Written By: Sukanya K Samy
Contrary to what people say, writing skills can be developed
and honed. All you need is passion to express yourself in words. I was always a
reader, voraciously read what I could get my hands on. And that is how my love
for words emerged. I then started participating in essays and debates in school
and slowly and steadily learnt to express myself clearly through writing. There
are many things you get to learn about your own self when you start writing. I
learnt that I would like to inspire people who read my articles. I learnt that
I write because I want to leave an impression and that I am not too patient
when it comes to writing but very patient as a person. I know that I don’t like too much attention
by making my blogs public but I am slowly forcing myself to write more in
public. Writing for me, above all is a soul-searching exercise.
So if you like words and you want to express yourself, and
haven’t tried your hand at writing before, here is a small capsule sized
writing process. Just a checklist you can stick up on your desk to see that it
is not all that difficult – all you need is to follow a systematic process that
works for you.
1.
Objective
– have a clear objective in mind. Why are you writing this piece? Is it to
provoke a thought/debate or provide the audience your perspective on the theme?
It is imperative to get the objective first and then write accordingly.
2.
Target
audience – As with the objective, the target audience should be decided
before-hand. If you are writing professionally then your tone and language will
be completely different from you writing on your personal blog.
3.
Need
– What does the target want to know? If you are a marketer, then your target
audience will be a marketing community who might want to know more about
relevant themes in marketing. It is important to identify the need and the gap
that the target wants to read about to make it personalized for that community.
4.
Themes
– Once you have identified the need that you are trying to address, themes become
all the more important. Pick a theme that is trending and find a white space in
that area – something that people have not written about. Even it has already
been covered and you have a different way in which you want to express, go
ahead and complete it.
5.
Content
– Keep your content simple, make it personal, use analogies and give examples.
6.
Platforms
– With many publishing platforms in the market now, it becomes all the more
important to figure out where you want to publish. If you are you writing an
important piece on ‘Future of marketing’, and then you might want to pitch your
ideas to editorial magazines which will give you instant global reach. If your
goal is to something fast and shared with your peers, LinkedIn might be good
platform for you.
7.
Plan and
promotions – An extremely important step, plan your articles and promotions
around them. Make sure you use your network to spread the word. Use social
media extensively.
What steps do you follow? Is your writing process different from mine? I would like to know how - write to me @sukanyasamy.
About Sukanya:
I am a marketing professional and love looking for new ideas and creative implementation techniques. WORDS that are my passion - I think I have the ability to see patterns, express them in writing and I have been doing that since childhood. A self-professed efficient multi-tasker, a sucker for horror movies and fiction, I love to try my hand at everything from arts to cooking to adventure sports. You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter @sukanyasamy.
What steps do you follow? Is your writing process different from mine? I would like to know how - write to me @sukanyasamy.
About Sukanya:
I am a marketing professional and love looking for new ideas and creative implementation techniques. WORDS that are my passion - I think I have the ability to see patterns, express them in writing and I have been doing that since childhood. A self-professed efficient multi-tasker, a sucker for horror movies and fiction, I love to try my hand at everything from arts to cooking to adventure sports. You can follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter @sukanyasamy.
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