Pulling it together

You’ve branched your topic, produced pages of freewriting, reviewed and revised. You’ve characterized your likely readers and recast your information to meet their needs. You’ve cut some sections and added new ones to reflect your own growing perspective on your topic. You’ve put most of your verbs in the active voice, replaced abstract nouns with concrete ones and your weak verbs with strong action verbs. You’ve cut the flabby words and unnecessary phrases.

You still have reams of raw, unordered text. Your deadline looms. What next? How do you get from here to your finished product?

• Consider making an outline. By now, you'll have a good sense of how you want to arrange your ideas. The outline that often stifles rough drafts can help you order the linear flow of your final draft.

• You might also create a chart on a big sheet of paper. In order of importance, list the main and supporting points your final product should or must include. This will help you develop the flow of your text and tell you what material to condense or leave out if your narrative runs over your mandatory space limit.

• Some writers like to cut and physically rearrange sections of their drafts in logical sequence on a floor or work table. If you compose on a word processor, you can work simultaneously in two word processor files, highlighting and cutting sections of your draft and pasting them into the second file in their new order, to form a final draft. When you close out your original, don’t save the changes. This will preserve your draft in case you want to refer back to it.

• Don’t forget to keep editing. Cut the unnecessary words. Replace weak words with stronger ones. Cut some more. Keep scrutinizing your final draft until the moment you hit send or print and turn your manuscript over to an editor.