Creative writing

Aim: What are the stages of the writing process?

When picking up a pen a writer must first answer two questions: what is my purpose and who is my audience.

Purpose: the reason for communicating with someone.

Audience: the person/persons being communicated with.

The writing process consists of:

Prewriting: (brainstorming): clustering, journaling, free writing

Drafting: In this stage the writer develops a more cohesive text, organizes thoughts, explains examples/ideas, discovers a central argument/point. The first draft is a less edited version of the final draft, according to Strunk and White “the first principal of composition is to foresee or determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape.” This shape is the draft that eventually becomes the finished work.

Revising: Constructively applying your audience’s feedback to improve your writing by rearranging sentences, paragraphs, words and thoughts. Adding, taking away and polishing your written work to perfection.

Editing: Proofreading for spelling, grammatical errors, word usage and the like.

Publishing: (Final copy) Your OPUS