Organising writing
In response to a query from Heather, here is my brief guide to organising your writing using my favourite, simple and time tested method.
The art of the bullet point:
When I have an article to write like a press release or even a chapter in a novel I find the bullet point approach works best.
You will need a pen and some paper, or an open Word doc. After a while you may find you can do the process automatically on shorter articles without writing anything down but this is a good way to start and I always use it for novels and when I’m writing anything on a subject I don’t know well.
Fiction
If you are writing a short story or other piece of fiction you may have a lot of ideas that seem random and hard to connect. You probably have one crystallising concept that has inspired you to write this novel, specific chapter or short story which will govern the direction of the text. Write this concept down as a short bullet point. Think what it might link to and write out the options as further bullets. If you change your mind and want to cross out an option, scribble out or erase the point – as with the example below.
· Bernie finds out his wife is cheating on him – how does he deal with it?
· He keeps quiet initially, wondering about his options.
· He sets about trying to find another woman and chats up a barmaid at his local pub.
· The barmaid rejects him – he fumes about his humiliation.
· The barmaid accepts him and he begins a secret ‘double-life’
· Bernie’s wife finds out and Bernie tells her he knows about her affair.
· Bernie kills her and hides the body, ready to embark on a new life with the barmaid.
This will be your first draft of a novel, chapter or short story and it will be easy to see how your ideas interlink and what drives the story throughout. From this initial overview you can make revised drafts whilst keeping an eye on the whole story and making sure it becomes coherent and well rounded.
Tip: I sometimes find I have an idea for an event that ends up being the end or middle of a story. Remember you can plan backwards as well as forwards!
Tip 2: Bullets can also become mind maps and vice versa. Sometimes it helps to have an extra, erratic stage in your planning to help you organise your thoughts.
Fact
This could be a press release or a report for your manager or internal email and so on…. Let’s use the example of a report for your manager as this is likely to be the most complicated and time consuming of the example tasks mentioned.
Write down the following questions and answer them in bullets considering the information provided in italics:
· Who is it for?
Ø Is your boss already familiar with the subject? If not they will need a brief introduction and you must take care to avoid jargon. Do they require it in a specific format or is it up to you to decide if a table, subheadings, graphics etc are required? The way you present the information can make a real difference to how it is perceived, understood and even if it gets read!
· Why is the report being written?
Ø What is the main question, or questions that MUST be answered. This has to be the focus of the whole report or your time is wasted!
· What are the main points?
Ø Go through your source material. Look for facts that are relevant to what you want to talk about in your report. If your source is in print, highlight what you deem to be relevant points. If it is onscreen, select copy and paste appropriate points into a Word doc. When doing this I like to print a copy of the word doc so I can refer to it at the same time as writing my report. No annoying, confusing jumping between windows!
By now you have an idea of your preferred layout and the points you want to make. All you need to do is write it clearly with a beginning, middle and end i.e. introduction, evidence and conclusion.
When you’ve finished read it through and check how well your paragraphs flow. Do they make sense in this order or should you move any? Have you included anything irrelevant? Have you included everything relevant? Are your sentences simple enough?
Read the report aloud if you can, this will highlight any odd words or bad syntax. If you can’t read aloud, read it with a voice in your head as if you were listening to it. Redraft until you are happy, not just with the content but also the order and layout and make sure you’ve answered all the questions coherently.
A quick word about press releases
Press releases need to be brief and the main point of the article must appear right at the top, ideally encapsulated in a single sentence. One or two relevant quotes are also a good idea.
I hope this helps. Please feel free to add comments or tips to this article!
Heather Pictor 14 Aug 09
Very helpful, thank you very much!
Rachel Pictor 21 Aug 09
No problem. More articles soon!
Seat of the pants vs snowflakes / Rachel Pictor 27 Oct 09
[...] can find out more about my own method at Organising Writing. In the meantime I’ll try and keep you updated with my NaNoWriMo progress! You can also [...]
Uncectnok 12 Dec 09
I am always looking for recent blogposts in the world wide web about this matter. Thankz.