OK, I get it. You see all these people writing books, digital products, blog posts and wonderful flowing posts on Facebook and you think you can’t write like them. You try to write stuff but it’s painful, and what’s worse, your writing confidence is so far through the floor that you think “why even bother?
The first thing I want to say is, the general standard out there of writing quality is not that high. If you are writing non-fiction, people don’t want to be bored to death with endless scenarios. They just want the solution to their problem, it’s as simple as that. You find a problem, you write about solving it.
If it’s fiction you want to write, you can write about the things in life that make people smile, cry, fear or fall in love. The topics are endless. Write about some of the themes that you have had buzzing around in your head for ages. You don’t have to be an Ernest Hemingway or a Jane Austen to make a living from writing.
My point is. You get good at writing by doing it. A wizard doesn’t come magically into your life by flying saucer to turn you into a good author. You have to be bad, not so good or average to actually be good. The magic comes from practice.
How To Write Content – Easy Peasy Magic Steps
So, where do we start?
Find a book, yes, any book. Turn to the contents. This is the list of chapters. You may also see an “introduction” at the front and an “afterword” or “conclusion” at the rear. This is the structure of the book. Take note of this, your book, blog post or social media post should be structured in a similar way.
Keep it simple. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Solve one problem or tell one story with one piece of content. By structuring your book etc to make sense, you are creating an “outline”.
Introduction: Introduce the content – tell them what you are going to tell them.
Chapters: The order and sequence. Tell the story from beginning to end. Don’t forget the order of events must make sense.
Conclusion or Afterword: Tell them what you’ve told them.
Remember: It’s about THEM, not you. They are looking at your content as “what’s in it for me”. Don’t kick off your piece with a long drawn out description of who you are and what you do. They don’t care about you. By all means quickly mention why you are qualified to deliver on this problem, but don’t overdo it.. .
I’ve purposely kept this as simple as possible as i’m obviously writing a blog post, not a book. You may get a lot more knowledge simply by looking at “How To Write A Book” by yours truly.
How To Write Content – Finding Topics To Write About
Earlier on I was talking about using the contents of a book (any book) to try to understand the order and sequence. You can also use this simple tool to find ideas to write about.
Step 1. Choose a chapter from the book that interests you.
Step 2. Read it and find 3 key points.
Step 3. Could you write a blog post or create a video about any of these three points.
Step 4. Could you write a book, a blog post or create a video based on the theme of this chapter?
Most people can write
It’s not so much the writing skills that people seem to lack, it’s the ideas and the structure of those ideas that seem to be the major problem. Once you can organise your thoughts into a logical sequence of events, with practice, you will start to find that you can create interesting content.
I could write a whole book on this subject, so far I have written three books about finding ideas for books, writing them and self publishing them. If you are a complete beginner, it’s not easy, but nothing worth having ever is.
Recap:
A book has most of the information you will need to learn how to write. Check the structure of the book by looking at the contents. This will give you an idea of how the book has been constructed.
Now choose a chapter of interest and find 3 major points within that chapter. You can now use these points as the topics for your next blog post, video, or even book.
What about the chapter itself?. Could you create a book, just on this topic?
It doesn’t matter what your results were at school. If you can write in your diary or write a check, you can probably write a decent post on social media, a blog post or even a book. It takes trial and error but if you really want to do it, you’ll do it.
I hope you liked this post and got some value from it. Please do share it and leave a comment below.
All the best
Keith
P.S People who liked this post, also liked – Self Publishing Book Secrets
Great article! It’s true that many people think they do not have the skills to write anything. Whether that is a blog post, a book, website copy, business-related emails, or something else – it seems that people do struggle a bit to get started. Remember, every author in existence had written absolutely nothing before they actually first started writing. You can learn to write effectively simply by doing it!
Great comment. And very true…