Ways to Streamline Writing to a Challenge

How to write several articles about a single topic.

Sometimes I have so many ideas it’s difficult to figure out how to organize them. Sometimes I’m asked to write about a topic and I’m not sure what angle to write about.

Both of these are problems every writer experiences in their writing practice.

I’ve developed a way to streamline my writing when I’m writing multiple articles about the same topic at the same time.

I’m sharing it in the hopes that one of them will work for you.

When I have a single topic and want to expand on it from several different angles, I’ve figured out a process that works for me.

One caveat — With this method, you run the risk of repeating yourself, so keep that in mind.

First, I write everything I know about the topic.

Then I use angles I want to expand into or explain further.

For this example, my topic is Coaching Techniques.

First I research various techniques and write everything I know about Coaching in a rough draft.

I pay attention to commonalities.

When you examine a topic in-depth and want to write several articles about it, these commonalities can be shared across the articles.

The trick is to write each article from the perspective of several different angles.

I use bullet points to identify different angles. Here are a few examples of different articles I could write about Coaching Techniques.

• How I use coaching techniques to train my dog (boss, spouse, teenagers).
• The single most important thing my coach ever taught me.
• One important technique for every coach to remember.

I can create a different story for each of these angles, creating a different introduction and ending. These are different for each one.

The middle of the article might use some of the commonalities found in the general information in the rough draft.

Sometimes the commonalities can be bullet points that I can write to in each article.

I’m careful here not to repeat myself. I reword areas to get a different point across.

I also add angle-specific information such as ‘how a dog remembers commands’, or an anecdote from my personal experience with coaching my adult children.

Then I tweak the title and tags and do a final edit.

After I’ve completed them, I usually write an article that pulls them all together in a collection for easy reference for both the reader and myself.

Writing a series of articles exercises your writing muscles.

It’s a great discipline for your writing mind.

Join the happiest writers on Medium and receive a copy of the infamous Word by Word Dictionary, by Tree Langdon and The Crew.