Writing questions

16 Dec 2021

These are some of the questions I ask myself when writing pieces to unpack tech news, explain ideas, persuade a reader, present an idea or a plan, make it more interesting.

  • Who are the readers, and why should they care?
  • What do we want readers to DO after they finish reading?
  • What’s the 1 thing? (or: the 3 things?)
  • Have I done the what” and then the so what”?
  • What are the obvious and the less obvious questions?
  • Who or what is invisible in this story?
  • Who doesn’t this scenario work for?
  • How to show the edges?
  • What if this story went wrong?
  • Does the thing I’m writing about look like something else? (And is this news old news?)
  • Is it the opposite of something else?
  • How can I reverse it?
  • Can I make it absurd?
  • What if I make it mundane?
  • Add or remove something to make it 10% better?
  • Write another draft?
  • Who is speaking?
  • Who disagrees?
  • Can I add some variation?
  • Should context or consistency win here? (usually: context)
  • Is there a journey inside this?
  • Should this go against the wisdom and be Tell not Show”?
  • What if this was fiction instead?

Previous post
Carbon transformation 5 Nov 2021 These days it feels like many consultancies say they do “digital transformation”. Partly this is a marketing thing - it has been a useful
Next post
(Fr)agile 2 Jun 2022 I helped Stripe Partners write a couple of provocations about how “agile” works today, now that it has evolved from a test-iterate