When you write an article or blog post, do you stay focused and on topic or do you wander off onto tangents and risk sidetracking the reader? Now I’m thinking of this topic because I attended a writing group last night where one writer read three pages of a piece with some wonderful descriptions and great lines, but no focus. I was there to offer critiques, but afterward, I wasn’t sure what to say about this one except to recommend editing for more focus. I couldn’t really speak to the subject because I wasn’t sure what it was. Actually, I would probably have recommended some planning before tackling the subject, but we were already past that stage.
Now, readers are somewhat forgiving. They’ll let you get away with the occasional side remark or interesting story tidbit, but if you use them, you have to bring the topic back in focus. And the two techniques I recommend for constructing a focused piece are those I wrote about up in that first paragraph — planning and editing.
Planning a piece in advance is essential because it helps you determine not only what you’re writing about but if you have enough material for the length that you want to cover for the piece or if you need to do more research. Bloggers often skip this stage believing that to sound more natural and chatty, blogging should flow unplanned from the keyboard to the website. But sometimes that sounds too natural as the topic wanders off on tangents and becomes lost. Planning can help even the natural writer.
And then there’s editing. I’m amazed at how many bloggers skip the editing step. It’s as if they’re afraid to stop and breathe between creation and publication. Or perhaps as if everything is written for a tight deadline and there is no time to even read through the piece before showing it off to the world. Give yourself a little breathing room and plan some editing time in your day. Step away from the computer for a minute and then come back and read the piece over again. Ask yourself — what do I expect the reader to come away with. Then ask yourself if you’ve accomplished that. Have you written a focused piece?