novel is a movie stuntman, about to get pushed off a sixty-story building. The prop guys have a square fire-department airbag ready on the sidewalk below. One corner is marked Mystery, one Thriller, one Crime Fiction, and one Suspense. The stuntman is going to land on the bag. (I hope.) But probably not dead-on. Probably somewhat off center. But biased toward which corner? I don’t know yet. And I really don’t mind. I’m excited to find out. Lee Child, ‘Introduction’ in How to Write a Mystery: A handbook from Mystery Writers of America

🗣️ What is your preferred prewriting method? Or do you pants it all the way, or pants a little then switch to planning? Tell us in the comments.

• What is prewriting? Preparing to write with purpose
• Story plotting and structure: Complete guide
• Story planning and outlining: Complete guide
• Story planner success: How to organize your novel

GET HELP PLANNING YOUR BOOK

Join Now Novel for a helpful crit community and live webinars and plotting tools when you upgrade.

Writing process challenges you may encounter

Before we discuss drafting and the writing process, let’s explore common process challenges (and tips to overcome them):

Common hurdles in creative process

There are challenges in creative process that beginning authors and veterans alike face. You’re not alone if you’ve ever gone rounds in the ring with:

• Fear of failure (or success). What happens if a publisher or agent says no? What if reviews or crits are harsh? Or how will you handle sudden public recognition and scrutiny in the event of success?
• Procrastination (avoidance behaviors). When writing a story feels hard, it’s easy to put it off (or use not having time or something else as an excuse not to write).
• Distractibility. Whether you have a condition such as ADHD that adds further focus challenges or are a social media addict, we live in a highly distracting, ‘always on’ world.
• ‘Time Burglars’ . There are many thieves of time that take away from the writing process if you don’t make regular writing a top priority.
• A harsh inner critic. Many aspiring creative people have harsh inner critics who destroy their work before anyone else can.
• Laziness. This is a common reason not to write, too.
• Unpreparedness. Many writers find projects spool out and become much harder and more complex than originally anticipated. That can be discouraging.

Overcoming writing process challenges

How can you work with and overcome some of the above procedural challenges in writing?

• Keep SMART goals: Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based goals are much easier to track and attain than hazy aims
• Work on tolerance for your mistakes: Everyone makes mistakes starting out, and seasoned pros do, too
• Chunk up complex tasks: Struggling to write a chapter a week to schedule? Try write 300 words per day and set a bigger ‘stretch goal’ (an extra target if you make your first easily)
• Turn off the net if you need to: Put your phone in airplane mode and pause all notifications
• Remember the difference between procrastination and waiting: It’s fine to wait for maturity, fuller knowledge of your subject, to be in the right frame of mind. It’s not putting off but letting process take its necessary time for this story
• Get up and move often: The writing process is (for the most part) a sedentary one. It’s easy to forget to move. Stone-like posture may lead to petrified process, even if your mind’s going a hundred miles a minute

The accountability of working with a writing coach or joining a crit circle that meets regularly helps (in Now Novel’s experience), too.

Natalie Goldberg writes, on procrastination vs waiting:

Waiting is something full-bodied. Perhaps waiting isn’t even a good word for it. Pregnant is better. You’ve worked on something for a while. You are excited by it, even happy, but you are wise and step back. You take a walk, but this walk isn’t to avoid the writing on your desk. It is a walk full of your writing. It is also full of the trees you pass, the river, the sky. You are letting writing work on you. Natalie Goldberg, ‘Procrastination and Waiting’, in Wild Mind: Living the writer’s life , p. 210.

How to nurture your writing process and avoid common pitfalls

We asked Now Novel’s writing coaches their best advice on the writing process, and about patterns they see in beginning writers (and ways to overcome destructive habits).

Romance author and writing coach Romy Sommer on remembering why you’re telling your story:

Writing is hard work. Probably harder than you thought it would be when inspiration first struck and you decided to write a novel. So find the joy in what you are writing. Remind yourself daily of WHY you are writing this story. Remember that spark that first inspired you to sit down and write, because that is what will keep you going when the going gets tough.

SFF and YA author, editor and writing coach Nerine Dorman on allowing yourself to make ‘happy accidents’:

Many writers I’ve worked with lack confidence in their ability, and tend to focus on those first chapters to the point where they lose the momentum to push forward with the rest of the plot. I give them Bob Ross’s advice of making plenty of ‘happy little accidents’ as we can’t actually work on writing if there’s nothing there to revise. Your first draft can be as messy as you need it to be. The most important thing is to get into the habit of writing as regularly as your schedule allows, and to see your writing as a very personal way to express yourself. Granted, there are the basic building blocks of writing and style, which I aim to teach, but I like to think that we also look at what it means to be a writer – a constantly evolving, growing creative person.

Recommended Reading

• How to overcome writer’s block: 14 methods
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We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully; few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance. Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind: Living the writer’s life , p. 61.

Drafting stories: Getting knee-deep in scenes

We could equally call the drafting stage of process ‘discovery’ like the first stage. After all, drafting is where you discover many of the ‘happy accidents’ Nerine describes above. Discoveries that may often depart from your outline (or lead you back into revision-planning).

Learn more about approaches to drafting, what authors say about doing fewer vs multiple drafts, and tips to make this part of process work for you.

Types of draft in the storytelling process

There are many terms authors use to refer to drafting. Numbered (first, second, third) drafts. Even drafts before the first, the so-called ‘draft zero’ (which describes a discovery draft, the purpose of which is just to learn the broad scope of the story and set down some of the material in full).

In one of Now Novel’s live webinars, writing coach, author and editor Hedi Lampert shared a drafting concept by the late author and writing educator Anne Schuster, who hosted women’s writing workshops in Cape Town.

The idea is a simple, three-part drafting process. To paraphrase:

• The down draft: The draft where you get your ideas down on the page, with as much messiness or as many placeholders as you need to keep moving.
• The up draft: A second draft in which you pick up on details for development, expansion, and color in more of your story.
• The dental draft: A third draft in which you polish the work of your first two drafts, paying attention to language and finer detail now the story elements have solidified.

This is a useful concept in that it gives each stage of drafting a proper focus and purpose (and allows for not getting everything ‘right’ straight away).

Authors on the drafting stage of writing process

Will you draft chapters in chronological sequence or out of order? Should you worry about chapters and scene breaks or carve up the text later?

These are some of the questions authors face about drafting. Read authors on drafting and their individual processes. These perspectives show that what works for one person might not work for another. Try different methods until you find what works for your process, or this project.

Toni Morrison on creating chapters and parts in a draft

Toni Morrison describes putting in story segment divisions at a later point in process:

Chapter and part designations, as conventionally used in novels, were never very much help to me in writing. Nor are outlines. (I permit their use for the sake of the designer and for ease in talking about the book. They are usually identified at the last minute.) Toni Morrison, ‘The Writer Before the Page’, in Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations , p. 266.

Sir Terry Pratchett on the purpose of a first, second and third draft (creative freedom, shaping, addressing detail)

Sir Terry Pratchett said that the first draft is ‘just you telling yourself the story’, and qualified something like a systematic per-draft process when he said:

First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft. Sir Terry Pratchett, via Goodreads

Colleen McCullough on how many drafts until done: It depends

How many drafts ‘should’ you write? It depends, writing is rewriting as Colleen McCullough describes:

Once I’ve got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I’ll check my research. Colleen McCullough, quoted by Writers Write here .

🗣️ What is your drafting process currently? Is there a system, number of drafts or method that works well for you? Share it in the comments.

• Writing first drafts: 10 ideas to reach final drafts
• Write with purpose: 7 ways to keep drafts focused
• How to write a rough draft: Finish your novel faster

The concept of finishing a piece of writing, taking it through successive drafts, did not yet exist for me. I reveled in the heady pleasure of committing a few words to paper and treasured each like a rare jewel I had dug from the earth with my bare hands. A journal suited my fledgling status as a writer and made me feel serious and important, a real writer, and honored the scant output I produced. In my journal I practiced being a writer in both senses of the word: practiced as in trying out, and practiced as in keeping a daily practice, the way the nuns observed their daily order of prayer services. Katherine Towler, in Writers and Their Notebooks , edited by Diana M. Raab, pp. 65-66.

Writing feedback and story development

Remember that we said the writing process is not always linear?

When you get writing feedback depends on you. You may want feedback on your story idea or summary, your early chapters. You may prefer not to show your WIP to anyone until you’re at least one or more drafts deep. Tweet This

Maybe you move between drafting rounds, and feedback rounds, as you use readers’ perspectives to tweak your story and workshop it.

Why getting feedback is a crucial stage of writing process

When we don’t have critiques, manuscript evaluations, editors or beta readers, we only have our own perspectives to rely upon. You get used to your own mistakes, and nobody knows their own blind spots or the details they hadn’t thought of (that a shrewd second opinion might).

To ensure feedback aids (more than frustrates) your writing process:

• Get feedback from writers you trust. You might want input from writers at a similar stage of development to yourself, or editors who have been story doctors for some time.
• Take feedback from whence it comes. That crosspatch member of your crit circle who never has a nice word to say? Expect the kind of feedback that person usually gives. If a crit circle or beta reader is harsh or overwhelmingly negative, it’s OK to find a better fit.
• Stay open to perspectives and use what’s useful. There’s that saying, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’ Don’t get parched just to protect your ego. Reviewers on major platforms could be way harsher if you don’t take time to fix what isn’t working.
• Describe what feedback you’re looking for. Now Novel’s critique submission system contains categories you can check off for feedback, such as ‘grammar and language’, ‘characters’, ‘structure and flow’ and ‘dialogue’. Specifying what kind of feedback you want helps readers tailor their feedback to be more relevant to your needs.
• Give any necessary context. Nobody knows your writing process or story better than you do. Remember to contextualize anything an editor or beta reader may need to know to have a better understanding of what you’re aiming for (in style, subject matter, tone, characterization, etc.).

Giving feedback also does wonders for many authors’ writing processes – helping others with writing challenges helps you build the tools to solve your own.

Channeling feedback into the writing process

Too much feedback (especially if overly harsh as it can be in poorly moderated communities), especially in the early stages of a story, may inhibit or discourage. When evaluating writing feedback, ask:

• Is there overlap between what feedback givers are saying? This could signal a real and higher priority issue to address in revision
• What is higher vs lower priority feedback to implement? Major confusion-bringing issues such as continuity issues or tense drift and head-hopping are naturally a higher priority than minor details that don’t affect whether readers can understand the story, for example

When getting and giving feedback in a crit circle or a beta reading community, it’s easy to compare yourself to other writers. Writing coach Romy Sommer advises against comparisons:

Do not compare yourself to other writers. We each work differently, we each need to find the writing process that works best for our lives and the way our brains work, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. Accepting that took a huge weight off my shoulders and enabled me to embrace my own process.

The development stage of creative process: Comb story’s nose, blow its hair

As Terry Pratchett says, developing a story – later rewrites and drafts – gets into grooming-like detail. Combing a story’s … nose!? You may well find that there are Picasso-like parts, or the princess’s hair is snotty, not sleek. Tweet This

At the developmental stage of writing, ask yourself questions an editor would, such as:

• Is it clear? Does the reader have sufficient context or clear wording to understand the story and follow along?
• Does it have cohesion? Do actions and reactions flow and make sense? When characters converse, does it have the pattern of real call and response or is it like two people with crossed wires?
• Is the story ‘colored in’? Is there sufficient description (and are descriptions specific/detailed, not hazy)?
• Are events and actions clear and intriguing? Does the procession of events create questions the reader wants answered?
• Is there flow between lines, scenes, chapters? Or if the story is non-linear, do the pieces come together to make an interesting, impactful whole?

Here’s a fuller checklist with 34 story development questions for rewrites and successive drafts:

• How to find beta readers for final draft feedback
• Writing circle pros: 8 reasons to share your story
• 100 character development questions to inspire deeper arcs
• How to master plot development: 8 steps

Writers have always struggled with the same core issues: getting the work done (productivity) and creating something worth reading (creativity). And, unless you believe that misery is necessary for true art, aim for a third goal: making the process enjoyable, cultivating a fulfilling and happy life that includes writing. Let’s consider this our triple objective: productivity, creativity, and enjoyment. Surely that’s not asking too much? Anne Janzer, ‘Finding Your Own Process’ in The Writer’s Process: Getting your brain in gear, p. 15

Revision: Seeing again with fresh eyes

The word ‘revision’ says it all. The fifth stage of the writing process is seeing again, reviewing what you’ve written, to make insertions/deletions as needed.

There may be parts of your story that would benefit much from expansion, coloring in. Maybe there are parts that you have to cull, as much as you may feel attached to them.

Revision vs editing: What’s the difference?

Revision is a process of making decisions about the content of your story. It may include:

• Adding in new scenes, chapters or sections
• Rearranging scenes, chapters or sections
• Cutting out subplots or other material that aren’t contributing to the whole sufficiently
• Trying a different person to determine the effects on POV

That last example touches on an important truth about revision: it’s as creative as drafting, and it can be a fun process of play, of trying out different things.

Editing, on the other hand, is focused on improving the presentation of decisions made about content. Often, you may find that an editor suggests further revisions. This is work that you’ll do, because only you (as the author) are qualified to make this level of creative decision, it being your story.

Authors’ ideas on revision and the writing process

What do authors say about the revision process?

Joyce Carol Oates on revising as you go being arduous

Joyce Carol Oates shared that her writing methods changed over time, as she grew older:

I think that I envy my younger self because I used to write a whole draft of a novel and then go back and rewrite it […] Today, I do a lot of revising as I go along and that seems to be more painful and arduous. It’s a slow process, almost like putting a mosaic together or weaving things in and out, whereas before it felt more like galloping on a horse and then creating the manuscript. For some reason I’ve become more attuned to the individual sentence and reworking the sentences. I’m not sure why that happened. Joyce Carol Oates, USA Weekend , quoted by famouswritingroutines.com here .

This raises an important decision about revising: When will you stop to review and tweak elements? If you stop every page, prepare for a first draft that may take years! Give yourself the time your process dictates.

Jamaica Kincaid on the internal revision process

Of course, your revision is not only the work you do on paper. Dame Agatha Christie said the best time to plot a novel was while doing the dishes. Jamaica Kincaid, in conversation with Publishers Weekly , says:

I write a lot in my head. The revision goes on internally. It’s not spontaneous and it doesn’t have a schedule. You know how some people write every day at a certain point? I’m not like that. I carry something around for a long time. I weigh the words and the sentences. I weigh the paragraphs. The process is much more meditative for me. So, when I put something down on paper, I’ve already edited a lot. Jamaica Kincaid, interviewed by Liesel Schwabe, ‘The Age of a Mountain: PW Talks with Jamaica Kincaid’, December 2012.

🗣️ What is your approach to revision? Do you sit with ideas a long time, write at a gallop and then revise, or make painstaking revisions as you go? Share in the comments.

• Revision in writing: How to improve between drafts
• Novel editing insights: 9 big lessons from critique

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Editing: The polishing stage of writing process

Editing, the penultimate stage of writing process, is itself made up of several important stages. It’s often a challenging one because there is an even bigger degree of ‘letting go’. Letting someone make tracked changes and suggestions to your manuscript, for example.

When you hand over writing to an editor, you may be getting your first sample of ‘reception’ (if you have been working in private, not with a crit circle). T.S. Eliot drily said, ‘Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.’

Editing is often an immensely enriching process, though, for both editor and author. Earnest discussion and deep thought about a story’s strengths (and how best to serve them) and challenges (and how best to address them) may unearth surprising gems.

The main types of fiction editing

The four main types of editing are:

• Developmental editing. This examines large-picture aspects such as character and story development, narrative structure and pacing.
• Line editing. More detail-oriented, line-level editing that examines issues such as language, style, flow and clarity.
• Copy editing: Focuses on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and eliminating errors and residual issues with style or flow that may be left over from (or have crept in after) line editing.
• Proofreading: The final stage of editing, catching any final errors before publication (a stage self-publishing authors may be tempted to omit, but do so at risk of excoriating reviews).

Many editing providers, including Now Novel, offer manuscript evaluations . This is often bundled with developmental editing as a part of discovery process (we subtract the cost of an evaluation from developmental editing). A manuscript evaluation produces a reader’s report with actionable recommendations on aspects such as plot and character development, narrative structure, pacing, conflict and more.

Is editing writing process? It is in that it is en route to publication. How much writing you’ll do at this stage depends on how much revision there is to be done.

If you have excellent language faculty and a strong grasp of story, an editor may recommend you proceed straight to copy editing from an evaluation, if there are no large-scale issues.

• Editing and revising: 7 tips from top authors and editors
• Editing copy? 8 tips for a word-perfect manuscript

Publication and promotion: Writing around your story

Does the writing process end once your work’s edited? Some would say ‘yes’. Yet publication and promotion involve a lot of writing ‘around’ your story, about your story. Press, promotion, selling.

This isn’t a type of writing (and part of process) that’s for everyone (you may want to outsource some of this work – for example writing social media captions – to a marketing agency if or once you can afford it).

Publication and the writing process

Types of writing you’ll do when you’re ready to publish include:

• Writing query letters or script pitches
• Writing bios for author pages
• Writing newsletters, social media captions, and other marketing material
• Writing speeches or guest blogs about the process of writing your story

Promotion and publication are a whole other side of process that we’ll cover in fuller detail in another complete guide.

See the resources recommended reading below for tips on aspects such as creating your author brand, creating a business plan, and ways to get more reviews.

Helpful resources for publication and promotion writing

Here are several resources that provide tips on publication and promotion as well as useful examples:

• Publishers Weekly – frequent round-ups of publishing news and interesting developments in publishing
• Query Shark – examples of query letters dissected by an agent
• Jane Friedman’s blog – with twenty years’ experience in the publishing industry, Jane shares helpful publishing insights such as how to query and how to avoid publishing scams
• Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn – a helpful blog featuring podcasts and articles packed with publishing and book promotion insights
• Kindlepreneur – writer Dave Chesson has a site devoted to book publishing and promotion how to’s, useful for self-publishing authors.

🗣️ Is there a book publishing and promo resource you love you don’t see here? Let us know about it in the comments.

• How to write a query letter: 10 easy steps
• Writing to market: 10 pros and cons to weigh
• Self-publishing on Ama zon: 20 pros and cons for authors
• How to create a business plan for writers

Now Novel provides help with every stage of the writing process. Learn more about membership benefits for serious writers .

Related Posts:

• Writing romance and love stories: Complete guide
• Writing dialogue: Complete guide to storied speech
• Character writing: Complete guide to creating your cast
• Tags writing process

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

5 replies on “Writing process: From discovery to done (complete guide)”

I’m mostly a pantser, I think. I let the ideas take me where they want to go with an end point in mind. The problem is that I don’t always like the direction, missing that fireman cushion completely. I feel like I’ve given away a piece of my soul to have to start over (I don’t want to say second draft because it feels more like a new zero). I know how important it is to get to the end, but if I truly have a fresh idea I have to go down that road, but I’m so scared it’ll take me straight to Hades… again. Eventually, I’ll be very well versed in writing my own story, I suppose. Lots and lots of practice.

Hi Margriet, thank you for sharing that. It’s very interesting as a method as you do end up doing a lot of review and revision as you go. Have you every thought of having some kind of ‘pantsers compromise’ of maybe outlining one scene ahead? Something Ernest Hemingway said was to the effect of ‘stop for the day when you know what happens next’ which might be one way to keep Hades and his kidnappers at bay 🙂 Thank you for sharing your process!

Thanks for this Jordan – comprehensive doesn’t do it justice!

For me, the difference between being someone who wanted to complete a first draft and actually doing it was definitely when I stopped being a panther and embraced the value of plotting & planning.

I’m still more of a plantser than someone who plots things to the nth degree, but having a very clear idea of at least the first 20-30% of the novel is going to go, with an idea of the way it’s going to end allows me the flexibility and freedom to start the novel with confidence that I’m going to finish, because I have a pretty good map of the journey and the destination.

I know I’m going to get “there”, even if the actual final destination changes along the way, or if I take a few pretty little detours along the way. I’ve used two different plotting approaches to complete 3 first drafts now – so I think it’s not necessarily what plotting style you go for, it’s about having one and making it work.

Hi Mark, it’s a pleasure. Thank you for sharing that. I love the happy accident of ‘panther’ in particular. Because that describes what pantsers are like, pouncing with minimum hesitation. That makes total sense to me; each story will also have its own demands in terms of the mix of research and other stages required so process may have to adapt to the demands of a specific work.

I saw that and had a little chuckle at myself – the inner pantser lives on!

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The Writing Process: A Seven-Step Approach for Every Writer

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Main Writing Process Takeaways:

• Writing process refers to a series of steps that a writer must follow to complete a piece of writing.
• Having a  writing process  is essential to produce a wide range of content.
• Breaking down your text into different stages could ultimately improve content quality.
• A writing process or method includes the following stages: planning, drafting, sharing, evaluating, revising, editing, and publishing.
• The prewriting stage is the most critical stage of the writing process .

We all follow a writing process when creating an article or any written content. In most cases, this process becomes a routine that comes naturally rather than a step-by-step guide.

However, following a step-by-step writing process can come in handy, especially when dealing with challenging pieces. In this post, we will discuss the seven-stage writing method that you can use for writing high quality content.

What is the Writing Process?

Writing process refers to a series of steps that you must follow in order for you to complete a piece of writing . Writers may have different writing methods , but the writing stages are essentially the same. These stages break writing into manageable pieces from planning, drafting, and sharing to revising, editing, and publishing. That way, the task seems less laborious.

The primary strength of the writing process is its usefulness in producing a wide range of content. Whether you’re an academic writer, blogger , or screenwriter , it helps you write better, easier, and faster.

Read More: The Best Copywriting Courses For Beginners

Why is the writing process important.

Having a writing process will help you break your writing tasks into manageable parts, making the work less intimidating. As a result, you’re less likely to experience writer’s block. It could also aid in reducing the anxiety and stress that comes with writing. Also, breaking down your writing work into different stages could ultimately improve content quality.

It will allow you to focus on your piece. That way, you can tailor your content to address the specific needs of your target audience.

We could think of writing in terms of merely producing materials for readers to enjoy. But there’s more to the story.

With the right approach, writers usually undergo three stages — thinking, learning, and discovery — to produce excellent pieces. And such authentic writing usually makes lifelong learners and versatile writers.

Writers must always follow a writing process to be efficient and more productive.

It does not matter whether you are writing a thesis, academic report , research paper , essay, or blog content. The more organize your ideas are when you present them in text, the more you will be able to connect with your readers.

What are the 7 Steps of the Writing Process?

The EEF’s “ Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2 ” guidance report broke down the writing process into seven stages. This includes the planning , drafting, sharing, evaluating, revising, editing, and publishing stages. As writers become adept in these stages, they can quickly move back and forth, revising their text along the way. In other words, writing is not a linear process.

1. Planning or Prewriting

The planning or prewriting stage involves brainstorming, which takes into account your writing purpose and goal. It’s also the stage to connect your ideas using graphic organizers. The prewriting stage is when you ask the following questions:

• What will I write?
• What is the intended purpose of the writing?
• Who is the audience for your writing?

You need to do intent research to better understand what your target readers need. For instance, if you are writing for the web, you can take advantage of Google-Related Questions to know what the people are searching for online in relation to your topic.

Answering these questions ensures that you start your writing with the end in mind. Furthermore, you’ll be able to see your writing project through your audience’s eyes.

2. Create Your First Draft

Before your content is ready for publishing, you must have created a couple of drafts.

Thanks to the drafting process, you can write freely from the beginning to the end. What’s more, it provides a way to quickly draw from your outline or list of main plot points — depending on your writing process.

You could also use these stages to establish word count goals to get a rough idea of the project duration. This is especially important for creative writers such as novelists.

3. Share Your First Draft

After completing the first draft, it’s time to take a break and share the text with others.

While it may sound a bit scary at first, the feedback will help you evaluate elements of your writing. These include the composition, structure, and overall effectiveness.

Consider sharing your first draft in the following places:

• Your email list — if you have one
• Online writing groups and forums
• Social media groups for writers
• Social media group for a specific genre

In the end, you’ll know whether your first draft fulfills the intended purpose and appeal to your audience. The feedback also tells you if your writing is clear, enjoyable, and easy to read.

4. Evaluate Your Draft

This writing process involves doing a full evaluation of your first draft.

At this stage, you have to take the feedback that you’ve received into account. It’s also an excellent opportunity to address possible mistakes with grammar or mechanics.

For fiction writers, this writing stage allows you to ask whether the readers like your main character. Likewise, non-fiction writers have to ask if their content addresses their audience’s questions.

After evaluating your work, you can move to the revision stage of writing.

5. Revising Your Draft

Revision involves making changes to your work based on the feedback you received and thorough evaluation. This writing process is especially useful for fiction writers.

Along with correcting structural problems in your story, it also allows you to find loose ends and tie them up. You can also add or remove content to improve your write-up’s flow and usefulness.

When you’re done revising, you’ll have a new draft that takes you closer to your  writing goal .

At this point, your newest revision becomes your latest draft. After that, you may opt to edit your own work using a content writing and editing tool like INK or hire a professional editor.

6. Editing your Content

The editing aspect of the writing process is about eliminating possible errors in your revised content. These include elements that can affect your text’s accuracy, clarity, and readability.

The editing process also addresses misquoted content, factual errors, awkward phrasing, and unnecessary repetition. Not only does good editing make your work easier, but it also makes the text more enjoyable.

Specialized writing tools such as INK could prove useful for editing web content. But it’s best to avoid self-editing for books. Consider hiring a professional editor for novels and non-fiction books.

7. Publishing your Content

The last stage of the writing process involves sharing your text with your audience.

There are various ways to publish your content, depending on the content type. For example, you can share your book using self-publishing platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and CreateSpace .

Whatever the writing may be, the writing processes outlined above will help you create an excellent piece.

What is the Most Important Step in the Writing Process?

Educators have not reached a consensus on the most important writing process . Some would argue that the prewriting stage is the most critical for completing a piece of writing.

After all, brainstorming is required to create an idea that’ll eventually become the content. Besides, writers can use the prewriting stage to avoid or overcome writer’s block.

Meanwhile, educators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill believe that the revision stage is the most critical. It’s when a piece of writing undergoes the most changes.

It could entail increasing the word count to supply as much information as possible. You could also rearrange some aspect of the manuscript to improve the content’s flow, pacing, and sequence.

Read More: 10 Effective Content Writing Techniques for Beginners

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Sumbo Bello

Sumbo Bello is a creative writer who enjoys creating data-driven content for news sites. In his spare time, he plays basketball and listens to Coldplay.

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What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

• Short stories
• Screenplays
• Flash fiction
• Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

• Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
• Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
• Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
• Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
• Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
• Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
• Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
• Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
• Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
• Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
• Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
• Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
• Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
• These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

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The Writing Process

The writing process is something that no two people do the same way. There is no "right way" or "wrong way" to write. It can be a very messy and fluid process, and the following is only a representation of commonly used steps. Remember you can come to the Writing Center for assistance at any stage in this process. 

Steps of the Writing Process

Step 1: Prewriting

Think and Decide

• Make sure you understand your assignment. See  Research Papers  or  Essays
• Decide on a topic to write about. See   Prewriting Strategies  and  Narrow your Topic
• Consider who will read your work. See  Audience and Voice
• Brainstorm ideas about the subject and how those ideas can be organized. Make an outline. See  Outlines

Step 2: Research (if needed) 

• List places where you can find information.
• Do your research. See the many KU Libraries resources and helpful guides
• Evaluate your sources. See  Evaluating Sources  and  Primary vs. Secondary Sources
• Make an outline to help organize your research. See  Outlines

Step 3: Drafting

• Write sentences and paragraphs even if they are not perfect.
• Create a thesis statement with your main idea. See  Thesis Statements
• Put the information you researched into your essay accurately without plagiarizing. Remember to include both in-text citations and a bibliographic page. See  Incorporating References and Paraphrase and Summary  
• Read what you have written and judge if it says what you mean. Write some more.
• Read it again.
• Write some more.
• Write until you have said everything you want to say about the topic.

Step 4: Revising

Make it Better

• Read what you have written again. See  Revising Content  and  Revising Organization
• Rearrange words, sentences, or paragraphs into a clear and logical order. 
• Take out or add parts.
• Do more research if you think you should.
• Replace overused or unclear words.
• Read your writing aloud to be sure it flows smoothly. Add transitions.

Step 5: Editing and Proofreading

Make it Correct

• Be sure all sentences are complete. See  Editing and Proofreading
• Correct spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
• Change words that are not used correctly or are unclear.
• APA Formatting
• Chicago Style Formatting
• MLA Formatting  
• Have someone else check your work.

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Information Literacy

Writing process, the writing process – research on composing.

• © 2023 by Joseph M. Moxley - University of South Florida

The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about their work. They've found that the writing process can be seen in three main ways: (1) a series of steps or stages ; (2) a cognitive, problem-solving activity ; and (3) a creative, intuitive, organic, dialogic process that writers manage by listening to their inner speech and following their felt sense . Learn about scholarship on the writing process so you can understand how to break through writing blocks and find fluency as a writer, researcher, and thought leader.

Synonymous Terms

Composing process.

In writing studies , the writing process may also be known as the composing process . This may be due to the dramatic influence of Janet Emig’s (1971) dissertation, The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders . Emig’s research employed think-aloud protocols and case-study methods to explore the composing processes of high school students.

Creative Process

In creative writing and literature, the writing process may be known as the creative process .

In the arts and humanities the term creative process is reserved for artistic works, such as paintings, sculptures, performance art, films, and works of literature.

Related Concepts

Composition Studies ; Creativity; Felt Sense ; Growth Mindset ; Habits of Mind ; Intellectual Openness ; Professionalism and Work Ethic ; Resilience ; Self Regulation & Metacognition

What is the Writing Process?

Research on composing processes conducted over the past 60 years has led to three major distinct ways of defining and conceptualizing the writing process:

• prewriting , invention , research , collaboration , planning , designing , drafting , rereading , organizing , revising , editing , proofreading , and sharing or publishing
• The writing process refers to cognitive, problem-solving strategies
• The writing process refers to the act of making composing decisions based on nonrational factors such as embodied knowledge , felt sense , inner speech, and intuition.

1. The writing process refers to writing process steps

The writing process is often characterized as a series of steps or stages. During the elementary and middle-school years, teachers define the writing process simply as prewriting , drafting , revising , and editing . Later, in high-school and college, as writing assignments become more challenging, teachers introduce additional writing steps: invention , research , collaboration , designing , organizing , proofreading , and sharing or proofreading.

2. The writing process refers to Problem-Solving Strategies

As an alternative to imagining the writing process to be a series of steps or stages that writers work through in linear manner, Linda Flower and John Hayes suggested in 1977 that writing should be thought of as a “thinking problem,” a “problem-solving process,” a “cognitive problem solving process,” or a “goal-directed thinking process.”

3. The writing process refers to the act of making composing decisions based on flow, felt sense and other elements of embodied knowledge

For some writers, viewing the writing process as a series of steps or problems feels to mechanistic, impersonal and formulaic. Rather than view that the writing process to be a series of writing steps or problem solving strategies , Sondra Perl , an English professor, suggests that composing is largely a process of listening to one’s felt sense — one’s “bodily awareness of a situation or person or event:

“A felt sense doesn’t come to you in the form of thoughts or words or other separate units, but as a single (though often puzzling and very complex) bodily feeling”. (Gendlin 1981, 32-33)

What are Writing Process Steps?

In elementary and middle schools in the U.S., the writing process is often simplified and presented at four or five key steps: prewriting , writing , revising , and editing –and sometimes and publishing or sharing . As students progress through school, the writing process is presented in increasingly complex ways. By high school, teachers present “the writing process steps” as

• Proofreading
• Sharing – Publishing

Is there one perfect way to work with the writing process?

People experience and define the writing process differently, according to their historical period, literacy history, knowledge of writing tools, media , genres — and more. One of the takeaways from research on composing is that we’ve learned writers develop their own idiosyncratic approaches to getting the work done. When it comes to how we all develop, research , and communicate information , we are all special snowflakes. For example,

• Hemingway was known for standing while he wrote at first light each morning.
• Truman Capote described himself as a “completely horizontal author.” He wrote lying down, in bed or on a couch, with a cigarette and coffee handy.
• Hunter S. Thompson wrote through the nights, mixing drinking and partying with composing
• J.K. Rowling tracked the plot lines for her Harry Potter novels in a data.
• Maya Angelou would lock herself away in a hotel room from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. so she has no distractions.

Furthermore, the steps of the writing process a writer engages in vary from project to project. At times  composing  may be fairly simple. Some situations  require little planning ,  research ,  revising  or  editing , such as

• a grocery list, a to-do list, a reflection on the day’s activity in a journal
• documents you routinely write, such as the professor’s letter of recommendation, a bosses’ performance appraisal, a ground-water engineer’s contamination report.

Over time, writers develop their own unique writing processes. Through trial and error, people can learn what works for them.

Composing  may be especially challenging

• when you are unfamiliar with the  topic ,  genre ,  medium ,  discourse community
• when the thesis/research question/topic  is complicated yet needs to be explained simply
• when you are endeavoring to synthesize other’s ideas and research
• when you don’t have the time you need to perfect the document.

What are the main factors that affect how writers compose documents?

Writers adjust their writing process in response to

• Writers assess the importance of the exigency, the call to write, before commiting time and resources to launching
• the writers access to information
• What they know about the canon, genre, media and rhetorical reasoning
• their writerly background
• the audience
• Writers assess the importance of the exigency, the call to write, before committing time and resources to working on the project.

Why does the writing process matter?

The writing processes that you use to compose documents play a significant role in determining whether your communications are successful. If you truncate your writing process, you are likely to run out of the time you need to write with clarity and authority .

• Studying the writing processes of successful writers can introduce you to new rhetorical moves, genres , and composing processes. Learning about the composing processes of experienced writers can help you learn how to adjust your rhetorical stance and your writing styles to best accomplish your purpose .
• By examining your writing processes and the writing processes of others, you can learn how to better manage your work and the work of other authors and teams.
• By recognizing that writing is a skill that can be developed through practice and effort, you can become more resilient and adaptable in your writing endeavors.

Do experienced writers compose in different ways than inexperienced writers?

Yes. Experienced writers engage in more substantive, robust writing processes than less experienced writers.

• Experienced writers tend to have more rhetorical knowledge and a better understanding of composing steps and strategies than inexperienced writers.
• Experienced writers tend to be more willing than inexperienced writers to make substantive changes in a draft, often making changes that involve rethinking the meaning of a text. Some professional writers may revise a document hundreds of times before pushing send or publishing it.
• Experienced writers engage in revision as an act of internal conversation, a form of inner speech that they have with themselves and an imagined other–the internalized target audience. In contrast, inexperienced writers tend to confuse editing for revision . They tend to make only a few edits to their initial drafts, focusing primarily on surface-level changes such as correcting grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors.
• Experienced writers are adept at working collaboratively, leveraging the strengths of team members and effectively coordinating efforts to produce a cohesive final product. Inexperienced writers may struggle with collaboration, communication, and division of labor within a writing team

What is Process Pedagogy?

Process pedagogy, which is also known as the process movement, emerged in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In The Making of Knowledge in Composition , Steve North (1987) links the emergence of process pedagogy to

• Sputnik and America’s concern it was falling behind Russia
• the GI Bill and the changing demographics of undergraduate students in the post-war era.

Additionally, process pedagogy emerged in response to dissatisfaction with traditional, product-oriented approaches to teaching writing. In the current-traditional paradigm of writing, the focus of the classroom was on “the composed product rather than the composing process; the analysis of discourse into words, sentences, and paragraphs; the classification of discourse into description, narration, exposition, and argument; the strong concern with usage (syntax, spelling, punctuation) and with style (economy, clarity, emphasis)” (Young, 1978, p. 25).

The process movement reflected a sea change on the part of middle schools, high schools, and universities in the U.S. Traditionally, classroom instruction focused on analysis and critique of the great works of literature: “The student is (a) exposed to the formal descriptive categories of rhetoric (modes of argument –definition, cause and effect, etc. — and modes of discourse — description, persuasion, etc.), (b) offered good examples (usually professional ones) and bad examples (usually his/her own) and (c) encouraged to absorb the features of a socially approved style, with emphasis on grammar and usage. We help our students analyze the product, but we leave the process of writing up to inspiration” (Flower and Hayes, 1977, p. 449).

In contrast to putting the focus of class time on analyzing great literary works,  the canon , process pedagogy calls for teachers to put the emphasis on the students’ writing:

• Students need help with prewriting , invention , research , collaboration , writing , designing , revising , organizing , editing , proofreading , and sharing
• Teachers do not comment on grammar and style matters in early drafts. Instead, they focus on global perspectives . They prioritize the flow of ideas and expression over correctness in grammar and mechanics.
• Students engage in prewriting and invention exercises to discover and develop new ideas
• Students repeatedly revise their works in response to self-critique , peer review , and critiques from teachers
• Teachers should provide constructive feedback throughout the writing process.

What does “teach the process and not the product mean”?

“Teach the process not the product ” is both the title of a Donald Murray (1972) article and the mantra of the writing process movement, which emerged during the 1960s.

The mantra to teach the process not the product emerged in response to the research and scholarship conducted by Donald Murray, Janet Emig, Peter Elbow, Ann Berthoff, Nancy Sommers, Sondra Perl, John Hayes and Linda Flower.

What does it mean to describe the writing process as recursive ?

The term  recursive writing process  simply means that writers jump around from one activity to another when  composing . For instance, when first drafting a document, a writer may pause to reread something she wrote. That might trigger a new idea that shoots her back to Google Scholar or some other database suitable for  strategic searching .

How do researchers study the writing process?

The writing process is a major subject of study of researchers and scholars in the fields of composition studies , communication, writing studies , and AI (artificial intelligence).

The writing process  is something of a black box: investigators can see  inputs  (e.g., time on task) or  outputs  (e.g.,  written discourse ), yet they cannot  empirically observe  the internal workings of the writer’s mind. At the end of the day investigators have to jump from what they observe to making informed guesses about what is really going on in the writer. Even if investigators ask a writer to talk out loud about what they are thinking as they compose , the investigators can only hear what the writer is saying: they cannot see the internal machinations associated with the writer’s thoughts. If a writer goes mute, freezes, and just stares blankly at the computer screen, investigators cannot really know what’s going on. They can only speculate about how the brain functions.

Research Methods

To study or theorize about the writing process, investigators may use a variety of research methods .

Doherty, M. (2016, September 4). 10 things you need to know about banyan trees. Under the Banyan. https://underthebanyan.blog/2016/09/04/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-banyan-trees/

Emig, J. (1967). On teaching composition: Some hypotheses as definitions. Research in The Teaching of English, 1(2), 127-135. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED022783.pdf

Emig, J. (1971). The composing processes of twelfth graders (Research Report No. 13). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Emig, J. (1983). The web of meaning: Essays on writing, teaching, learning and thinking. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.

Ghiselin, B. (Ed.). (1985). The Creative Process: Reflections on the Invention in the Arts and Sciences . University of California Press.

Hayes, J. R., & Flower, L. (1980). Identifying the Organization of Writing Processes. In L. W. Gregg, & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive Processes in Writing: An Interdisciplinary Approach (pp. 3-30). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.  

Hayes, J. R. (2012). Modeling and remodeling writing. Written Communication, 29(3), 369-388. https://doi: 10.1177/0741088312451260

Hayes, J. R., & Flower, L. S. (1986). Writing research and the writer. American Psychologist, 41(10), 1106-1113. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.10.1106

Leijten, Van Waes, L., Schriver, K., & Hayes, J. R. (2014). Writing in the workplace: Constructing documents using multiple digital sources. Journal of Writing Research, 5(3), 285–337. https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2014.05.03.3

Lundstrom, K., Babcock, R. D., & McAlister, K. (2023). Collaboration in writing: Examining the role of experience in successful team writing projects. Journal of Writing Research, 15(1), 89-115. https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2023.15.01.05

National Research Council. (2012). Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.https://doi.org/10.17226/13398.

North, S. M. (1987). The making of knowledge in composition: Portrait of an emerging field. Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Murray, Donald M. (1980). Writing as process: How writing finds its own meaning. In Timothy R. Donovan & Ben McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches to teaching composition (pp. 3–20). National Council of Teachers of English.

Murray, Donald M. (1972). “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” The Leaflet, 11-14

Perry, S. K. (1996).  When time stops: How creative writers experience entry into the flow state  (Order No. 9805789). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (304288035). https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/when-time-stops-how-creative-writers-experience/docview/304288035/se-2

Rohman, D.G., & Wlecke, A. O. (1964). Pre-writing: The construction and application of models for concept formation in writing (Cooperative Research Project No. 2174). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University.

Rohman, D. G., & Wlecke, A. O. (1975). Pre-writing: The construction and application of models for concept formation in writing (Cooperative Research Project No. 2174). U.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Sommers, N. (1980). Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers. College Composition and Communication, 31(4), 378-388. doi: 10.2307/356600

Vygotsky, L. (1962).  Thought and language.  (E. Hanfmann & G. Vakar, Eds.). MIT Press.  https://doi.org/10.1037/11193-000

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• Joseph M. Moxley

Understanding your writing process is a crucial aspect of developing as a writer. For both students and professional writers, reflection on the process of writing can lead to more effective...

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Understanding the four stages of the creative process

There’s a lot that science can teach us about what goes into the creative process—and how each one of us can optimize our own.

How do great artists and innovators come up with their most brilliant ideas ? And by what kind of alchemical process are they able to bring those ideas to life? 

I have eagerly sought the answers to these questions over the past decade of my career as a psychology writer. My fascination with the lives and minds of brilliant artists and innovators has led me on a quest to discover what makes us creative , where ideas come from, and how they come to life. But even after writing an entire book on the science of creativity and designing a creative personality test , there are more questions than answers in my mind. 

Decades of research have yet to uncover the unique spark of creative genius. Creativity is as perplexing to us today as it was to the ancients, who cast creative genius in the realm of the supernatural and declared it the work of the muses.  

What the science does show is that creative people are complex and contradictory. Their creative processes tend to be chaotic and nonlinear—which seems to mirror what’s going on in their brains. Contrary to the “right-brain myth,” creativity doesn’t just involve a single brain region or even a single side of the brain. Instead, the creative process draws on the whole brain. It’s a dynamic interplay of many diverse brain regions, thinking styles, emotions, and unconscious and conscious processing systems coming together in unusual and unexpected ways. 

But while we may never find the formula for creativity, there’s still a lot that science can teach us about what goes into the creative process—and how each one of us can optimize our own. 

Understanding your own creative process

One of the most illuminating things I’ve found is a popular four-stage model of the creative process developed in the 1920s. In his book The Art of Thought , British psychologist Graham Wallas outlined a theory of the creative process based on many years of observing and studying accounts of inventors and other creative types at work. 

The four stages of the creative process: 

Stage 1: preparation.

The creative process begins with preparation: gathering information and materials, identifying sources of inspiration, and acquiring knowledge about the project or problem at hand. This is often an internal process (thinking deeply to generate and engage with ideas) as well as an external one (going out into the world to gather the necessary data, resources, materials, and expertise). 

Stage 2: Incubation

Next, the ideas and information gathered in stage 1 marinate in the mind. As ideas slowly simmer, the work deepens and new connections are formed. During this period of germination, the artist takes their focus off the problem and allows the mind to rest. While the conscious mind wanders, the unconscious engages in what Einstein called “combinatory play”: taking diverse ideas and influences and finding new ways to bring them together. 

Stage 3: Illumination

Next comes the elusive aha moment. After a period of incubation, insights arise from the deeper layers of the mind and break through to conscious awareness, often in a dramatic way. It’s the sudden Eureka! that comes when you’re in the shower, taking a walk, or occupied with something completely unrelated. Seemingly out of nowhere, the solution presents itself. 

Stage 4: Verification

Following the aha moment, the words get written down, the vision is committed to paint or clay, the business plan is developed. Whatever ideas and insights arose in stage 3 are fleshed out and developed. The artist uses critical thinking and aesthetic judgment skills to hone and refine the work and then communicate its value to others. 

Of course, these stages don’t always play out in such an orderly, linear fashion. The creative process tends to look more like a zigzag or spiral than a straight line. The model certainly has its limitations, but it can offer a road map of sorts for our own creative journey, offering a direction, if not a destination. It can help us become more aware of where we’re at in our own process, where we need to go, and the mental processes that can help us get there. And when the process gets a little too messy, coming back to this framework can help us to recenter, realign, and chart the path ahead. 

For instance, if you can’t seem to get from incubation to illumination, the solution might be to go back to stage 1, gathering more resources and knowledge to find that missing element. Or perhaps, in the quest for productivity , you’ve made the all-too-common mistake of skipping straight to stage 4, pushing ahead with a half-baked idea before it’s fully marinated. In that case, carving out time and space for stage 2 may be the necessary detour. 

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How to optimize your creative process for ultimate success

But let’s dig a little deeper: As I’ve contemplated and applied the four-stage model in my own work, I’ve found within it a much more profound insight into the mysteries of creation.  

At its heart, any creative process is about discovering something new within ourselves and then bringing that something into the world for others to experience and enjoy. The work of the artist, the visionary, the innovator is to bridge their inner and outer worlds—taking something that only exists within their own mind and heart and soul and birthing it into concrete, tangible form (you know, not unlike that other kind of creative process). 

Any creative process is a dance between the inner and the outer; the unconscious and conscious mind; dreaming and doing; madness and method; solitary reflection and active collaboration. Psychologists describe it in simple terms of inspiration (coming up with ideas) and generation (bringing ideas to life). 

In the four-stage model, we can see how the internal and external elements of the creative process interact. stages 2 and 3 are all about inspiration: dreaming, reflecting, imagining, opening up to inspiration, and allowing the unconscious mind to do its work. Stages 1 and 4, meanwhile, are about generation: doing the external work of research, planning, execution, and collaboration. Through a dynamic dance of inspiration and generation, brilliant work comes to life. 

How does this help us in our own creative process? The more we master this balance, the more we can tap into our creative potential. We all have a preference for one side over the other, and by becoming more aware of our natural inclinations, we can learn how to optimize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses.  

More inward-focused, idea-generating types excel in stages 2 and 3: getting inspired and coming up with brilliant ideas. But they run the risk of getting stuck in their own heads and failing to materialize their brilliant ideas in the world. These thinkers and dreamers often need to bring more time and focus to stages 1 and 4 in order to keep their creative process on track. Balance inspiration with generation by creating the necessary structures to help you commit to action and put one foot in front of the other to make it happen—or just collaborate with a doer who you can outsource your ideas to! 

Doer types, on the other hand, shine in stages 1 and 4. They’re brilliant at getting things done, but they risk putting all their focus on productivity at the expense of the inner work and big-picture thinking that helps produce truly inspired work. When we bypass the critical work that occurs in the incubation stage, we miss out on our most original and groundbreaking ideas. If you’re a doer/generator, you can up-level your creative process by clearing out the space in your mind and your schedule to dream, imagine, reflect, and contemplate. 

By seeking a balance of these opposing forces, we can bring some order to the chaos of the creative process. And as we become dreamers who do and doers who dream, we empower ourselves to share more of our creative gifts with the world. 

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Carolyn Gregoire is a writer and creative consultant living in Brooklyn. She is the co-author of  Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind  and the creator of the Creative Types personality test. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, TIME, Harvard Business Review, and other publications.

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The Writing Process

  The Writing Process Explained

Understanding the writing process provides a student with a straightforward step-by-step procedure that they can follow. It means they can replicate the process no matter what type of nonfiction text they are asked to produce.

In this article, we’ll look at the 5 step writing process that guides students from prewriting to submitting their polished work quickly and easily.

While explaining each stage of the process in detail, we’ll suggest some activities you can use with your students to help them successfully complete each stage. 

THE STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS

The five steps of the writing process are made up of the following stages:

• Pre-writing: In this stage, students brainstorm ideas, plan content, and gather the necessary information to ensure their thinking is organized logically.
• Drafting: Students construct ideas in basic sentences and paragraphs without getting caught up with perfection. It is in this stage that the pre-writing process becomes refined and shaped.
• Revising: This is where students revise their draft and make changes to improve the content, organization, and overall structure. Any obvious spelling and grammatical errors might also be improved at this stage.
• Editing: It is in this stage where students make the shift from improving the structure of their writing to focusing on enhancing the written quality of sentences and paragraphs through improving word choice, punctuation, and capitalization, and all spelling and grammatical errors are corrected. Ensure students know this is their final opportunity to alter their writing, which will play a significant role in the assessment process.
• Submitting / Publishing: Students can share their writing with the world, their teachers, friends, and family through various platforms and tools.

Be aware that this list is not a definitive linear process, and it may be advisable to revisit some of these steps in some cases as students learn the craft of writing over time.

Daily Quick Writes For All Text Types

Our FUN DAILY QUICK WRITE TASKS will teach your students the fundamentals of CREATIVE WRITING across all text types. Packed with 52 ENGAGING ACTIVITIES

STAGE ONE: THE WRITING PROCESS

GET READY TO WRITE

The prewriting stage covers anything the student does before they begin to draft their text. It includes many things such as thinking, brainstorming, discussing ideas with others, sketching outlines, gathering information through interviewing people, assessing data, and researching in the library and online.

The intention at the prewriting stage is to collect the raw material that will fuel the writing process. This involves the student doing 3 things:

• Understanding the conventions of the text type
• Gathering up facts, opinions, ideas, data, vocabulary, etc through research and discussion
• Organizing resources and planning out the writing process.

By the time students have finished the pre-writing stage, they will want to have completed at least one of these tasks depending upon the text type they are writing.

• Choose a topic: Ensure your students select a topic that is interesting and relevant to them.
• Brainstorm ideas: Once they have a topic, brainstorm and write their ideas down, considering what they already know about the topic and what they need to research further. Students might want to use brainstorming techniques such as mind mapping, free writing, or listing.
• Research: This one is crucial for informational and nonfiction writing. Students may need to research to gather more information and use reliable sources such as books, academic journals, and credible websites.
• Organize your ideas: This can be challenging for younger students, but once they have a collection of ideas and information, help them to organize them logically by creating an outline, using headings and subheadings, or grouping related ideas.
• Develop a thesis statement: This one is only for an academic research paper and should clearly state your paper’s main idea or argument. It should be specific and debatable.

Before beginning the research and planning parts of the process, the student must take some time to consider the demands of the text type or genre they are asked to write, as this will influence how they research and plan.

PREWRITING TEACHING ACTIVITY

As with any stage in the writing process, students will benefit immensely from seeing the teacher modelling activities to support that stage.

In this activity, you can model your approach to the prewriting stage for students to emulate. Eventually, they will develop their own specific approach, but for now, having a clear model to follow will serve them well.

Starting with an essay title written in the center of the whiteboard, brainstorm ideas as a class and write these ideas branching from the title to create a mind map. 

From there, you can help students identify areas for further research and help them to create graphic organizers to record their ideas.

Explain to the students that while idea generation is an integral part of the prewriting stage, generating ideas is also important throughout all the other stages of the writing process.

STAGE TWO: THE WRITING PROCESS

PUT YOUR IDEAS ON PAPER

Drafting is when the student begins to corral the unruly fruits of the prewriting stage into orderly sentences and paragraphs. 

When their writing is based on solid research and planning, it will be much easier for the student to manage. A poorly executed first stage can see pencils stuck at the starting line and persistent complaints of ‘writer’s block’ from the students.

However, do encourage your students not to get too attached to any ideas they may have generated in Stage 1. Writing is thinking too and your students need to leave room for their creativity to express itself at all stages of the process.

The most important thing about this stage is for the student to keep moving. A text is written word-by-word, much as a bricklayer builds a wall by laying brick upon brick. 

Instill in your students that they shouldn’t get too hung up on stuff like spelling and grammar in these early stages. 

Likewise, they shouldn’t overthink things. The trick here is to get the ideas down fast – everything else can be polished up later.

DRAFTING TEACHING ACTIVITY

As mentioned in the previous activity, writing is a very complex process and modeling goes a long way to helping ensure our students’ success. 

Sometimes our students do an excellent job in the prewriting stage with understanding the text purpose, the research, and the planning, only to fall flat when it comes to beginning to write an actual draft.

Often, students require some clear modeling by the teacher to help them transition effectively from Stage 1 to Stage 2. 

One way to do this for your class is to take the sketches, notes, and ideas one of the students has produced in Stage 1, and use them to model writing a draft. This can be done as a whole class shared writing activity.

Doing this will help your students understand how to take their raw material and connect their ideas and transition between them in the form of an essay.

STAGE THREE: THE WRITING PROCESS

POLISH YOUR THINKING

In Stage two, the emphasis for the student was on getting their ideas out quickly and onto the paper. 

Stage three focuses on refining the work completed earlier with the reader now firmly at the forefront of the writer’s mind.

To revise, the student needs to cast a critical eye over their work and ask themselves questions like:

• Would a reader be able to read this text and make sense of it all?
• Have I included enough detail to help the reader clearly visualize my subject?
• Is my writing concise and as accurate as possible?
• Are my ideas supported by evidence and written in a convincing manner?
• Have I written in a way that is suitable for my intended audience?
• Is it written in an interesting way?
• Are the connections between ideas made explicit?
• Does it fulfill the criteria of the specific text type?
• Is the text organized effectively?

The questions above represent the primary areas students should focus on at this stage of the writing process. 

Students shouldn’t slip over into editing/proofreading mode just yet. Let the more minor, surface-level imperfections wait until the next stage.

REVISING TEACHING ACTIVITY

When developing their understanding of the revising process, it can be extremely helpful for students to have a revision checklist to work from.

It’s also a great idea to develop the revision checklist as part of a discussion activity around what this stage of the writing process is about.

Things to look out for when revising include content, voice, general fluency, transitions, use of evidence, clarity and coherence, and word choice.

It can also be a good idea for students to partner up into pairs and go through each other’s work together. As the old saying goes, ‘two heads are better than one’ and, in the early days at least, this will help students to use each other as sounding boards when making decisions on the revision process.

STAGE FOUR: THE WRITING PROCESS

CHECK YOUR WRITING

Editing is not a different thing than writing, it is itself an essential part of the writing process.

During the editing stage, students should keep an eagle eye out for conventional mistakes such as double spacing between words, spelling errors, and grammar and punctuation mistakes. 

While there are inbuilt spelling and grammar checkers in many of the most popular word processing programs, it is worth creating opportunities for students to practice their editing skills without the crutch of such technology on occasion.

Students should also take a last look over the conventions of the text type they are writing. 

Are the relevant headings and subheadings in place? Are bold words and captions in the right place? Is there consistency across the fonts used? Have diagrams been labelled correctly?

Editing can be a demanding process. There are lots of moving parts in it, and it often helps students to break things down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Focused edits allow the student the opportunity to have a separate read-through to edit for each of the different editing points.

For example, the first run-through might look at structural elements such as the specific structural conventions of the text type concerned. Subsequent run-throughs could look at capitalization, grammar, punctuation , the indenting of paragraphs, formatting, spelling, etc.

Sometimes students find it hard to gain the necessary perspective to edit their work well. They’re simply too close to it, and it can be difficult for them to see what is on the paper rather than see what they think they have put down.

One good way to help students gain the necessary distance from their work is to have the student read their work out loud as they edit it.

Reading their work out loud forces the student to slow down the reading process and it forces them to pay more attention to what’s written on the page, rather than what’s in their head. 

It’s always helpful to get feedback from someone else. If time permits, get your students to ask a friend or other teacher to review their work and provide feedback. They may catch errors or offer suggestions your students haven’t considered.

All this gives the student a little more valuable time to catch the mistakes and other flaws in their work.

WRITING CHECKLISTS FOR ALL TEXT TYPES

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (92 Reviews)

EDITING TEACHING ACTIVITY

Students must have a firm understanding of what they’re looking to correct in the editing process to edit effectively. One effective way to ensure this understanding is to have them compile an Editing Checklist for use when they’re engaged in the editing process.

The Editing Checklist can be compiled as a whole-class shared writing activity. The teacher can scribe the students’ suggestions for inclusion on the checklist onto the whiteboard. This can then be typed up and printed off by all the students.

A fun and productive use of the checklist is for the students to use it in ‘editing pairs’. 

Each student is assigned an editing partner during the editing stage of a writing task. Each student goes through their partner’s, work using the checklist as a guide, and then gives feedback to the other partner. The partner, in turn, uses the feedback in the final edit of their work.

STAGE FIVE: THE WRITING PROCESS

HAND IN YOUR WRITING

Now, it’s time for our students’ final part of the writing process. This is when they hand in their work to their teacher – aka you !

At this point, students should have one final reread of their work to ensure it’s as close to their intentions as possible, and then, finally, they can submit their work.

Giving the work over to an audience, whether that audience comes in the form of a teacher marking an assignment, publishing work in print or online, or making a presentation to classmates, can be daunting. It’s important that students learn to see the act of submitting their work as a positive thing.

Though this is the final stage of the writing process, students should be helped to see it for all it is. It is another step in the journey towards becoming a highly-skilled writer. It’s a further opportunity for the student to get valuable feedback on where their skills are currently at and a signpost to help them to improve their work in the future.

When the feedback comes, whether that’s in the form of teacher comments, grades, reviews, etc it should be absorbed by the student as a positive part of this improvement process. 

Submitting TEACHING Activity

This activity is as much for the teacher as it is for the student.

Sometimes, our students think of feedback as a passive thing. The teacher makes some comments either in writing or orally and the student listens and carries on largely as before. We must help our students to recognize feedback as an opportunity for growth.

Feedback should be seen as a dialogue that helps our students to take control of their own learning. 

For this to be the case, students need to engage with the feedback they’ve been given, to take constructive criticisms on board, and to use these as a springboard to take action. 

One way to help students to do this lies in the way we format our feedback to our students. A useful format in this vein is the simple 2 Stars and a Wish . This format involves giving feedback that notes two specific areas of the work that the student did well and one that needs improvement. This area for improvement will provide a clear focus for the student to improve in the future. This principle of constructive criticism should inform all feedback.

It’s also helpful to encourage students to process detailed feedback by noting specific areas to focus on. This will give them some concrete targets to improve their writing in the future.

VIDEO TUTORIAL ON THE WRITING PROCESS

And there we have it. A straightforward and replicable process for our students to follow to complete almost any writing task.

But, of course, the real writing process is the ongoing one whereby our students improve their writing skills sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word over a whole lifetime.

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO THE WRITING PROCESS

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7 ways to write great Characters and Settings | Story Elements

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Book News & Features

Ai is contentious among authors. so why are some feeding it their own writing.

Chloe Veltman

The vast majority of authors don't use artificial intelligence as part of their creative process — or at least won't admit to it.

Yet according to a recent poll from the writers' advocacy nonprofit The Authors Guild, 13% said they do use AI, for activities like brainstorming character ideas and creating outlines.

The technology is a vexed topic in the literary world. Many authors are concerned about the use of their copyrighted material in generative AI models. At the same time, some are actively using these technologies — even attempting to train AI models on their own works.

These experiments, though limited, are teaching their authors new things about creativity.

Best known as the author of technology and business-oriented non-fiction books like The Long Tail, lately Chris Anderson has been trying his hand at fiction. Anderson is working on his second novel, about drone warfare.

He says he wants to put generative AI technology to the test.

"I wanted to see whether in fact AI can do more than just help me organize my thoughts, but actually start injecting new thoughts," Anderson says.

Anderson says he fed parts of his first novel into an AI writing platform to help him write this new one. The system surprised him by moving his opening scene from a corporate meeting room to a karaoke bar.

Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon

"And I was like, you know? That could work!" Anderson says. "I ended up writing the scene myself. But the idea was the AI's."

Anderson says he didn't use a single actual word the AI platform generated. The sentences were grammatically correct, he says, but fell way short in terms of replicating his writing style. Although he admits to being disappointed, Anderson says ultimately he's OK with having to do some of the heavy lifting himself: "Maybe that's just the universe telling me that writing actually involves the act of writing."

Training an AI model to imitate style

It's very hard for off-the-shelf AI models like GPT and Claude to emulate contemporary literary authors' styles.

The authors NPR talked with say that's because these models are predominantly trained on content scraped from the Internet like news articles, Wikipedia entries and how-to manuals — standard, non-literary prose.

But some authors, like Sasha Stiles , say they have been able to make these systems suit their stylistic needs.

"There are moments where I do ask my machine collaborator to write something and then I use what's come out verbatim," Stiles says.

The poet and AI researcher says she wanted to make the off-the-shelf AI models she'd been experimenting with for years more responsive to her own poetic voice.

So she started customizing them by inputting her finished poems, drafts, and research notes.

"All with the intention to sort of mentor a bespoke poetic alter ego," Stiles says.

She has collaborated with this bespoke poetic alter ego on a variety of projects, including Technelegy (2021), a volume of poetry published by Black Spring Press; and " Repetae: Again, Again ," a multimedia poem created last year for luxury fashion brand Gucci.

Stiles says working with her AI persona has led her to ask questions about whether what she's doing is in fact poetic, and where the line falls between the human and the machine.

read it again… pic.twitter.com/sAs2xhdufD — Sasha Stiles | AI alter ego Technelegy ✍️🤖 (@sashastiles) November 28, 2023

"It's been really a provocative thing to be able to use these tools to create poetry," she says.

Potential issues come with these experiments

These types of experiments are also provocative in another way. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger says she's not opposed to authors training AI models on their own writing.

"If you're using AI to create derivative works of your own work, that is completely acceptable," Rasenberger says.

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

But building an AI system that responds fluently to user prompts requires vast amounts of training data. So the foundational AI models that underpin most of these investigations in literary style may contain copyrighted works.

Rasenberger pointed to the recent wave of lawsuits brought by authors alleging AI companies trained their models on unauthorized copies of articles and books.

"If the output does in fact contain other people's works, that creates real ethical concerns," she says. "Because that you should be getting permission for."

Circumventing ethical problems while being creative

Award-winning speculative fiction writer Ken Liu says he wanted to circumvent these ethical problems, while at the same time creating new aesthetic possibilities using AI.

So the former software engineer and lawyer attempted to train an AI model solely on his own output. He says he fed all of his short stories and novels into the system — and nothing else.

Liu says he knew this approach was doomed to fail.

That's because the entire life's work of any single writer simply doesn't contain enough words to produce a viable so-called large language model.

"I don't care how prolific you are," Liu says. "It's just not going to work."

Liu's AI system built only on his own writing produced predictable results.

"It barely generated any phrases, even," Liu says. "A lot of it was just gibberish."

Yet for Liu, that was the point. He put this gibberish to work in a short story. 50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know , published in Uncanny Magazine in 2020, is a meditation on what it means to be human from the perspective of a machine.

"Dinoted concentration crusch the dead gods," is an example of one line in Liu's story generated by his custom-built AI model. "A man reached the torch for something darker perified it seemed the billboding," is another.

Liu continues to experiment with AI. He says the technology shows promise, but is still very limited. If anything, he says, his experiments have reaffirmed why human art matters.

"So what is the point of experimenting with AIs?" Liu says. "The point for me really is about pushing the boundaries of what is art."

Audio and digital stories edited by Meghan Collins Sullivan .

• large language model
• mary rasenberger
• chris anderson
• sasha stiles
• authors guild

The Daily Iowan

Humanities seniors speak out about next steps

  In each of Jenna Mather’s writing and publishing classes at the University of Iowa, the vast majority of her classmates have been female-identifying.

Similarly, Mather, a third-year English and creative writing major graduating this May, noticed only one male-identifying student in her intern cohort at a New York City publishing press last summer.

The female domination of the authorship and publishing industry is not unique to Mather’s experience at the UI, however. Rather, it is an anecdotal representation of the broader gender breakdown of the publishing industry in the U.S.

A 2019 study conducted by Statista revealed that 74 percent of employees in the publishing industry — including the “Big Five” publishing houses Penguin/Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Macmillan — are cisgender women; cisgender men accounted for 23 percent, while nonbinary individuals accounted for less than 5 percent.

Despite the vast female majority, the same study indicated that cis men are more likely to hold executive positions over other positions in the industry, as 80 percent of the cis women employed are in lower-level marketing or public relations positions.

While Mather attends the last few writing classes of her college career, she is unsure that the predominant female demographic in her classes will translate into leadership roles after she turns the tassel at graduation in just a few weeks.

“There has been a lot of uncertainty because graduation is coming up,” Mather said. “I would love to have a job lined up when I graduate.”

Mather hopes to secure a job in marketing, communications, or writing positions after graduating. She has also applied to some remote positions as well.

Though she has found the hiring process to be taxing, Mather came prepared. This was in part due to her collegiate coursework and the extracurricular activities she engaged in while at the UI.

As a first-year, Mather served as both the social media editor and editor-in-chief of Ink Lit Mag , the UI’s only student literary magazine run by first-years. Then, she worked with the magazine Earthwords before returning to Ink Lit on the upperclassmen management team as an assistant publisher during her third and final year.

In addition to her work with literary magazines, Mather has also gained useful insight into the job market through her courses at the UI.

She cites the class, “Iowa Chapbook Prize: Publishing Practicum,” as one that gave her the most hands-on experience with the publishing process.

“We discussed submissions, and each person selected the one that they liked best. I also had to typeset, so I got experience working with InDesign, Photoshop, and other software like that,” Mather said.

Despite her publishing endeavors, however, Mather’s career goals have shifted as she learned more about the industry.

“I’m certainly interested in publishing — I love books, but I think my perspective on working in publishing has changed a little bit,” Mather said.

One of the major drawbacks Mather sees in the publishing industry is the overlap that would exist between her job and her creative work. She said it would be nice to have some separation of the personal and professional.

“I started seeking out more marketing and communications jobs, because then I’d still be learning skills and contributing my experience, but also kind of be separate,” Mather said.

Reflecting on the job hunting process as a whole, Mather said it wasn’t what she expected. Job opportunities are determined based on the relative job market, and creative markets are not currently in high demand, she said.

“It is not like engineering or business where employers are actively searching for you,” Mather said. “So you have to go out and be actively searching on all of the job sites and going to the career fairs. I feel like I expected it to be difficult, but maybe not as difficult as it is.”

Similarly, UI third-year Abby Bishop has used internship experience to pave her way to graduation. A double major in political science and English and creative writing, Bishop plans to graduate next winter.

Though Bishop doesn’t know exactly what the future has in store, she said, she has a strong background to rely upon. Last summer, she was a writing intern for Eco Stylist, a sustainable clothing company.

While in college, Bishop has been an active part of several creative writing and reading groups, allowing her to learn how to advertise both herself and her writing.

“It was nice to be a part of groups that showed me how I can get people to read my work outside of class,” Bishop said.

Bishop also found that many of her political science and writing workshop classes helped build skills applicable to her career. “Women in Gender Studies” was one particularly influential course.

“I learned about the barriers minorities face in college, it just really helped give me perspective and helped me look beyond school,” Bishop said. “I want to be able to use my skills to make the world a better place.”

Currently, Bishop hopes to learn about online journalism and copywriting to improve her writing skills. Eventually, she hopes to fulfill her dream of receiving a Master of Fine Arts in poetry. However, a graduate program wasn’t originally in the cards for Bishop before she came to the UI.

“I never even considered getting my master’s, but working closely with professors and being so close to the writer’s workshop really changed my perspective,” Bishop said.

UI graduates are continuing their education by studying 357 different fields at 351 universities from 2020 to 2022.

For UI fourth-year student Sabrina Lacy, graduate studies were the most appealing.

“It kind of developed over time — wanting to apply to grad school. From my first year through the first half of my third year, I thought I was going to apply for psychology graduate programs, whether that be an MA or a Ph.D.,” Lacy said.

Lacy will graduate in the spring with a double major in English and creative writing and psychology.

As she progressed through college, Lacy discovered she didn’t want to dedicate five to seven years of her life to studying psychology. She still enjoyed the subject but liked it more as a secondary interest instead of the main focus of her career.

“I realized that I like creative writing. I had an epiphany my junior year and I decided — I’m going to apply to graduate programs for creative writing,” Lacy said.

Lacy ended up applying to several graduate programs between December 2023 and February 2024. Since she was applying mainly to creative writing programs, many of them wanted 40-page-long writing samples. Alongside that, she also needed letters of recommendation, as well as a personal statement that could range anywhere from one to five pages.

Lacy’s biggest advice to those wanting to begin graduate school applications is to start working on them early. She also advises students to have trusted professors, as well as others applying to schools in the same department, who can look over their applications before submission.

Relying on the community around her has been the most helpful part of Lacy’s process, as the information she has learned both from her peers and on different programs’ websites aided her when solidifying which programs to apply to.

In the end, Lacy chose to commit to Ohio University, where she will earn her Master of Arts in fiction writing.

“I wanted to have the opportunity to experience a place different from here, getting involved in the creative writing community in other places,” Lacy said.

(she/her/hers)

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