When writing, one of the most important tasks to get right is the way in which you organise your thoughts before you begin.
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing an email, an article, a report or a book – you must have a good idea of where you’re going before you start.
To an extent everyone’s approach to this will be different, but some approaches are more likely to lead to a poor outcome than others.
Here’s an example of the wrong way to do it. It’s interesting, because it initially sounds really good, and in fact I have seen it taught as a good approach.
Let’s say that we need to write about tourist attractions in Canberra.
Our first step is to brainstorm all the attractions we can think of – Parliament House, the Royal Australia Mint, the War Memorial, the Botanical Gardens, the walk up Mount Ainslie, the Nation Carillon, the walk around Lake Burley Griffin, the National Gallery, the National Library, the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain, Cotter Reserve, Corin Forest outdoor amusement park, the space tracking station at Tidbinbilla.
Hmm – OK, lots of things!
Now before we can write about all these attractions we need some kind of organisation, a categorisation – otherwise, it will all be a mad jumble. So for a categorisation scheme, perhaps we could use ‘distance from the centre of Canberra’? Then we can organise each of these attractions in order of how far away from the CBD they are.
Right, that’s easy – what next?
Well, we could then further organise the attractions on the basis of how new they are – new ones will be more attractive, right?
So with all this under our belt, we start writing:
The new Parliament House in Canberra was opened in 1988. It’s only a short car ride from the centre of Canberra and is open to the public. Even closer to the centre is the Carillon, donated by the British Government and opened in 1970.
…and so on.
The trouble with this approach is that it has not been undertaken in the context of what an audience wants.
What proportion of people visiting Canberra will care when the tourist attraction first opened? Some – but not many. What proportion of people will care how far the attraction is from the centre of Canberra? Again some (eg back-backers), but again – not many.
So what are some approaches that will benefit those visiting Canberra as tourists?
The first step in planning how to write the piece is to think not about the attractions but instead about the readers. So let’s think about the different groups that probably make up tourists visiting Canberra – and what those tourists would want to know.
Well, there might be families – so they’ll want to know about attractions that will be fun for kids.
There might be people on a tight budget – so they’ll want to know about the free attractions.
There might be people more interested in cultural activities (museums, libraries, galleries and so on) and others interested in physical activities (walks up mountains, walks around gardens, outdoor amusement parks).
This categorisation approach will be vastly more successful, simply because it considers the audience first and the content second. Like this:
Free Canberra Attractions
There are lots of tourist attractions in Canberra that are free of charge. These include the Botanical Gardens, the New Parliament House and the National Gallery. If you’d like some exercise, the walk up Mount Ainslie costs nothing, as does the walk around Lake Burley Griffin.
…and so on.
Exactly the same approach can be taken in writing about anything.
If I am writing a magazine or web article, the first things I consider are:
1. How much does the audience already know about this subject?
2. What will the audience want to know about this subject?
3. What are the most important points I can include for the audience?
4. How can I organise this material in a way that will progressively lead the audience along an easily-followed path?
And then…
5. What can I use as an opening ‘hook’ to get the audience ‘in’?
As you can see, every single one of these questions relates first to the readers and only second to the content!
If you constantly consider what it is that your readers will want, it is far easier to construct a piece of writing that successfully fulfils its aims.
One-day courses by Julian in writing skills are available through Acorn Training and Consulting, Canberra.
Filed under: Articles on writing
