A method for writing content
Sunday 22 January 2012 at 12:00 After some reading I started to realise that I need to have a method for writing articles and creating content, just like producing software or baking a cake. I’d seen it written that content is like a conversation with the reader, so where should I start? I should begin with a topic. Write something in the subject or headline box. Make it a bit questiony. Or answery. Or something.
Right, now I know what I’m writing. What next? Doing some research might help, with a bit of Googling, Binging, and Yahooing. I recommend that when I use my Mac, I should use Devon Agent for it’s natty search aggregation and ranking. I can put a search term in and it goes and finds information from all over the web. But sometimes I use a PC. Ok, it’s been a while since I checked it out, but last time I looked there was a tool called Copernicus that was rather useful and did something similar.
As for writing tools, I quite like MacJournal, and MarsEdit is good too. On Windows, I like Live Writer. I could use a web browser to want to blog. Outlook, Mail.app, or Thunderbird email work quite well. Anything with an autosave. On Linux I have no idea what you could use. (please send suggestions for tools in the form of links to Flickr, photos of names of applications written on napkins. best one gets a gold star).
Well of course I have a writing tool. Pen and paper. In fact it’s a rather lovely imitation Moleskine type notebook with coloured pages and a classic fountain pen (I ditched the pen quickly in favour of something less leaky...blotchy white work shirts isn't a good look). I prefer this to the real thing at the moment for three reasons. Firstly, it’s slightly cheaper. Secondly the coloured pages are ace for sectioning it up. Finally, it’s about twice as thick as a Moleskine so it’ll last longer and so it’ll get replaced less frequently. I think I got it from Rymans on the Strand but I'm not sure. Anyhow, now that I have a title and done some research, what now? First up, put down the traditional equipment, it’s not going to work for what I have in mind. Consider the English Language lessons you had in school, particularly the bit about stories having a start, middle, and end.
But I’m not writing fiction! It doesn’t matter. Everything is fiction unless it’s supported by evidence, and even then it’s open to interpretation and errors of omission. What is true to me might not be true at all. What matters is that you are writing and not just presenting tables of data, so you need to use structure and narrative, therefore it’s fiction. But rather than go down the rather boring start-middle-end style which will lead you into having something like “put water in kettle, boil kettle, pour into mug with teabag, remove bag, add milk; that’s how you make tea” where you have to read to the end to find out what it was all about, you should do it backwards. This also implies that it's a magical kettle that heats the water itself... it's too easy to miss details and forget vital steps.
If I try a end-middle-start approach, I’ll get a “Here’s how you make a perfect cup of tea...” type of linear guide which is great if that’s what I intended, but once a reader skips to the end I have lost them. I doubt that they will ever go back to the start unless they are desperate for a brew. Besides, what is a perfect cup of tea? Perfect by what standard? Anyhow, I’ll have saved them the embarrassment of reading something to the end then realising it wasn’t what they wanted. We all know everyone reads everything to the end.
Ok, I’ve done a whole bunch of words and arranged them into sentences, put the sentences into groups called paragraphs and shuffled these into reverse order. So that’s why a notebook isn’t going to work. Ok, it could if I’d used some scissors. Now all that is left is to merge the one or two sentence paragraphs into the larger blocks, read and edit it make it all make sense again, fix the spelling and grammar and fire in some hyperlinks preferably with a shotgun. Links are awesome. I can add embellishments too which may or may not be true just to make it a bit more excited, never mind the supporting evidence.
Optionally add a nice image from Flickr, and don’t forget to attribute it. Of course this will make for a fairly gibberish article. There are much better ways of writing for the web, and if this article inspired you then you should continue and read more on the subject.
And on that note, I need to have the start of the article here - the TL;DR version. So, this is an article about a method of writing. Would you like to know how to write an article? Read this one to find out.
content, guide, tea, tools, writing in Content Strategy, Content Theory, Guides 
