A Behind The Scenes Look At Creating Various Forms Of Written Content
Today as I was contemplating what to write for Day 6 of my write a post until the end of the year goal, I …
Today as I was contemplating what to write for Day 6 of my write a post until the end of the year goal, I received a Tweet from @anirudhbb asking me the following two questions: How long do these write ups take? How do you decide on the topics? Thanks for the inspiration!
So I thought in today’s post I’d give you quick behind the scenes look at my process for creating written content.
But before we begin a GIANT disclaimer: this is NOT my first rodeo. I have been doing this since 2007, which means I’ve learned a lot of techniques over the years that have helped me work faster and smarter. If you are just starting out with writing or blogging, expect that it will take some time to ramp up.
OK onwards!
Topics
Most of my posts are based on a conversations I’ve recently had or something I’ve been thinking about for awhile.
I spent a lot of time just thinking prior to writing the post. Then when I feel like I have some well formulated thoughts and know counter-arguments, I will spend about 5–10 minutes creating an outline.
The outline lets me structure my thoughts clearly, figure out what is essential and nonessential, and include the stories I want to tell.
I then decide on a format for my post. I have 2 to 3 popular formats, but I’m always experimenting with new ones.
Editing
There’s no substitute for having an editor. Editors are amazing people, who can transform convoluted sentences into clear ones, and polish up your prose. The best editors also care about preserving your voice, and will work hard to retain it through revisions.
I don’t always have the luxury of time to send me posts to an editor, and end up cheating from time to time by either editing my own work or having friends proof posts.
I also work with copywriters. I love working with them because they operate at this higher level of writing that I aspire to be at someday. This higher level is all about understanding and hooking an audience in a narrow frame of time, which is an immensely valuable art that takes a lot of practice.
Short & Sweet Posts
The first is straight up advice in a sort of poetic style. As you’ve noticed in this post and this post.
My poetic posts are usually 500 words and take me about 30–45 minutes to write. Most of my time is spent going back and figuring out what the first sentence should be, how it should logically flow, but also making sure there is a good rhythm for the reader. When I say rhythm I mean emulating the emotional responses people usually have a sequence of thoughts.
I’ve developed an intuition and understanding to do this because I talk to a LOT of people weekly: advisees, students, and people who just want to pick my brain over a phone call.
If you’re going to be a writer you either have to have first-hand experience or you need to understand someone else’s.
I think it’s valuable to share my experiences, but it can also cause people to think my outlook is skewed. So I spend a lot of time having conversations with other people to understand what they have experienced.
Some may tell me I should guard my time more, but honestly, it’s really worthwhile to have these conversations.
These take less time to edit, around 15–20 minutes, and I do the editing myself.
From start to finish (not counting the time I’ve spent thinking about the topic and post) I’d say I probably spend 60–90 minutes.
Longer Posts
If I don’t think I can succinctly convey a message in a poetic post, then I’ll opt to provide a personal anecdote or someone else’s anecdote.
Here’s an example of the personal anecdote post and here is an example of someone else’s anecdote.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the context I want to present, how the anecdote fits into the context, what is the complete story, and what I can cut out.
Finally, I think through all the objections and gotcha moments to make sure it’s valuable to a reader.
These types of posts take me longer to write and edit, like 2–3 hours, and are usually 800 to 1400 words.
I don’t usually have my editor review posts unless the topic is really dense or it’s a guest post.
Books
I have authored and self-published two books. The first one in 2014 and the second in 2015. They are both around 300 pages. Not your run of the mill e-books. I spent a lot of time editing, proofing, designing, and finding a quality printer because I didn’t want them to have the stigma of being a self-published book.
I have a really tight process which I’ve adopted from my software engineering background. Each book took me 6 months start to finish. However, I cheated, because the content in the book is based on courses that I have taught multiple times. Hence, I didn’t have to spend years researching, because I had already spent years testing the content out students and collecting feedback to know what did and didn’t resonate with them.
I’ve written up the entire process for self-publishing my first book in this post. In it, I talk about how long it took me to write, edit, and print. I also share additional details around the cost, marketing tactics, and a launch kit I put together to help others fast track their launch process. There’s also a video interview with me in the post covering what it was like to self-publish for the first time.
You’d think the second book would be easier, no? I had a co-author, and that helped take a lot of writing pressure off. However, I spent more time creating promotional content than I did writing the book! Many of the techniques I used for the first book didn’t pan out for the second. Lesson learned, and if you’re curious about the techniques I used, you can read this post.
Style and Tone
I don’t want to be formulaic. I know that readers want consistency with sprinkles of variety, so I am always playing around with the style of my posts along with the subject in them.
I read a lot both contemporary and older works to see how people engage their audiences, and I’m a fan of fiction and nonfiction. Here’s my reading list (it’s a little outdated).
I probably read more nonfiction these days. But I make it a point to indulge in fiction periodically because I think fiction writers are really good at pacing, sentence structure, and all the ingredients needed to capture capturing someone’s attention for pages.
Writing is a craft like any others. It takes time and practice. And I’m always curious to learn from others process’, so if you have one, share it with me below!
