Designing Your Writing
Late last year, I had my annual business coaching session with Pam Slim to take a look at my personal and professional accomplishments in 2023, and my goals for 2024. (We always wear glitter, and I do a lot of self-reflection, but the main purpose is to set the trajectory for the year to come.)
One of the things that came up last year is that people often asked me to review their writing very late in the process. If I found structural issues, it would be hard for them to address those issues without starting over from scratch. Even if everybody on a project agrees an overhaul is necessary, there's always the danger of running out of time.
Pam challenged me to create writing and editing frameworks, drawing on my experience in instructional design and working with different style guides over the years, and to share it publicly as a resource for the community. While this isn't a fully-fledged style guide, I did want to highlight a few things I wrestle with before I ever type a word.
This is the process that works for me, so I've used I pronouns in here. Feel free to try it on for size and see if anything in here works for you, too.
Determine The Objective
Before I even begin writing, I make sure I'm clear on the purpose of what I am writing. What is the goal? Is there something specific I am trying to get people to do?
There can be a lot of nuance in determining the objective. If I'm focusing specifically on a problem or series of problems, for example, I may need to decide if I want to be descriptive or prescriptive: am I primarily trying to describe the massive scale of the problem, or am I trying to give people solutions to solve them?
Sometimes there is more than one goal. Maybe I want to be descriptive and prescriptive: first explaining the extent of a specific problem, then trying to persuade people to take some time of action, like to sign a petition, boycott a brand, leave a public comment for a federal agency, or download a report. Or, I may want to share information for someone while also entertaining them. If I am trying to do several things, it can be tempting to just start writing, but I find it helpful to instead pause and figure out the hierarchy of these objectives. I may have to sacrifice a bit of one objective for another, and this gives me a framework in which to do so that can help me make decisions later.
Align With the Objective
When I have spent time being thoughtful about objectives, the step of assuring I align with them is easier, especially when I'm running the piece by others. "I wrote a blog series to try to get people to renew their library cards. Do you think I accomplished that goal?" Asking something specific can help people reading my draft give me very specific feedback. Maybe I went on too long about the difficulties of illiteracy, but renewing a library card won't actually address that directly, so I could eliminate or drastically reduce that section. A post explaining how to renew library cards, and when it needs to be done, would help people who already want to do so, but wouldn't make as much sense in an area of focus, if my goal is to try to convince people to do it in the first place.
Write For a Specific Audience
Who is your audience? Are you using the appropriate terms for that audience? It's fairly common to use technical terms that are too advanced for the people one is trying to reach, but there's a risk of coming across as condescending if you oversimplify basic information. On the other hand, you run the risk of coming across as condescending if you spend too much time explaining the basics to a fairly advanced audience.
Action Items Aligned with Objectives
Not everything has to be actionable. That said, if I am working on a piece of writing that does include problems and solutions, it's important for me to make sure the action items I share actually solve the problems I have listed.
In this step I might realize I need to actually change the objective, but more often than not, I need to change the writing to align with the objective I've already identified.
Accuracy is Key
Is the information I'm sharing correct? This is something I lose a lot of sleep over, so I try to have a rigorous fact-checking process, especially when the stakes are high. (It's easy for me to write a correction or update for my own blog. It's not as easy if I'm writing an excerpt for a book or even a newsletter or blog someone else controls.) The most difficult part of fact-checking is that I sometimes have blind spots and don't think to double-check something I "know" is true, so I try to remind myself to "trust, but verify," something anybody who went to journalism heard again and again and again. That means I must trust, but verify what I think I know—it's not just about what another person is telling me.
Afterwards
I analyze the response I got to a post and the types of questions I get. This gives me a chance to tweak action items (if the ones I shared don't work), correct any errors, and explain any hard-to-understand terms. It also lets me know if I hit the mark on the type of people I was trying to reach and what they learned, or did, as a result of the post.