Planning Your Writing

While there is much to be said about writing spontaneously using stream-of-consciousness thinking, it may be helpful to you to plan out your writing instead. Not everything can or should be written off the cuff. Most types of writing, to be effective, need at least some preliminary planning. It's tempting to just jump in and start writing when an idea strikes, but try holding back on that impulse and engage in some pre-writing activities. Depending on what you're writing, it may be advantageous to know your whole story or article or essay before you start writing. That means figuring out what you will say from beginning to end and in what order. This kind of planning can help you be more organized and thorough, assuring that you don't leave out important parts of your story or essay. You can use outlines or story boards or visual drawings. The way you plan isn't as important as the fact that you plan. Planning also helps you guide readers through your writing in a logical way that makes sense to them. Some writers feel that planning or pre-writing kills creativity, but used in the right way to formulate the skeleton of your writing project, it can actually enhance your creativity. Forming the outer structure of your writing project first allows you to fill in the delicious details carefully and skillfully because you already know where you're going. You can apply all your focus on getting there in the most effective way because you're not distracted with both structure and detail at the same time. Other skilled craftspersons don't dive into their craft without any thinking or planning. Why should writers?