Outlines can be an effective way to organize the content of your leaf. You may have written an outline for book reports in high school and essays in college. It turns out this same method of organizing your writing can be a great tool to help you get started with your writing.
To get started, open up a document in Word, Google Docs, or whichever document program you have access to.
Write the title of your leaf at the top of the document. This can be a working title subject to change.
Now, come up with the main points you'd like to discuss in your leaf. These are broad terms that cover the subject, usually a single word or short phrase. These will become your section titles. Label each one in Roman Numerals: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, etc.
Next, start a bulleted list underneath each main point. Add the details you'd like to write about the main point under the bullets. You could even have ideas on which types of sections you'd like to use, and products you'd like to feature.
You can also start another bulleted list underneath the main point/topic details to organize further fine details and ideas.
Microsoft has a page offering free downloads of outline templates to get a quick start.
After you've fleshed out the entire outline, you might find that you have too much content for one leaf. In this case, you may want to break up the content and start another leaf (or several leaves). This organizing can help you get going faster, and can streamline topic ideas, sections, titles, images, and the entire writing process. It's also much easier to eliminate ideas in an outline than to delete an entire section on a leaf.
If you start off writing in a document, how do you organize it?
Comments
A structured outline is always best; it does not have to be super formal, but it needs to be your roadmap forward. There is also a "feel good" bonus for some folks as they cross-off completed outline entries; kinda encourages them to see that something is happening.
If you have a very clear mind, you can sometimes build a usable outline in there. Otherwise, it's best to write it down. I use scraps of paper and spit it out in a Word document and then "fix it" as I dump it onto the column/blog/lens/leaf.
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Bill and Jade:
You two write outlines? That is impressive.
I just dump my thoughts directly into the modules. Then I go back, edit, and publish. Sounds easy. But it is not. It can take me several hours to finish a good leaf. Then after some time if the leaf is becoming successful, I will update and improve it. If it is not successful, I may tinker with key words to try to improve traffic. Or I may just let it go....
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