“Writing is easy. You just open your veins and bleed.” —Red Smith, Sportswriter
As you might expect, “writing process” refers to a series of concrete, discrete steps which you follow when carrying out a writing assignment. Although different versions of the writing process can be found—some with as few as three steps, others with as many as eight—they generally move from a writer-oriented stages of pre-writing through drafting to the reader-oriented stages of revising and editing. The process outlined below, comprising five steps, is specific enough to make the crucial steps separate and yet not so complex that it is discouraging:
- Step 1: Generate ideas
- Step 2: Plan and organize
- Step 3: Draft
- Step 4: Revise
- Step 5: Edit