Failing is a part of successful writing. That’s why teachers are forever assigning drafts: rough draft, peer draft, revised draft. Even the final piece you turn in is still called a final draft.

Almost no writing is great the first time (or the second, seventh, and maybe the 23rd). Probably because there are so many moving pieces, so many aspects to consider, and our brain can only do so much at a time. So here’s how to fail so you can write better:

• Write out your thoughts. They’ll be messy and make no sense. 
  • Misspell lots–it’s okay. 
  • Don’t worry about grammar or even complete sentences.
  • Pictures are good, too. Crappy little stick figures are my fav.
• Now that you have SOMETHING on your page (though it fails as an essay), start looking for patterns. Move things that seem to match together.
  • Still failing! This is nothing like a good paper. Great job.
• Need to add anything? Some research or new thoughts? Go ahead–you’re failing anyway, there’s no harm in adding things, even if they might not work.
• Write out your thoughts in complete sentences. Your paper will still fail, don’t worry.
• Add transitions between paragraphs.
• Feel free to write an intro and conclusion. I never write an intro or conclusion first, often because I have no idea what I’m going to say until I say it.
• Read your paper out loud and bask in all the mistakes you catch. More failure, yay!
• Turn in your paper. Congratulations! You failed your way to a good paper.

Every stage except the last (and maybe still then) includes failure. And that’s okay. It’s a good thing. In their book on writing, Richard Young, Alton Becker, and Kenneth Pike talk about “the necessity of making mistakes”:

We are all reluctant to make errors, but without a willingness to make them, original inquiry is impossible. Inquiry normally proceeds by a succession of increasingly intelligent mistakes.

Rhetoric: Discovery and Change by Young, Becker, and Pike

Young, Becker, and Pike also say that false starts, hard work, and inadequate hypotheses are normal, maybe even required for innovative thought.