Writing isn’t always the easiest thing in the world to do. Coming up with topics is hard, but so too is making those topics into a blog post. I find myself getting briefings on a variety of subjects all the time, especially when it comes to networking. But translating those briefings into blog posts isn’t always straight forward. When I find myself stuck and ready to throw in the towel I find it easy to think about things backwards.

A World Of Pure Imagination

When people plan blog posts, they often think about things in a top-down manner. They come up with a catchy title, then an amusing anecdote to open the post. Then they hit the main idea, find a couple of supporting arguments, and then finally they write a conclusion that ties it all together. Sound like a winning formula?

Except when it isn’t. How about when the title doesn’t reflect the content of the post? Or the anecdote or lead in doesn’t quite fit with the overall tone? How about when the blog starts meandering away from the main idea halfway through with a totally separate argument? Or when the conclusion is actually the place where the lede is buried like the Ark of the Covenant?

All of these things are artifacts of the creative process. We often brainstorm great ideas halfway through the process and it derails our train of thought. That leads us down tangents we never intended to go down and create posts that aren’t thematic or even readable in some cases.

It happens all the time. In fact, even in writing this post I thought of a catchy title for a subject heading and had to move it when I was done because the heading didn’t fit the content of the section that followed. It’s okay to have the freedom to change that as soon as you see it. Provided you have a plan for the rest of the post. And that’s where the key here comes into play.

Strike That, Reverse It

I find the easiest way to plan a blog post is to actually write it in reverse. Instead of thinking about things from a top-down method, I start off by thinking about thinks bottom up. Literally.

• Start From The End – It’s easiest to write the conclusion of your post first. After all, you’re just restating what you’ve been arguing or demonstrating in the post, right? So start with that. Use it as the main idea of your writing. Always refer back to it. If what you’ve typed doesn’t fit the tone of the conclusion, you either need to support it or cut it.
• Support Your Conclusion – Now that you know what you’re going to be talking about, figure out how to support it. that means figuring out how to break your argument in to paragraphs and logical sections. Note that even though you’re trying to optimize for reading on screens today, you still need to follow basic structure. Paragraphs have multiple sentences that support the main idea. One you have two or three of those arguments, you’ve got support for your conclusion.
• State The Topic – After you build your support for your conclusion then you can write the topic. After all, you just spent a lot of time spelling it all out. This paragraph at the top is where you state the purpose or theme of the post. Don’t worry about getting into too much detail here. That’s what the support is for. Your readers will get the idea by the time they get to the conclusion, which serves to wrap it all together.
• Build Your Anecdote – If you are the type of writer that likes to open with an anecdote, much like a cold open in a drama, this is where you write it. Now that you’ve basically outlined the whole post you can tie your anecdote into the rest of the narrative. You don’t have to worry about building your discussion to support the really cool story. Because you’re adding the story at the end of the creative process you can guarantee that it’s going to fit.
• Title Card – Now that you’ve written the post you can title it. This keeps you from making a title that doesn’t fit the narrative. It also allows the title to make a bit more sense in context. Either because you called the post something cute and catchy or because you made the most SEO optimized title in history to reap those sweet, sweet Google searches.

Tom’s Take

As you can see, posts are easier to write in reverse. When you think about things the opposite way from the restrictive methods of writing you’re much more free to express your creativity while also keeping yourself on track to make sure everything makes sense. Some people thrive in the realm of structure and can easily crank out a post from the top down. But when you find yourself stuck because you can’t tie everything together the right way try looking in a blogging mirror. The results will end up the same, but backwards might just be the way forward.