Writing approach

My drafts only seem to work when they're written in one go. Drafts can be edited, but not heavily. A draft that requires heavy editing should be taken back to the outline phase.

• Early writing—all concepts should be explored in notes, daily writing, or death drafts before effort is put into writing for others.
• Outline—design the order that examples and concepts will be introduced.
  • Examples—examples should be selected because they are easy to explain and setup the point being made.
  • Make a point—clearly make the point the example set up.
  • Abstractions—determine when abstract idea's will be introduced, and ensure they are properly explained on first mention.
  • Three things—ensure that the reader will only be required to reason about three things at a time. If more than three concepts must be kept in mind during any section of the article, introduce a chunked abstraction.
• Long-form draft—write a draft without referencing pre-writing resources. You may review outlines and notes before hand, but not during.
• Loop—If the draft doesn't work on a structural level, identify the problem, update or rewrite the outline, and then prepare to write a new long-form draft.
• Editing—lightly edit drafts.
  • Remove filler.
  • Rewrite cliche's, dying metaphors, and overused similes.
  • Fix word choice for clarity and consistency. Use shorter words when available. Replace words with vocabulary closer to the intended meaning.
  • Check qualification of statements. Do you sound sure on shaky ground? Do you hedge a sentence unnecessarily?
  • Check sentence lengths. The length of sentences should vary. Overly long or short sentences should be used sparingly.
  • Check for overuse of words or terms. If a person of thing is named too often, try using a [[pronoun]]. If a description or idea forces the repeated use of a word, try finding similar terms to create a [[theme]].
  • Check for active voice and subject placement.

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