Three Stages in the Process of Writing

Writing is the process of presenting or expressing the thoughts in black and white. Writing emanates from thoughts. Better the thoughts, better the writing. Thus, the whole emphasis of the process of writing is on the thoughts, which go through the following three main stages in order to be expressed in a written format:

1. Selecting the thought for writing
2. Processing the thought for writing
3. Producing / expressing the thought in the written format in the form of book, blog or newspaper, etc.

While there are unlimited possibilities for the completion of the third stage, as there are several publishing houses and editors to help a writer to harness the best publishing possibilities, it is the realm of the first two stages in which the author has to mainly depend on his intuition, hard work and time.

Selection of a thought: Thousands of thoughts rest in our mind. Some of them are active thoughts and some of them are inactive thoughts. The author has to select a particular thought out of so many that exist in the mind, to actually take it to the next level, i.e. processing of a thought. The process of selection is made easy by categorization and subcategorization of thoughts. For example, you can think about the topics related to peace, love, self-help, terrorism, war, political corruption, yoga, writing, thinking, psychology, etc., etc. in order to organize your writing. Then you can further categorize your thoughts on the basis of the specializations in a particular field. For example, terrorism in South-East Asia, writing about the mobile phones and smart phones, cars, automobiles, etc. There is always a possibility to become an expert in a particular field, in which the writing is possible. If the writer can produce a reasonable quality and quality of thoughts on a particular topic, he or she will certainly find an audience ready to dwell upon his or her writing.

The stage of selection of thought is the first and most important stage. It decides the outcome of your effort in writing. You select a good thought; you get good response from your audience. For example, authors of literature dwell upon the imaginary characters and build the whole story around a particular character, (The Hamlet, for example) and really create a permanent base of audience or readers, who will read and reread the books written by them and draw newer conclusions, as is shown by the research carried out in the universities for a doctorate degree. Such a permanent base of readers is earned only by the perfect selection of a thought.

Processing of a selected thought: The next, and the most important, stage in writing is the processing of a selected thought. Once you have decided that you are going to write about a particular thought, you have to collect the proper and latest information about it. The data have to be ready, at the tip of your finger. Once you analyze the data, you start interpreting it in different geospatial settings, past, present and future timings, under global standard and nonstandard conditions, through the prism of various characters, and base it on the stories of ancient civilizations. You also tend to mix it up with the scientific inventions that are taking place (recall movies like Jurassic Park and Avatar). The processing of a thought involves the interaction of various ideas, thoughts, concepts, theories and formulas. Thus, it is a very intricate process. It takes time for anybody to master the art of processing a thought, and more you think you have mastered the art of processing a thought, more you realize that some more time is needed to master this art. The following example will help you understand better the stage of processing a thought:

Suppose you have to write an essay on the empowerment of women in Indian villages, you will actually try to incorporate the following points in your essay:

• The past, present and future status of the government plans for empowering Indian women, especially those living in villages;
• Any specific leader, especially a female leader, who has made efforts in this regard;
• Comparison with the women living in Asian villages across the continent;
• Participation of women living in towns and cities in the activity of empowering the women living in villages;
• Participation of men living in towns, cities and villages in the activity of empowering the women living in villages;
• Impact of social norms and practices that influence the male-female relations in the Indian society, especially under the village setups;
• If possible, you will like to recall any recent incident that reflects the exact position of empowerment of women in the Indian villages;

These and many such ideas will certainly make an essential core of your essay. The success of your essay will totally depend on how well you are able to carry, explore and gel these ideas and concepts. This is exactly what is meant by the processing of a selected thought.

It takes years to master the art of writing, including only the first two stages, as the stage of production, the third stage, is a totally different entity, which can be taken care of by the various teams such as editorial team, production team and sales team. Here, the only important task at the author’s end is to show unceasing dedication and discipline in order to produce or write the content on regular basis. Even if you produce (write) 1,000 words everyday, it is good enough, but the condition is that you should not break the flow of writing. That practice will bring you a permanent and sustainable audience for a long term. The three stages thus play important role in the making of a writer.