From the text proposal to the final material

The writing process goes through several stages, from the first idea to the final result. Even before the text begins to take shape, many thoughts about the subject pass through the author’s mind; sometimes disorganized, some remain only in the mind, never being transferred to paper or the computer screen. However, even those completely discarded ideas that will never reach the final reader are part of the text—that is, part of the beginning of its creation—and may remain stored in some corner of memory, waiting to be used at a more appropriate time.

Deciding what to put on paper may require delving deeper into the subject, research, and the author’s perception of what is relevant to the reader. The text should hold the reader’s attention while also being easy to understand. In other words, the idea should not belong exclusively to the author, who wants to communicate; it should take into account what the reader expects from the reading. Therefore, before beginning the work, writers should seek to know their target audience well, even so they can exceed that audience’s expectations.

Once the most relevant points have been defined and written down, as a list or in a draft, the text proposal begins to become concrete. However, this is only an embryonic stage, still lacking the most basic elements necessary for that set of letters, words and sentences to actually become a text. So the next step is to bring all of this together cohesively. This stage may not be easy at all for a beginning writer or for someone anxious to express whatever comes to mind, but it is very important for a clear and coherent text to emerge—one that is easily understood and encourages the desire to keep reading. After all, a disconnected text that fails to link ideas into a meaningful whole is not pleasant to read. Thus, from a simple “but” to a sophisticated “destarte”, including grammatical rules and strategically planned figures of speech, the tip is not to skimp on these elements that make any text richer and more fluid.

In summary, the writing process requires, from the outset, care with both the content and form of the text. It happens that, as the text develops, the author may end up expressing ideas they had not previously imagined. The unexpected is also part of writing. We often do not control our own thoughts, and the final text quite often surprises even the person who wrote it, positively or negatively. The content seems to spring up by spontaneous generation. Yes! Now, if the author does not like the result, they can always rewrite, add, remove or replace expressions and information as they perceive what makes more sense for that text at that moment. For a perfectionist, this process can take a long time, and anyone who wants to see their text published should turn to a professional; an editor or proofreader is essential.

Thus we arrive at the last, but no less important, stage of the writing process: proofreading the final text. At this stage, the details are examined so that any errors—both in form and content—can be corrected, making it possible to achieve a satisfactory product and for the author finally to publish their work. Error-free. 😉