It’s a fabrication for the minds of academia. A justification of their position as teachers of literature.

It’s a sterilization of a creative process, broken into fragmented pieces. it neglects the fluidity and interconnectedness of all the parts.

Prewrite (brainstorm and outline) – Draft – Revise – Edit – Publish

It neglects that everyone works in a different way.

It even starts with a faulty premise: brainstorming.

Coming up with ideas doesn’t happen in a vacuum. it’s not something you sit down with and magically spark new ideas. They happen in response to things and while in the process of what you’re doing.

Some writers dive right in and brainstorm as they go.
Others will do it, then ignore everything they’ve written.

We’re not even at the writing itself and this process is shown to be broken.

Outlining, revising, editing… some international bestselling and award winning authors write clean first drafts (no outlines), then lie about their process.

Why?

It’s what people expect to hear.

There’s a conditioning that writing has to follow a certain process.

However, writing is an art and like all creative endeavours, there’s no formulaic process you need to follow.