Oh, back on topic. That’s how I’ve been writing my talks lately as well - as one big story that I then illustrate.

Thanks for the advice! Along with a few other folk I know, I’ve started to use mind-maps to structure the things I write. The dis-jointedness of it doesn’t seem to matter, as I’m writing specifications, scoping documents and manuals, and people just read the bits they want. (Or maybe it does… I will reflect at a later time).

*HOWEVER*, I have ambitions to do more creative writing, and I’m glad I read your post!

I write a few speeches and presentaions and I use the technique of topics/headings/subheadings, but I always make sure at some stage to “flatten” my structure, and then write the actual the actual “dialogue” in as a big block. I may keep the original structure as a set of notes for myself, but in order to deliver a “speech” or a presentaion, it needs to be one continual…. “thing”.

That said though, from my own experience and others I’ve talked to, you can spend 80% of your time working on the “structure” of a speech, the actual words tend to be pretty easy to write. I was even taught to pause for 20 seconds and write three bullet points when asked to jump up and do 60 seconds of impromptu.

Anyway, thanks again! I think you’ve saved me from a pitfall! Look in your local Dymocks for my global almanac of stews and casseroles (in the year 2011 or so).

Peter & Gene. My experience is similar to yours. An outline is necessary to get a book contract, but it’s not the best way to write it. I managed to write some chapters one by one as I have a chunk of procedural material (do this, then this). But apart from that, I didn’t know what was in the book until it had written itself. But that’s how I work - I don’t know what I think until I’ve said it or written it down.

I’ve made the most progress when I’ve thrown out my outline. After a couple of rocky chapters I realized that I wrote the outline to get a book contract, but the outline itself wasn’t a great book.

The other thing I discovered was that I had to write the whole book, more or less, before I knew how it would turn out. Turning things in chapter by chapter has been basically impossible.

Both professions can teach each other something though, and it’s odd to see you do the exact opposite of what I do. When planning content, I tend to start with an outline which is transferred into a set of headings which themselves should flow. Then the content is plugged in but written to always be relevant to it’s position.

Hard, ain’t it!

Good luck with the rest of the book, it’ll be on my shopping list, that’s for sure.