When You Can’t Find Writing Ideas, Explore Your Fashion Sense

Trying a few different hats and shoes may be the solution

One of the biggest challenges for non-fiction writers can often be finding the next topic to write about. Searching for that next winner that you are not only comfortable writing about but which will also resonate with the reader and add value to them, can be a daunting task.

However, whenever I’ve found myself stuck with no inspiration for that next burning issue I want to write about — I do a simple two-step process that always works for me. Here’s the simple framework that involves shoes and hats!

Step 1 — Put Yourself In Your Reader’s Shoes

Disconnect from your writer self, and take a look at things from the other side of the equation. Who are your readers? What do they most expect from you? What do they most expect from anything they read in general?

When I do this, I often find myself figuring out a certain type of topic and reading material that I would love to read. Often it is the most basic, lounge-time no-brainer reads such as “These Ten Celebrities Who Struggled in Their Early Years” and other times it is the most contemplative issue about “Why America Has a Racism Problem, And What You Can Do About It” but the commonality is that when I see from a reader’s lens, there’s always something I know I’d love to read.

Step 2 — Put On Your Corresponding Writer’s Hat

One’s your reader side has given you an answer on what to write, it’s time to deliver a masterpiece. If you’re anything like me you don’t really have a niche but try to write about anything and everything that catches your fancy, or makes you feel challenged as a writer.

The answer that you got from the reader this time might be a totally new realm that you’ve never explored, or it might be something you write quite consistently about. However, whatever the topic, it will require you to go into a certain writing mode. So be prepared to switch on that side of you and do the groundwork you need to get you going. Some topics require research, others require introspection — but each topic can be tackled if you lay the groundwork right.

Let me help concretize the concept with a few examples.

The Shoes — The College-Goer Choosing A Profession

You’ve come to a decision that you want to write for the readers that are late teens, early twenties and are looking to figure out what they want to do with their life. The decisions to be made are plenty — what area to choose, conventional or unconventional job, passion or money, close-to-home or explore-the-world, so you have a lot to play with when handling the issue — but it is a responsible one as you may be intentionally or unintentionally shaping careers and lives.

The Hat — Lessons From a 20-yr Old You, Learnings from Mistakes

For such a topic, the best way to think about conceptualizing this is that you need to bring in personal experience. If a 15-yr-old attempts to write about what it is like to experience old age, it is unlikely to get much traction.

Similarly, if a 35-year old bachelor with no kids tries to write about teenage pregnancy, I am unsure if there’s much the audience will get to learn from.

Hence, when tackling such a topic, go down your memory lane and think of the lessons you learned back when you made your career choices. What were the helpful pieces of advice you got, and what were those that you wish you’d never heard?

Were there mistakes that you made that others can learn from and avoid? Add a touch of personal experience to the wisdom you impart, and it will not only give you credibility but will also make it relatable for the reader.

The Shoes— The Curious Mind Looking for Some Wow Facts!

Not all of us turn towards reading to figure out life or to learn a new skill. Some of us are just bored out of our minds and want something to help escape that boredom.

In these cases, it is often a bit of trivia that people are looking at. Or something that just arouses their interest and leaves them with a “wow — I never knew this!” This is the reader looking for entertainment more than anything else and will click into anything that’s clickbaity — not that I’d ever advise you to write clickbait!

The Hat — Think of Lesser-Known, Yet Mind-blowing Facts

This one will often involve a lot of research, or exploring your own memory of facts or historical anecdotes that you may have heard but are certain are not as widely known.

The trick here is to pick something that is a lesser-known thing, so your reader is highly unlikely to have already been aware of it. Are you going to talk about some “firsts” or about some hidden secrets of a celebrity? Or do you plan to bust a myth that is widely believed but far from the truth? There are a variety of different ways you can tackle this — but the trick lies in balancing the “catchy” with some “substance” — remember the biggest thing that readers hate is something with “promise” but lacking in delivery — because the end result is a mere disappointment.

And disappointed readers seldom come back.

The Shoes — The Reader Looking for Beginner’s Guide

The demand for such content is enormous. The number of people that search the internet for “How to” questions is probably more than any other type of search, outside of current affairs or celebrity searches.

The important thing here is picking a topic that you’re able to comfortably write about. There are thousands out there who are looking to do just about everything you can imagine — learn the guitar, invest in stocks for the first time, start a running regime, hitting the gym for the first time, learning a language, traveling solo, and the list goes on.

The Hat — Your Own Expertise and Experience Counts

This one goes back to your own personal comfort and experience and where you can really help the reader.

Are you someone who’s picked up running late in your life and yet gone on to run marathons? Have you been able to travel to different countries backpacking all by yourself? Do you have a wealth of wisdom to impart on how to make money from the stock market?

Make sure you pick something where you ideally have experience and can leverage that or something you’ve done in-depth research on. I am more likely to read about fat loss from someone who’s gone through the journey, rather than someone who’s always had the perfect toned body and can only talk from theoretical expertise.

There are numerous other examples that you can look at which I haven’t detailed but I’ll leave you with a few more combos that often work for me.

• The wisdom-seeking reader; write summaries from tried and tested winners — books, authors, movies, theories
• The empathizing reader; write about your vulnerabilities to connect at an emotional/human level
• The News-reader; write about the most current topics, news, talk-of-the-town themes

In short, there’s never a shortage of ideas for writing, you just need to try a few different ways of looking at it before you find the winning formula!