“Writing is easy. You just open your veins and bleed.”  — Red Smith, Sportswriter

As you might expect, process writing means approaching a writing task according to a formalized series of concrete, discrete steps.  Although different versions of the writing process can be found—some with as few as three steps or phases, others with as many as eight—they generally move from a writer-oriented phase of pre-writing through drafting to reader-oriented revising and editing.  I generally find that the one I will present below, comprising five steps, is specific enough to make the important steps separate and yet not so complex as to be daunting.

Why even use a formal writing process, though?  What can it offer you that the kind of informal processes people typically use don't? Continue.