Why write when you can solve?
New writers get discouraged easily, because of the daunting volume of work involved. I understand this now more fully than when I began down this path. To be a good, or even great writer takes time and patience. There are no quick and dirty solutions, and even if you are lucky enough to have a unique command of words, putting them together into something useful is a different skill entirely.
I made this mistake early on. I wrote in the most flowery and altogether inaccessible way because I thought that was good writing. I ignored the overall goal, producing something that makes sense, in favour of focusing on the minutiae. I was more caught up in nailing a line, than producing a coherent body of work.
I found a solution, ironically, by looking at my writing as a problem. Nowadays, instead of being overwhelmed by the amount of work I need to complete, I keep a mental (and sometimes physical) list of the steps necessary to finish the task. Whether it’s a comic script, a play, or a technical manual, the concept is the same.
If you’re having trouble getting started on a project, try the following:
Don’t sweat the small stuff
As important as it is to ensure that the user knows they need to install DITA-OT 2.1.2, and not 2.1.0, this chunk of information is useless without context. Your reader might be very interested in that moody character’s back story, but if she doesn’t change throughout the story, who cares? It is all too easy to focus on small details like this, and miss the overall flow of a document or story, don’t fall into the trap.
Less is More
Remember minimalism? It might bruise the ego a little to abandon your beautiful sesquipedalian words, but refining the content is an important part of the process. An old adage says to “kill your darlings”, and it holds true. It’s not enough that you really like a word or phrase, if it adds nothing, remove it.
Break the task into logical steps
Avoid trying to take everything on at once. Instead, break the writing task down into manageable chunks. For example, “To complete this manual I need to write an introduction and take the user through the deployment of this software. I will create the skeleton of the document, and then I will walk through each topic from the user’s perspective.”
Solve the Problem
Use the logical steps you have identified to build a “solution” to your “problem”. Don’t assume you have solved the problem until you receive feedback from your reader. It’s easy to assume that you know best, but you don’t, your customer does. Whether that’s a bookworm reading your story about a boy who was made out of cheese, or an engineer who is thumbing through your guide to building a rocket, the principle is the same. If your writing pleases nobody but yourself, that’s OK, but don’t expect to make a living out of it.