Prewriting
Your first draft will be messy. Likewise, any prewriting stage will be messy. Prewriting refers to everything you do prior to writing. This is the brainstorming, the clarifying expectations, the poking at different options and seeing what sounds interesting to you.
In prewriting, you are answering two questions:
- What am I writing about?
- Why am I writing about this?
With these two questions answered you will create a foundation to make a beautiful piece of writing.
What am I writing about?
You can answer this question in many ways, but ultimately you should write about something you are interested in. Even if it’s a small piece of the overall topic, there should be something that makes your brain perk up and go “huh!”
Why am I writing about this?
This question is twofold:
- You are likely trying to get a good grade, and
- you are trying to get your reader to do something after reading your work.
You may want the reader to be persuaded of a certain position, or you want them to come away with a more thorough understanding of a topic, or something else entirely. Regardless of what the “why” is, you need to know the “why” to write effectively.
So, what do I do before writing?
The most effective prewriting strategy you can take pulls on the resources around you and your natural inclinations to answer those two important questions – what and why. Here are a few ways to get started based on your interests:
Do you talk to people about what you’re writing? Continue talking to people, but also try recording yourself talking and play it back to yourself a couple days later. See what sticks out to you!
Do you draw? Use that, create a mind map, make a cartoon of your thoughts and research, cover your wall in sticky notes with different ideas. Rearrange the sticky notes, the cartoon, or the mind map, until you find a route that you can follow through your writing.
Do you just start writing and see what happens? Try doing that with a physical pen and paper. Print out whatever you typed and take a pen and scissors to it to find what you want to keep and what you want to look more into. Use different coloured highlighters to highlight different topics, tracking their routes through your thought process.
Do you read and read and read? Keep doing that! Read with a notebook nearby and keep notes on what you read. Later, use those notes and track the commonalities or differences, the many routes you can take through your reading.
Embrace the mess
Remember, the prewriting stage will be messy. You will step forwards and backwards, you will move wildly between topics, you may vary your position, and you will sit in confusion. This is normal. This is part of the process of writing. Writing is messy at every stage, and the mess of prewriting is what crafts a foundation from which to craft the polished final piece.