Describe Your Writing Process

I find my writing process a bit difficult to explain. Well, really, I have two different ones. There's the process that I typically use for school papers (barring lab reports), and there's a loose process that I use for my own creative writing outside of school. Well, the second one isn't exactly a process, but we'll say it is for the sake of the discussion.

We'll stick with the "school related" process for now...

Particularly for school-related papers and writing assignments, I like having an outline of some sort. Even when writing short essays or DBQs for AP classes, I have to write an outline to organize my thoughts in a way where they can be coherently and logically mapped out. Otherwise I have trouble finding a way to make all the ideas flow together, and I often leave out a point which I would have liked to use. The second part isn't such a big deal on typed assignments, but it's horrible when it happens in written essays (especially during tests).

The types of outlines vary. Obviously, I don't have time to write a full-sentence outline during a timed exam, so the outlines I write for tests are usually not as thoroughly thought-out. For papers and other relevent assignments I at least need to have all relevent ideas, thoughts, research and evidence arranged in a logical fashion, especially when I'm doing a research paper. (I had an outline that was more then ten pages long for my debate last year because of all the evidence that needed to be "kept track of".) I don't really like full-sentence outlines as much. They have the benefit of providing you nearly your entire paper before you've even really started writing it, but it makes it difficult to keep the transition of ideas fluent sometimes. I find that planning topic sentences help (something I picked up from AP Euro last year).

After writing an outline to get a basic idea of where I want my paper to go, usually typing the first draft is relatively easy. After that, the required editing and peer review in class usually help to take care of grammar errors. Then I usually just edit it again myself in order to fix grammar errors and change anything I think sounds weird or disrupts the flow. Admittedly, I don't edit my papers as many times as I perhaps should, but that's something I can work on.

I really, really, like having people give me feedback. I am a bit shy about my writing (and very aware of it), but good feedback and suggestions help a lot. Of course, editing and correcting errors is great, too, but having someone else give you new ideas and say "Oh, this sounds a bit awkward" or "This is a bit off-topic" or "Could you make this a little clearer?" would help, as would compliments, of course, but I need to know what I'm doing wrong, not just what I'm doing right.

Speaking of which, I'm getting a little off-topic right now...

The other process, which I use for writing outside of school (i.e. creative writing and fanfiction) is a bit less structured. I wouldn't really call it much of a process at all, actually. Usually I have a vague idea of what I want to write about and what I want to happen. Often I start writing and add in plot-bunnies as I think of them rather than seriously planning a story out like I do with a paper (though I have written an outline for a story before which gave me a decent idea of where I wanted to take it). This "process" also includes writing down new ideas as they come wherever I have an available writing surface, which isn't the most organized system, thus the reason I'm tempted to not even call this much of a process at all. It's mostly just writing as it comes. I do go back and edit, revise and change things (or rewrite them altogether if I hate them enough), but it's not as important as the writing I do for school, so I guess I don't take it quite as seriously.

That about summarizes the processes by which I write. I could probably go on for another hour or so about how I write and such, but I'm pretty sure that if anyone's reading this they're already sick of my ranting, so I'll just leave it at this.