STEP TWO

Know Where You’re
Taking Your Readers

Novelists, scriptwriters, and poets aren’t the only ones who face writer’s block. We business writers sometimes struggle to figure out what we’re going to say and how we’re going to say it. If you have a get-started system that works for you, feel free to skip this section. But if you spend too much time staring at a blank page or screen, check out the strategies below.

Start with a Few Simple Questions

Begin with what you know. Answer these questions to define your message:

1. What is the situation/problem/issue that is prompting you to write?
2. Why are you writing this document?
3. Who is going to read it?
4. What do your readers need to know?
5. What action do you want your readers to take?

To see how these questions help you begin writing, let’s say that your company’s travel costs are too high and the boss has demanded that costs be reduced. That’s the answer to question 1—the problem that prompts you to write. The answer to question 2 is this: to inform workers in your division that travel costs must be lowered and to explain how the company plans to cut costs. The answer to question 3 (who are your readers?) is colleagues and others who report to you. There are several things that your readers need to know (question 4):

• Travel expenses rose 40 percent—$200,000—this year, compared with the same period last year.
• Our division must lower travel costs by at least $150,000 next year.
• Working with two other division heads, I’ve come up with three strategies to achieve this goal:
  • videoconferencing sales meetings every other month
  • booking plane tickets two months ahead of travel to take advantage of lower fares
  • arranging for group rates at hotels specifically serving business travelers instead of at higher-priced properties.
• By November 15, we need to submit a written proposal for reducing travel expenses to management.

When your readers have taken in that information, you want them to do the following things (question 5):

• Review these strategies and give me your comments, changes, and additions by November 1 so I can submit the final proposal to management on time.
• Call me if you have any questions or if you’d like to meet in person to discuss the proposal.

By answering those five key questions, you’ve virtually drafted the entire document. I know it’s not always that easy, especially with complex documents; but answer the questions in many cases and you’re on your way.

Have a 60-Second Conversation with Yourself

No, I’m not asking you to act weird and talk to yourself out loud in public (well, not without a cell phone). But, like many people, you may find speaking to be much easier and more natural than writing. For one thing, you don’t have to worry about punctuation and spelling when you talk. Just take those words flowing naturally from your lips to the keyboard.

Consider this scenario: You’re about to start writing a memo to all senior management, including your boss, summarizing this morning’s meeting about strategies for BC Industries, one of your firm’s most important clients. This was a meeting your readers didn’t attend. While staring at the blank screen, you get a frantic call from your boss.

If you’re stuck getting started, write the words you’d use in a conversation.

“Listen,” he says, “BC Industries wants me to be on a conference call in 60 seconds and I don’t know what happened at this morning’s meeting. Tell me now—what did we decide and what are the next steps?”

You’re on the spot! But that’s good because your supervisor’s demand for the bottom line in 60 seconds forces you to get to the point and omit the unimportant details. Most likely, your thoughts would go immediately to the critical information you know he wants, and the words would flow naturally, something like this:

Well, there it is. Get text to flow naturally by approaching a document with the same urgency you’d feel if your reader was on the phone or standing beside your desk waiting for information.

EXAMPLE 2.1

Outline for a Plan to Outsource Training

Though most people reading what you write don’t have to act on your information in 60 seconds, they’re probably impatient. So have that imaginary conversation and put those spoken words onto paper or the screen. They form the core content of the document you’ll write.

Develop an Outline for Longer, More Complex Documents

We’re not breaking any new ground here. The traditional outline you learned somewhere between grade school and high school can still work well, especially for longer documents like proposals, plans, and reports. Start with general categories and then incorporate more specific ones. Example 2.1 shows the development of such an outline.

If roman numerals bring up unpleasant memories of dreaded assignments, use any combination of bullets and numerals that’s clear to you. Remember, readers will only see your final document—not all the drafts you use to get there.

Free-Writing: Your Personal Brainstorm

Another method for getting started is called free-writing because it frees you from all those constraints of writing that can stifle your ability to crank out the right words—spelling, grammar, sentence structure, organization, and your own judgment. When you free-write on a topic, you just unleash your thoughts and get them down on paper as quickly as you can. What you write can be cut, organized, and better expressed later. What matters is that you dump out all your thoughts about the subject—and then feel good because you started!

Here’s what free-writing might produce for a proposal to purchase new software:

Enough already. I’m so tired of hearing everyone complaining about the old software package. It’s pretty well documented that it stinks. We gotta buy a new one. Tom said that 75% of the staff has complained about it. It’s so very outdated that it has trouble with a basic program, there’s absolutely no way we’re gonna last even two more years with it before it blows up or something. Now we’ve got a shot a replacing it with a new software system

To free-write, just write down your thoughts on the topic.

that I think is kind of awesome in what it does . . . but like with every new thing in this place, any improvement we got resistance, so if I want it I gotta write this proposal that I’d rather not do, looking at everything it’s a nobrainer. I’ve seen the studies from other firms who’ve used it, they all say the staff works 20% more efficiently, all say they can do functions they couldn’t do before. And it wouldn’t be that hard to get the implementation going, vendor says two weeks for the complete installation. I know how we’ll divide up who does what. Joan (training manager) negotiates and works with the software vendor and will set the schedule for training. Bill (operations manager) knows this stuff well and will supervise the installation. This is all after we get George (chief financial officer) to get the funds approved. I hope he gives us the okay fast, we’ve gotta get this new system operational as soon as we can. Training will take some time but first we’ll do group among everyone during the first 30 days, follow-up later that’s individual. That’ll happen in the second, third and fourth month. And the efficiency we get means freeing up the staff for other tasks that always get delayed now. There’s no way the execs won’t buy into this, but I shouldn’t say that, they hate spending money unless you show all the facts.

Yes, that’s a really rough draft, but it’s a start.

To create order from the chaos of your free-written document, read it over and pick out the key points you need to communicate to readers. When put into a logical order, these points will form your outline. Using the free-written paragraph above, you might create the following outline:

Now you’ve got the framework from which to write sentences and paragraphs and arrange them in a logical sequence.

Use a More Structured Process

Some of you may feel more comfortable with a clearly defined stepby-step process that you follow from topic development to finished document. And some writing instructors (not me) believe that writers should follow the same process for virtually every thing they write. However you feel about that, a structured process can be an excellent tool when completing certain documents, especially the longer ones. If you want a process to follow, see the steps outlined in Tool 2.1. Modify the steps for your own style.

TOOL 2.1

A Structured Process for Preparing Your Document

Your Turn

You can use many strategies to get started, including answering your own questions, using a simple outline, and free-writing. To practice different strategies, try these exercises:

1. Think of the next document you need to write. From your answers to the questions below, develop a simple outline.

   • Why are you writing this document?
   • Who is your audience?
   • What do your readers want to know?
   • What actions do you want your readers to take?
2. Read over a document you wrote within the past six months. Imagine that you had just 30 seconds to explain the key message to a colleague waiting on the phone. Come up with the words you’d use and say them aloud. See if you got to the point faster in your imaginary conversation than you did in your document.
3. Review the free-writing below and see if you could develop a practical outline from it. Remember that some points

should be omitted and that some ideas may be repeated at different points of the document.

The Next Step

Once you’re comfortable getting started on a document, you need to write in a way that’s easily understood, using as few words as possible. That’s what we’ll cover in Step 3: Be Explicit, Clear, and Concise.