What I Learned at the War College: Writing Process

I recently completed the Basic Strategic Art Program (BSAP) at the Army War College. This is a qualification course for Strategists, but also the best writing course I’ve taken in the Army. I’ve pulled some of the lessons, strategies and processes discussed and am posting them as a series titled, What I learned at the War College. First, we’ll start with the Writing Process: Best Practices. 

Good Writing is driven by interest and passion, but refined through process and discipline.

A very special thanks to Dr. J.P. Clark for the effort he puts in throughout the course to improve his students’ writing and research skills.

Frontload Easy Work

When you decide (or are told) to start writing, do all the boring (but essential) things first. This includes formatting your file, determining a citation style (if any) and researching it before pulling resources. This will save you a lot of time later in the process. Formatting a blank document is far easier than fixing a complete one.

Plan to Write

Budgeting your time is essential, perhaps even more so if you are setting your own deadlines. In that case, set a goal for yourself and work backward from there. Make sure to budget time for research, drafting, revisions and feedback.

• Research: The more complex or unfamiliar the subject, the more time required.

• Drafting: Know yourself and your writing style. If you are an iterative writer, don’t spend all your time on the sh---y first draft when you know it’s just a starting point.

• Revisions: Editing is the secret to good writing. Give it the respect it deserves. There are a lot of good tips and tricks to improve your editing. But suffice it to say, if you want to be a better writer, you should practice your editing.

• Feedback: Always get someone to look at your work. Who, for how long, and how many will depend on the subject. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on soliciting, managing and incorporating feedback.

Research and Write at the Same Time

Writing is iterative, not sequential. As you write, you’ll learn new things, discover counterarguments, or even change your mind. Go into it understanding that it is part of the process. If you budget your time well, you will be able to go back and change instead of plodding forward with something you aren’t proud of or worse, is factually inaccurate.

Spread it out

This is good advice, some that I often don’t take myself. But it relates to building a writing habit. Take a disciplined approach to your writing, and you will write with more discipline, just as practicing a sport will make you better at that sport. As a rule of thumb, 10 one-hour sessions will yield better results, than one, 10-hour session.

Be kind to your reader

Some more advice with a solid practical foundation. If you’re like me, you enjoy writing with an artistic, casual, often bordering pretentious style. Direct sentences and monotonous paragraph structure may seem like all the worst parts of your high school English experience. Get over it when you need to. Understand why you are writing. In the case of opinion columns, you are writing to persuade or convince your audience, so don’t make it hard for them.