The 30-60-90 Approach to Writing

Breaking down the writing process (yet again)

For a long time now, I’ve been trying to fine-tune my writing process so that I can writer better, faster.

I’ve already determined there’s no way to get through the ‘bad writing’ phase of the process (described by Anne Lamott as the ‘Shitty First Draft’ stage). Sorry, folks: that part just seems to be built in.

But I’ve also determined that it’s possible to get better at navigating that bad writing stage—hence my 2023 resolution to master messy writing.

Part of getting better at writing badly is figuring out how to do it effectively. A key aspect of this is knowing at what stages you should step back and look at the mess you’ve produced in order to start tidying it up and making things better.

In what follows, I lay out the key milestones in my messy writing process.

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30%: ‘This is where I think I’m going.’

I know I’m 30% of the way to something when I have some sense of what I’m trying to say and how I might go about saying it.

The first 30% is the bit I really have to make myself write, since whatever I put down in these first stages of writing will look absolutely awful compared to the dream that’s in my head. Obviously. But no matter how much I know that, it doesn’t make it easier to do!

This is what it looks like when I’m about 30% of the way there:

• I have some sort of thesis statement. It isn’t always the exact thesis statement I end up with at the end, but I have something. Same goes for my humour writing: I have a premise that I’ll keep honing. I know what direction I’m going in.

• There’s a beginning, middle, and end. Again: it isn’t pretty. It doesn’t have to be! And it’s often more of a fleshed-out outline or sketch than a ‘draft’. This is me just trying to see if my thesis statement (or satirical premise) can lead to something that has a shape. The introduction and conclusion may be no more than a cluster of notes, but they’re there.

• It’s very, very note-y. There will be marginal notes all over the place. Notes are a great place to put all those little reminders about what you’ll need to do later when you’re trying to make your piece decent. [I also like to add notes into the draft itself in brackets/bold that describe what I’m going to do later—it sort of breaks the ice, and sometimes even ends up being the thing I do!]

‘By the time I reach 30%, I know what direction I’m going in.’

When I’ve gotten about 30% of the way to where I want to be, I might feel like sharing what I’ve got with a trusted colleague or friend, someone who understands that this isn’t anywhere near the final product and who can reassure me that I’m on the right path or let me know if I’m already heading way off course.

60%: ‘This is how I think I might get there.’

Ok, now we’re starting to look like a proper draft! By this stage, I’m usually feeling encouraged: after all, I already produced something!

Here’s what things look like at this stage:

• We’ve got a draft, people!! It’s mostly prose now, though I’ve probably got marginal notes-to-self scattered throughout to remind me to refine or add to my ideas later.

• Nothing major is missing. At least, nothing major that I’m aware of! By this point, most of the key pieces of evidence are in my essay (or most of the ‘beats’ are in my satire). If it’s a piece with footnotes (or—god forbid—endnotes) then most of my footnotes are there, though I probably have to add in bibliographical details and page numbers.

• My word count is creeping up. By this stage, my draft is usually at somewhere around 60% of my allotted word limit (always a helpful sign!).

At this point, I have something that I can either set aside (a key part of my writing process) or give to someone for feedback (which also allows me to set it aside). At 60% I’m feeling more confident about my ideas, and much less vulnerable than I did at 30%.

90%: ‘This is how I think it might look in the end.’

Getting 90% of the way there in my writing is when I start to feel like I can really celebrate. Once again, I faced that blank page and confronted my fears that maybe this would be the time I came up empty—that’s definitely worth celebrating!

By this point:

• No more notes! This is the stage where I’ve got a full and complete draft. I feel like it’s pretty good.

• It’s properly formatted. By this point, all the footnotes are complete, and everything is formatted correctly for the destination publication.

• I’ve reached the stage where I can’t really do more to it.

That last bullet point is key, and it’s where the final 10% comes in.

The final 10%

Sometimes, if I’m very, very lucky, I hit 100% or thereabouts with a piece of writing. But frequently, what actually happens is that I hit a wall: I feel like the piece might not be perfect, but I’ve put 100% of my currently available effort, expertise, and skill into it and can’t really do much more.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t more to be done! And it’s taken me awhile to realise that it’s absolutely fine to obtain that final 10% from outside sources, sources like a publication’s editors or the anonymous peer reviewers of a journal.

It’s easy to view editors and reviewers as barriers to publication (and it is true that various forms of bias can make them barriers in very problematic ways, a topic for another post). But I think it’s better to view them as collaborators: they can provide an informed outsider’s perspective that ensures not only that a piece gets published, but that it gets published in its best possible form.

And when you get right down to it, isn’t that what’s important?