Heyy Reader,

Welcome to the fifth issue of A Way with Words, a bi-weekly newsletter (yes, you'll be seeing me in your inbox every two weeks now) where I share writing and editing tips to help you create clear, coherent, and compelling content. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, subscribe here to get the next edition in your inbox.

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How to create an outline for your writing projects

There’s no more effective antidote to blank page syndrome than creating an outline.

Unfortunately, many writers skip this crucial step, thinking they have everything figured out in their heads, confident that the words will flow when they sit down to write.

What usually follows is that they move at a snail’s pace or get stuck halfway when writing their first draft. I know because I’ve been there.

An outline helps you organize your ideas and gives you a clear roadmap as you compose your piece, making your drafting process smoother. It also plays a part in ensuring that your draft has a logical flow, instead of being a jumbled mess that confuses your readers (editing plays the other part).

So, how do you develop an effective outline for your writing projects, specifically, blog posts/articles?

Step 1: Figure out what you want to say

Your outline is a blueprint of the main points you want to cover, which is then fleshed out into sentences, paragraphs, and sections. So, before you create an outline, you need to have a general idea of what your piece is about.

This means that you should have done extensive research on the topic — read articles and books, interviewed subject matter experts, and scoured through social media sites — to gather sufficient information. (For first-person narratives like personal essays, you should have brainstormed ideas and formed your opinions or arguments to some extent.)

However, not all the information you gather will go into your piece, and outlining helps you sift key points and supporting data that are relevant and helpful. To determine what meets these criteria, consider your target audience and the objective of your piece.

Target audience

• Who are you writing this piece to/for? Try to be as specific as possible. For example, your entire blog may target aspiring and established content creators and influencers. However, a blog post on the topic “How to earn money from your newsletter” specifically targets creators who have email newsletters but are not monetizing their audience yet.

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• What can you safely assume they know already? Using the example above, you can assume that your readers already know what a newsletter is and why they should create one. So, don’t write “Why should you start a newsletter?” as a key point in your outline — that’s irrelevant. However, if your article is titled “How to create a paid newsletter”, you could be targeting creators who don’t have newsletters at all and creators who have free newsletters. In that case, adding “Why should you start a paid newsletter?” as a point in your outline works.

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• What don’t your readers know or what questions will they have? (You can also consider inaccurate information they may believe to be true.) Readers of the “How to earn money from your newsletter” blog post will want to know effective methods for monetizing their newsletter. They’ll also want to know tools and platforms that will streamline the process. Additionally, they may have questions about best practices for newsletter monetization or helpful tips for crafting high-converting email content. These should go into your outline.

Objective

Every piece has an objective for the reader and the writer (or the company/client you’re writing for).

The reader: What problem do you want to solve for them? For the “How to earn money from your newsletter” blog post, the purpose is to help your readers make money from their newsletter, so they can have multiple streams of income and be financially secure. This means every subtopic and key point should fulfil this purpose. A subtopic that says “7 best email newsletter platforms you should consider” doesn’t really meet your ideal reader’s objective.

The writer/company: What business or marketing goal is the content you’re writing tied to? For example, if a course platform commissions you to write an article titled “How to monetize your audience”, their goal will be to drive signups on the platform. This means one of your key points should be “Create digital products like online courses” so that you can easily introduce the company’s product.

If you’re writing for your personal brand and your goal is to demonstrate thought leadership, your outlines should include key points that showcase your unique point of view or information that’s not available anywhere else.

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Step 2: Organize the information in a logical sequence

So now you have your key points that will form main topics, subtopics, and bulleted or numbered lists. But how do you organize your key points in a way that makes sense to your reader?

Posts with numbers in their titles (e.g. “5 Alternative Investments You Should Consider” or “6 Tips for Managing Your Money When on Vacation”) may not necessarily need to be organized in a particular sequence. However, posts like explainers and guides need to follow a sequence; in most cases, it’s the What → Why → How format.

Generally, you should provide a general background before moving into specific details or cover simple topics before diving into more complex ones. For example, if you’re drafting an article titled “How to Create a Product Roadmap”, cover general information like “Types of product roadmaps” and “What to include in a product roadmap” before addressing more specific information like “Steps to build a product roadmap” and “Tools for building product roadmaps.”

When determining the most logical sequence, put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows nothing about your topic, and consider what order will be easy for them to follow.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach to creating an outline. However, I suggest keeping it simple with bulleted or numbered lists. You can format the headings and subheadings in bold too.

For long narratives that are only made up of paragraphs, write one or two sentences (or sentence fragments) that summarize the key point of each paragraph.

Here's the rough outline for the newsletter I sent last week:

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Outlines are only a guide

Outlines are not set in stone so you can always revise and move your key points around before you start drafting.

And even when you're drafting, you don’t have to follow your outline strictly — you can decide to use a different structure. After all, writing is a series of judgment calls.

Happy outlining!

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Thank you for reading! And many thanks to Binjo and Olatunji Victoria for suggesting today's topic. If you have any writing-focused topics you'd like me to cover in future editions, please reply to this email.

If you enjoyed today's newsletter, please forward it to a friend or share the public link on your social networks (get the link here).

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With love and semicolons,

Oluwadunni

P.S. Need an editor or know someone who does? Reach out here.​
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