We are all different when it comes to writing. Some of us write whole chapters without doing a single edit while others can't complete a sentence without making changes. How do you write; are you a basher (bash out the words and edit as you go) or a swooper (swoop along following the flow and edit later)?

http://secondlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/12/swoopers-and-bashers.html

I swoop. If I bash then my writing becomes stilted.

The swooping is much more fun, and sometimes as I write that way interesting characters and/or connections occur.

Carol

Is there such a thing as a swoosher?

Shelagh,
Mostly a swooper when I write things down as they come into my head, but equally I do stop to correct words and spellings as I go along.

In the first sweep, I write bits of the story in a jumble of mess, then come back to reorder things later when I do the thorough bashing.

I took a course where the class listened to relaxation "tapes." (it was that long ago that it was a tape.) The instructor had given us a topic before we listened to the tape, and then immediately at the end of the tape, we were to write, to swoop with no worries about punctuation or grammar. That is where my fairy tale came from, one that is on inspirational websites and has gotten good reviews.

I tried the same technique when I would do training programs with teachers. I gave it up. It was very difficult for them to do this, and I'm not putting down teachers. They just wanted things correct from the beginning.

Carol

Carol wrote:

Quote:

I tried the same technique when I would do training programs with teachers. I gave it up. It was very difficult for them to do this, and I'm not putting down teachers. They just wanted things correct from the beginning.

I noticed that during workshops I attended, where many of the olders teachers, especially, had trouble learning to take writing as a process. They were mostly "bashers," and the newer studies on teaching writing often focus on teaching students to "swoop." After a couple of years, though, many teachers got so caught up in encouraging their students to create, they forgot to show them how to polish things up afterwards. And there is a tendency, in traditional classrooms, to put everybody into one group. It seems to me that a teacher's job ought to involve recognizing both types, then helping bashers to occasionally swoop, and swoopers to bash once in a while. I took workshops in both types of teaching programs. The New Jersey Writing Project, or NJWP, was an excellent way of teaching swooping, but I'm glad I learned to balance it with the Jane Schaffer [sic?] Method, which focuses on structure. When I was preparing my AP students to take that very difficult Advanced Placement exam, I had to wean them off of NJWP and into TJSM.

Gotta love those educational acronyms.

I am definitely a basher. As with so many things I do, I'm sure it is because of my newspaper days. If I see a mistake, don't like a word choice or feel something is awkward, I change it immediately.

When I write something initially, I'm definitely a swoosher. I have a lot of fun just writing what is on my mind in the beginning. I usually write it long hand at first, never with complete sentences as my thoughts just go to fast.

Vickie

Is there such a thing as a swoosher?

I think there was one cruising me in the sauna the other day.

I obviously swoosh and do not take sufficient time to bash.
I have a most ridiculous phenomenon--I can immediately spot an error in someone elses's writing, It takes a good bit longer to see my own mistakes.

I think I'm both.
I write until finished with my thoughts. The next time I attack my work, I re-read what I wrote and edit. That is an on-going process.

Shelagh

When you are right you are so right!

I edit as I go. I cannot concentrate on the next scene if something from the previous one is nagging me. It may take me a while to complete a novel, and I wish I could say that because of all the editing as I go, it's perfect. But that's not the case. There's always something from this chapter or that one that I know I could smooth, straighten, or just simply write in a better way.

So, I go back and start the edits again, and I'll keep at it until I can read the entire thing and feel that certain satisfaction that it's the best I can make it.