I had planned to mix things up a bit in this blog between three general topic areas: 1) things of interest to those who have a creative writing bent [which could be almost anything], 2) the areas I consider my “niche” writing interests, and when possible how they tie in either to business or writing concerns, and 3) useful tips for those who don’t care to write but sometimes must for business purposes.
So far, I have set a structure for this blog that follows that pattern.
However, given that today is technically the legal New Year holiday, and also prompted by the observations of one of my commenters, I thought I would do a kind of a New Year bonus and do two Tip style blog posts in succession.
So, although in a sense this post may be jumping ahead out of sequence on Tips, I thought I’d discuss an area that too many writers get hung up during their writing process. I even know professionals who get hung up in this way, if through lack of proper instruction they developed a less-than-ideal habit.
To review a bit, the Blog covered that the first step in a good document creation process involves an in-tandem assessment of who the reader . . . or audience . . . is for your document along with what that reader(s) needs are from the document.
Then, the next part of the process involves planning: as one of my commentors rightly observed, most without a good deal of specialized training will use a traditional outlining process to do that.
Assuming no research involved in the project, or that the research phase came in as a predecessor to the outlining/planning phase, this brings the author to the point where the composing, or writing, process phase of developing the document will actually begin.
Now, we’re going to reverse our perspective, here, from linear steps such as audience assessment to planning to writing.
What I’m going to discuss in this Tip post is: the portion of the document you should hold off on writing.
Over and over again, I see writers get hung up because they pick up their outline, see “Introduction” . . . and try to write it.
That’s both an unwieldy and an unproductive writing process.
You will immeasurably improve your writing process . . . and its outcome . . . if you divest yourself of this routine.
Indeed, when you follow your outline to compose, you should choose one of your content points. If you feel most comfortable in sequence, you can do that starting at the first content point. Or, you may wish to tackle the most difficult, least difficult, or one with the greatest data volume and put the rest together like a puzzle.
One way or another, though, you should in your actual writing process dive right into your content points.
In an effective writing process, the writer (usually) puts off writing the Introduction . . . either until the very last piece of the document or to the last piece excepting the Conclusion. Just skip right over that in your Outline, and come back to it later.
I was fortunate in my very first Technical Writing course, a pilot course and one of the first in the country, that the instructor of that course taught the class a rather logical concept: “how do you introduce something when you don’t what it is you are trying to introduce?” (For those who follow comments, this one was at Salem State College.)
Yet, I see even professionals trying to work sequentially starting with the Introduction. And nearly all non-professional writers make this . . . well, if not an error, it certainly adds several degrees of difficulty to the writing process.
So, when you start to write from your outline . . . skip over the Introduction heading entirely. [It bears purposeful redundancy on this point.]
Write your content, and come back to that later. [In some types of documents, the Introduction can become quite clear in the writer’s mind about 3/4s of the way through, and if you suddenly have the light bulb effect at such a time, of course, go for it at that juncture.]
Try this technique if you have gotten hung up starting out with an Introduction section.
I think you’ll find it astounding how much difference this one technique can make both in your productivity and if not enjoyment, at least reduction of aggravation in crafting your documents.
If you have to write something when you don’t prefer to write, or you would if there weren’t so many other duties pressing but there are other duties pressing, wouldn’t you prefer to reduce the stress and frustration of the process by applying this kind of logical technique to your process?
You're quite right that the actual introduction should probably be the last thing you write, but even so, I usually tend to start a project by writing an introduction anyway (with no intention to actually USE that version in the finished product), but mostly as a sketch for my own benefit. I'll outline the way I intend to structure the document, try out some thematic approaches, and so on.
ReplyDeleteI have found that writing text that never gets included in the final work is rarely a waste of effort. I learned this lesson best while working on my M.A. thesis. I wrote a whole chapter that just... didn't... quite seem right. I struggled with it for days until I realized I was arguing the exact opposite of what I should have been arguing. (I had begun by taking a professor's suggestion at face value, and then trying to support it and reconcile it with my main theme, but eventually realized I needed instead to refute it right from the beginning.) So 15 or 20 pages of polished prose got thrown out, never to be seen by anyone else ever again, but if it hadn't been for all that effort, I never would have understood so clearly the issue I needed to write about, and never would have been able to address the objections with the sympathy and courtesy that understanding brings.
Hi, Tom:
ReplyDeleteThank you again for your comment. I'll go back to the other later, it's easier to respond to.
You correctly observe that in some situations, such as academic study of writing or in specialized professions like law, any writing can have its value even if deep-sixed later. And we all WILL write things we must deep-six.
HOWEVER, as to the "tips" posts on this Blog, I mean them as a way to help people who are not professional writers but must write things IN BUSINESS.
That's a different ballgame. Writing is not viewed as a revenue-producing activity in business: it is viewed as a necessary evil in business . . . except for those specialized fields I mentioned such as law.
As to professional Tech and Business writers: if it's an hourly or salaried, versus a frelance, by-project arrangement, the higher ups are scrutinizing every minute that goes into the writing. And those that do not produce at a satisfactory level of combined speed and quality are even more expendable than other writers who do produce at speed and quality. And because it writing is NOT seen as revenue-producing in that sense [this differs from salesworthy writing, a whole other ballgame] all writers are expendable on an hourly or salary-paid basis.
To the average profit-focused employer, your method equates to "paying for nothing" for several hours.
Structured documentation trained professional writers exhibit, generally, an upfront down-time factor of between 25 and 30% of documentation time allotment, with a further reduction in production time. Even pro writers without structured documentation training exhibit approximately a 50 - 75% upfront downtime, and that is time paid on the employer's dime either hourly or on salary.
Freelancers charge often by project.
Now, presuming you were not in a specialized area like law and you were a revenue producing entity: which writer would you hire? The one that can hit the ground running with a draft of at least one section of a manual within three days [sometimes within a half day] or the one who takes pride in "I struggled for days before I realized . . . "
MY audience, or at least my hoped-for audience, for Tips posts in this Blog is the people who are not experienced writers, or are but not on the business side, and simply don't have the luxury of spending "days" worth of writing trying to figure something out but must streamline their process.
My personal objective, of course, involves also helping them identify when they are well served to try to convince their managers that the project really should get handled by an experienced professional writer, and try to outsource so someone like myself, yourself in Legal arena, or Susan.
But, as a way of trying to smooth the road on the "must-do's" I'm giving streamlining tips.
Because employers EXPECT streamlining on business document efforts.
Your methodology is not compatible with the average revenue-producing business situation: I've seen even non-pro writers judged harshly and even lose their primarily non-writing jobs over taking the kind of time generating a business document that you describe.
That model works well in Law, and scientific disciplines: but it simply is not a luxury most people who have to write business documents, even who are not pro writers, can afford if they wish to retain their jobs.
Which brings things around once again to the need for focus and for clear thinking at the outset.
I ought to clarify: the Blog, overall, is multi-purpose.
ReplyDeleteMany of the posts are aimed at people who love writing, talking about writing, and talking about the things that feed into writing such as topic niche areas.
However, for the practical tips posts, specifically, they have the purpose of sharing some practical techniques that can help people with their business writing needs: to better accomplish those they must write themselves and also to better identify that point at which outsourcing to a pro makes sense.
Revenue-producing employers are very, very unforgiving about upfront downtime in writing business documents: even for those that are not pros. And indeed, a need to spend "several days" of paid time discerning the proper direction is . . . even for a non-pro writer . . . a firing offense at almost every revenue-producing employer outside of certain specialized fields.
Of course, the data is not as complex as law or science, either.
The Tips posts are aimed at helping folks streamline their process as much as possible: their jobs may depend on that and they may not even know that that is the case because writing a management report may come under "other duties as a assigned" in the job decription.
Yet, it is not uncommon for an employer to regard an employee as "unable to think clearly enough to succeed" if they cannot produce what to a pro writer is an elementary document with a minimum of upfront downtime [not including research, which effort can get concretely documented.]
Your methodology works well when talking about writing methodologies generally, or about methodologies in highly specialized areas like law.
BUT, in business, it WILL get people fired for usisng that methodology.
I've seen it happen to pros and non-pros alike that such a methodology got them classified as "simply not productive enough to retain as an employee. Costing more than you are worth."
And the people who COULD get in that position are the people the Tips on business writing posts are geared towards, primarily.
Heh. Actually, my thesis was in philosophy, where thinking things through at great length is even more tolerable than in legal writing. As a lawyer, I AM generally expected to hit the ground running, and for the most part, it's easier to do so. But with legal or scientific writing, as you note, you are still expected to devote a certain amount of time to "research", which for me also includes the deliberative heavy thinking stage.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that this is less tolerated for other kinds of business writing, where the task is simply to convey information that the writer already knows and understands. Yet even there, I often find it pays to take a few moments, at least, and contemplate how to present the content to the audience, which sometimes even involves scribbling a few lines I intend to throw out later.
Oh, I don't disagree with the taking some time to contemplate. Indeed, I am working on an e-book with a more extended set of tips of ten Keys of how to improve "everyday" business documents, that is, those that people who are not dedicated pro writer must write.
ReplyDeleteIn the Intro, one of the things the e-book promises is they won't even have to do writing, in the sense of "composition," until Key Ten. [It does call for writing in the sense of notetaking, along the lines you mention, in the earlier Keys.]
The first I think it is seven keys are spent on defining elements of the message. Eight and nine are spent on figuring out elements of structure and organization.
Only in Key Ten does it deal with the actual composition process.
And before it sounds like I'm contradicting myself: I am writing the peice as practical but couched in humor, and that's the part I'm struggling to kind of even out. The key content exists, that is why the fact that an Introduction exists is not contradictory.
Basically, I'm trying to fill in holes and even out the humor.
And, harkening back to your "rarely is it wasted," this blog is indeed feeding into my finalizing that document.
My web designer is on standby for a landing page whenever I finish the e-book and choose a final preferred cover design.
Some of the tips offered here tie in to, though do not duplicate, the e-book chapters. And writing the blog posts has given me a fresh and valuable perspective that has helped on the e-book.