Education Planning Makes Writing Easy

Have you ever started a writing project, whether for work or a self-generated creative project, and found yourself stuck somewhere in the middle or foundering at the end? This is a common issue, especially if you are a more organic writer and less of a planner and outliner. In order to expand your horizons as a writer and to develop more writing tools you can pull out as needed, try to thoroughly plan your next piece of writing before sitting down to type it out. Those writers that like to work organically, with only a vague idea of where they are going with a piece of prose, will groan at this suggestion. I am not advocating that you give up organic methods, only that you try a new way of approaching a project and add another tool to your repertoire that you can call upon when the situation dictates. The planing steps do not have to be elaborate, but if they are deliberate and structured they will serve you best. First, on a clean sheet of paper or in a new writing file, make a note of what you are trying to accomplish with this particular piece of writing and your target word length. For a longer work, perhaps a chapter of a book, you can make this an even smaller chunk, such as, "Write 500 word opening of chapter... scene where Tim and Mabel first meet." If you are writing something shorter, such as an article or business letter, it can be something like, "Write 700 word article on 'Planning in Writing'." Then, rough out the key elements that you would like to include in the piece. If you are writing fiction they might include: setting, characters, point of view, character's goals in the scene. if you are writing an article or creating a document for work the key elements might include: background of the issue, main points, benefits, pitfalls, closing statement and summary. The subject and the length will drive the depth of the outline that you are making. The main point here is to try and have a structure to write around that will guide you when you are doing the more creative part of "just writing". As you work you will adapt and change the outline. Once you have a basic outline done, methodically go through it and see if you can deepen and expand it point by point. The best way to do this is to simply look at what you came up with on your first attempt and ask questions as if you were an objective reader. Simply put, what else would you like to know if you were reading this document and were new to the subject. Obviously, this will be different for a work of fiction and a technical manual introduction, but see what the questions generate. Finally, take the outline and start at the beginning and work through it from start to finish. Don't worry that much about the transitions from point to point. These can be cleaned up in a subsequent draft. You may find that something you have written early on needs to be moved to a later point in the document or brings up a new point. There is nothing wrong with this, it is part of the drafting and editing process. Outlining is not a natural thing for all writers to do, but planning can help a writer be more effective in working and is a good tool to have. If you are a more organic writer try some simple planning and outlining exercises on a small part of a project and see how it goes. You may find that it is something that you can use from time to time or when needed to get you through a particularly troublesome spot in a writing project.

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