A lot of people assume that good writers always start at the beginning of their documents and write straight through the whole thing until they reach the conclusion at the end. Not me. I start at the easiest place first. Sometimes it’s the beginning. But often it’s not. Here’s why.
Writing is hard work, and getting started is often the hardest part of all. If you feel like you absolutely have to begin writing your document at the very beginning, you’re going to make it even tougher on yourself. When you’re facing a new writing project, whether it’s a one-page letter or a 20-page report, the most important thing you can do is quickly get some words on the page. Any words. Anywhere.
It’s like walking into a meeting with a group of strangers. If you sit in silence while everyone else is talking, it gets harder and harder to break in with your comments. If you say something at the beginning of the meeting, you’ve broken your personal silence barrier, and it’s easier to engage in conversation. The same thing happens when you’re writing. The longer you sit there staring at a blank page, trying to think of the perfect opening, the harder it is to write anything at all. But as soon as you break the silence barrier and get some words on that page, the rest of your thoughts flow more freely.
So, to get started, write the easiest part first. Maybe it’s just a bullet list of product features. Maybe it’s the call to action at the end of the page, asking people to come to your next event. Often, it’s a section of simple facts that will end up as a paragraph somewhere in the middle of your document. And yes, sometimes it might even be the opening paragraph. The important thing is that you start where you can – as soon as you can.
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And as a staff writer, what was my answer when really up against it? Type every fact or comment as a paragraph on a separate sheet, throw them in the air, and do a bit of re-ordering when they landed. Another was to fan out the cut paras like a hand in cards and sort them.
I’ve still been known to print out a sheet, cut the paragraphs into strips and shuffle when I really have trouble with how to start.
And of course I’m sure I’m not the only writer who writes a first paragraph just to get going and then finds all that is needed is to delete that and the piece is ready to go.
When I was training journalists, I overheard one telling the others about the man he’d just interviewed. I called him in, handed him back his story and told him to write it the way he’d just been telling his mates. That sounded a lot better than how it written it for me.