The thread
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The thread

I never write anything without the thread in mind. What is the thread? It is the throughline of any blog post, essay, or book chapter. Start with the end in mind. What is the point? Write the title and the lede based on that. Then, the setup. What is the problem? What is have I…

The two things you need to write great drafts efficiently

The two things you need to write great drafts efficiently

Writers often complain about the painful process of drafting substantial content, like reports, white papers, or book chapters. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your could be creating great content rapidly and enjoying every moment of it. You just need two things: Planning. And writing time. Writing in flow versus endlessly struggling, typing,…

Authors, don’t make a fetish of intermediate deliverables

Authors, don’t make a fetish of intermediate deliverables

I use a variety of tools to plan writing projects. These are usually based on intermediate deliverables and milestones, like plans and treatments. They’re great tools — but they’re only tools. Optimizing the intermediate deliverables is a wasteful fetish. Useful planning tools It’s a big mistake to begin a book without careful planning. Here’s a…

The problem with most authors is that they start by writing

The problem with most authors is that they start by writing

In my experience, there are two types of authors: those that start with planning, and those that start with writing. Call them planners and pantsers (seat-of-the-pants writers) if you want. Both ways work. But the people who start with writing suffer more. If you’re okay with suffering, go for it. But you should at least…

5 reasons that authors should write a fat outline for every chapter

5 reasons that authors should write a fat outline for every chapter

You know it’s smart to plan book chapters before writing. So don’t start by writing. Start by crafting a fat outline — you’ll save yourself anguish and improve your work with editors and other collaborators, too. What’s a fat outline? It’s a skeletal layout of what’s going to be in the chapter, laid out in…

No bad sentences

No bad sentences

E. B. White wrote some terrible sentences. So did Malcolm Gladwell. But you never got to read them. They didn’t publish bad sentences (or least, not very many.) Want better sentences? Prepare, then write, then edit. Prepare Don’t start writing by writing. Writing without preparation is like trying to pave a road without smoothing out…

Contributed op-ed case study (3): Planning and writing
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Contributed op-ed case study (3): Planning and writing

Writing can be easy, provided you prepare properly. I’ll show how that applied to the op-ed I placed in the Boston Globe last Sunday. Let’s start by talking about two types of writers, planners and pantsers, a concept I borrow from fiction writers. Planners are the people who map everything out ahead of time, in…