The writing process

Experienced coaches find that most writing problems occur in the organizing stage. Many writers with problems simply skip any form of organization at all.  Their training may teach them to do so, with its emphasis on lead writing. They move directly from reporting to grappling with a lead, and then decide what they want to say.

Here’s a process used by Don Fry of the Poynter Institute. Try this, or use at as a base to develop your own process.

A. DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY

This process takes less then 10 minutes, but it saves much more time than that later.

• Marking up notes. Cement the important things in your memory. Mark things you may want to find later, like numbers, names, exact wording of quotations.
• Spotting the high points. What strikes you in your material? Main ideas – jot them down as you spot them. Test each main point: What’s this about? What’s my main point to readers?
• Writing a point statement. What’s this story about again? Now, your material must pass a test to be included in your story: Anything that does not help make a point does not go into the story. Remember, the secret of brevity is selection, not compression
• Sketching a plan. A brief roadmap of your story. No more than 10 words total. Use a label or codeword for each section.

B. WRITE A DRAFT

Write quickly, paying little attention to fine-tuning. Don’t revise as you go along. The point is to work from your “roadmap” to get the entire story on paper in rough form. Don Fry: “Most news writing sags in the middle because writers get tiered, rushed, or lost. They spend 20 minutes crafting a lead, then an hour getting the first half just right and then blast through the rest in 10 minutes to make the deadline. Hence the sagging middle. By writing a first draft as quickly as possible from a plan, you spend the same amount of time on the second half as on the first, and you don’t get tired.

C. REVISE

Last Modified: August 31, 2006