01.02 Writing

⇐ Planning ⇐ ⇑ Course overview ⇑ ⇒ Editing ⇒

The goal

It is the goal of the writing step to produce words.
It is not the goal of the writing step to produce good words.

Even experienced writers sometimes forget that the first draft can be terrible. If When you find yourself muttering as you write, This is amazingly awful, keep writing. It’s a completely natural feeling.

The alternative is to spend an hour polishing the first half of of the first sentence. That’s not a good use of your time, and it gives you no way forward. You can’t fix what you haven’t written.

Important

The point of a first draft is not to create something you’re happy with. The point is to create something you can fix.

Writing methods

There are three basic methods for producing your first draft:

Outlining
Brainstorming
Free writing

These are tendencies rather than hard and fast categories. Which method you use can also vary over time. Some people drift from one methodology to another, while others mostly stick to one.

At heart, the three represent different approaches to the relationship between information and its structure. Do you pick a structure first, let the content determine the structure, or throw it all down and worry about organization later?

Even if your instinct is to use one particular approach, it’s worth trying them all. You may find a secret superpower.

Outlining

Image of a medical model of a skeleton with muscles on half of it.

In outlining, you start by establishing the structure of your writing first. Your outline becomes a kind of skeleton. Then you lay the flesh of your document over it, but the outline creates the shape.

Your outline can be very detailed, or just a couple of layers deep. Points in your outline can be complete sentences or just a word or two. There’s no single correct method: whatever works for you is good by definition.

Writing with an outline means you always know what to write now and where you’re going next. The technique also supports writing out of order. If one section is difficult to tackle at the moment, you know exactly what else there is to work on.

Brainstorming

Image of a man explaining a conspiracy theory against a background of clippings connected by strings

Sometimes a body of information has its own inherent structure. Once you gather up all the pieces, the connections among them start to show. Brainstorming means taking advantage of that phenomenon by letting the inherent relationships in your content determine the structure of your document.

Following the natural connections that exist within your material gives your reader a logical path through the information.

Brainstorming techniques include:

Mind mapping: Organizing information in a diagram based on the relationships between different facts. Often created using software.
Card sorting: Writing everything down on index cards or sticky notes, then sorting them categories. Frequently done during sprint retrospectives.

Free writing

Animated gif of a cat typing on a laptop keyboard.

Sometimes structure doesn’t come before any of the content. Sometimes it’s the last thing you create. This is free writing.

In the fiction-writing world, free writing is known as pantsing (writing by the seat of your pants). To use this technique, you just…write. Don’t worry about structure or order at this point. Rearrange things later. This is the 21st century; we have cut and paste.

Free writing is useful when you have something you absolutely do not want to forget. Sometimes that one thing can block everything else out. So write it down! Then a few more thoughts will probably bubble to the surface. Write them down too. Follow your lines of thought wherever they lead.

Once you have the content written down, move it around until it makes sense before you start editing.

Getting unstuck

There’s a technical term for getting stuck writing: writer’s block. What can you do if you’re blocked?

Work on a different section of your document: Many of us learned this one in exam preparation: if you’re stuck on one question, go on to another and come back later.
Change your writing method: Even if you never, ever, ever use a different method than your preferred one, what have you got to lose? If free writing is letting you down, do a little outlining or make a mind map.
Change your medium: Try explaining what you’re trying to say out loud. Grab a pen and some paper and try handwriting it.
Try writing in another language: (if you know one, obviously). Whether you’re switching to your native language or away from it, shifting languages changes how you think.
Change your location: If you’re working from home, go sit in a different room. If you’re in the office, see if there’s a conference room free. Moving to new surroundings can give you permission to start afresh.
Take a break and move: Get up and walk around. Go outside for a few minutes. Grab a cup of the beverage of your choice.

All of these strategies do the same thing: they break a pattern that’s no longer working. If your relationship with the work is toxic, break that relationship and form a new one.

And remember: if your writing is terrible, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. You can fix it at the editing stage.

Exercise

To practice what you’ve just learned, do the writing exercise.

⇐ Planning ⇐ ⇑ Course overview ⇑ ⇒ Editing ⇒