The successive steps in writing are:
1. Have a subject that appeals to you, and write for an actual reader.
2. Gather all the material your subject demands.
3. Arrange your material in the most effective order.
4. Write as fast as you can.
5. Revise, recast, rewrite what you have written.
1. Write on a subject which interests you and one that you know something about. Good writing will not result merely from trying to satisfy an instructor. You can write well only if you have a compelling reason for writing; if you desire to convince, inform, or entertain a definite reader.
Know the state of mind you want your reader to be in when he finishes reading your composition. Write for a definite reader such as a college freshman, a high school student, an automobile owner, a ten-year-old boy, a proprietor of a retail store in a town of from 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. It will often be helpful if, after you choose the general class to whom your writing is addressed, you select one individual you know and keep him constantly in mind while you write. Thus instead of writing for a ten-year-old boy write for your brother Robert.
Choose a subject that can be covered in the number of words at your disposal. If you are writing a four-hundred-word theme, “The American High School” is a poor subject. It would take a series of volumes to exhaust the possibilities in that title. Even eliminating a large portion of it by taking the topic “High School Newspapers,” “High School Debating,” “High School Dramatics,” or “High School Athletics,” helps but little. Narrowing any one of these subjects so that it applies only to your own high school still leaves you with more material than can well be put into a short theme. Good subjects for such themes are “The First Time I Faced an Audience,” “The Best Play I Ever Made,” “How I Felt When My Story Appeared in the School Paper,” and “The Most Exciting Play I Ever Saw in a Baseball Game.”