We depend on language not only to write but also to conceptualize and communicate about composing. The various kinds of discourse about writing processes reveal the assumptions and values about writing held by students, researchers, and professional writers. This article discusses some metaphors used by professional writers when describing their revising activities to interviewers and suggests the implications of their use for research on writing.

Professional writers frequently use socially shared “metaphorical stories” to describe their composing. In one prominent metaphorical story, writers of fiction cast their characters as collaborators in the process of writing, in consequence providing a complicated and integrated description of their composing. For writers of fiction to ascribe independence to their characters has implications that go far beyond the “performance” concerns of authors engaged in literary discussions: Metaphorical stories are an important means by which people understand as well as communicate their composing experiences.

We are often suspicious of professional writers' comments about their composing processes because of the aspect of “literary performance.” But we should be equally wary of the accounts of student writers, since they are also unlikely to be veridical. Reasonable, coherent, even captivating accounts are limited by problems of attendance, memory, and reporting, and may be based not on recall but on other cognitive processes. However, despite these problems, retrospective accounts may still prove valuable in studying the writing process.