Writing Process – Step by Step

Some writers like to outline sub concepts under sub concepts. For me, that’s too much thinking up front—I want to start writing copy. You do what works.

·       Pick one general concept from your outline and pick one sub concept and start writing. Figure each general concept needs some introduction to the sub concepts. For me, the introduction is typically the reason I’ve included the general concept in my manual in the first place—the justification.

·       YOU DON’T HAVE TO WRITE YOUR MANUAL IN ORDER! A manual is NOT a novel, a story that follows chronologically to a conclusion. You can write in ANY order, about ANY general concept, about ANY sub concept. You are simply building the manual at this point. Even an “A-Z” manual can be written “Z-A.”

·       Write about any general or sub concept you want to. I look at my outline and I just pick whatever I want to write about—at that moment. It might be ones I know most about—it might be the short ones instead of the long ones—it might be the easy ones to get out of the way. It doesn’t matter.

I tend to pick easy ones first. Here’s why. If I pick some easy ones and I can get a lot of writing done on these, at the end of the day I feel like I have accomplished a lot. For me, it’s a game of how many words I can write. If I fill a legal pad on the first day, I am more motivated to keep working. If I spend all day on a difficult concept and I only have a few pages to show for my effort, I might get discouraged. For me, I love checking off as many bullets from my list as fast as I can. It’s all mind games and you should play one that works for you.

Sometimes I save the most difficult sections for last, or the sections for which I don’t have everything I need in my head. I find that as I’m writing easier sections, I get ideas for the tougher ones, and I just write down a keyword to trigger my memory later.

If I think of a clever phrase or humorous lines, I’ll write the entire thought somewhere and retrieve it later when I get to that particular section. Clever phrases and humorous lines are tough enough to come by so don’t lose them when you think of them.

For variety, I probably won’t work through an entire list of sub concepts within a general concept. I jump around and just write whatever catches my fancy.

The point is…write, write, write. Don’t let anything slow you down. Start fast, stay fast!