Last week, the Textbook & Academic Authors Association published a helpful blog post directed at new (or newish) writers about dealing with a blank screen. The blog post is worth reading.

If you are a writer, what is your writing methodology?

I have several approaches to putting words to paper. Each has a time and place:

• When I wrote my first book, Competitive Intelligence Workbook (2001), I was seeking a way to “make a name for myself” as a market research consultant. I scanned the existing literature about competitive intelligence to identify what type of book hadn’t been written. I identified that there was no book about how to organize and present competitive intelligence data. So, I wrote such a book. I thought through what types of competitor data needs to be collected by competitive intelligence (CI) professionals and created topical charts that could be populated as data is collected with the end goal of analyzing and presenting data as it is collected. The books’ purpose dictated the writing process. The book served a need; therefore, I made a profit on that book.
• In another instance, I found a distant cousin who had been doing family genealogy for twenty years. He hadn’t organized the data he had collected into a centralized format. When relatives would ask him for family history data, he would – in each case – share information on a piece-by-piece basis. I wanted to save him time and effort of continuing to repeat this process with additional relatives, so I started organizing the data he had collected into a single repository. As I worked through this process, I saw the opportunity to take linear, timeline data and incorporate a narrative discussion into the mix. “Here’s why our ancestors were living in this location during X time period.” “This relative was able to move from job to job during the 1860’s because Ireland’s new railroad system was emerging to allow easier travel” (this was before automobiles). As I contacted other relatives, they shared family stories, old photographs, historical family letters that had been kept – all of this was added to “bring the family history to life” in a genealogy book that is now appreciated in the homes of numerous relatives.
• Sometimes, I write creatively – inserting ideas into a document as the creative process unfolds. In these cases, I write in a rather free-style approach and then find ways to make all of the various ideas readable in a collective document.
• When I write something short – such as an email – I think about what the recipient needs to know and how I can present the information succinctly and in a readable manner. I want to hold their attention. I focus on sharing (or requesting) information – get to the point and keep it simple. When I write an article, I consider how to write informatively and to-the-point using a style that is engaging, and authoritative.

I always think about the reader when I write. What does the reader likely to already know about a topic? What does the reader need to know (that’s what I need to write!)? What writing format and style is going to hold the reader’s attention? A facts-and-figures document is going to be written very differently than a novel or a humorous anecdote for a news story. Always: “Is what I’m writing readable? Why and how? How can I improve this document?” Making text readable is the responsibility of the writer – it’s not the job of the reader to figure out what the writer meant!

Kim Burkhardt provides writing services – including ghostwriting, “corporate storytelling,” articles, how-to manuals, and editing – at Burkhardt Writing Services. Contact us about your wordsmithing and storytelling needs.