Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012

Create a preview
Make your idea specific
Focus

I really hope I haven’t made this too confusing.

Sometimes I read back what I’ve written, and it makes sense to me, but I wonder if it’s gonna make sense to you. As a writer, you’ll have that same worry — a lot. (That’s why I mentioned it.)

Let me simplify all this.

This chapter is about turning your idea into a story (or, if you’re writing non-fiction, finding a tangible shape).

That’s it.

It’s no more complicated than that.

In order to write your story (or your book, or article or thesis or whatever), you’ll create a Focus Plan.

But in order to do it, we need to be clear on where we’re trying to go. We need a way to stay on track.

So we’ll start with what I call a Preview.

A Preview is the overview of how you’re going to present your idea. If we’re talking about screenplays, I might call it a “pitch” or a “synopsis.” It’s the whole story in one paragraph or one page. But it doesn’t have to be that formal, so I’m calling it a Preview, instead.

Basically, you sketch out your story, like we just did with Shawshank. Not just in your mind, but physically on paper. If you’re writing a book, maybe you’ll sketch out the main points of each phase, and how you’re going to present the information. Or the hook, or the steps of the metaphor you’re using.

By putting it on paper, you give yourself something to work with. You capture the idea, and start molding it.

Personally, I like to use blank sheets of paper, and physically sketch it out. Mine looks like the doodling of a three year-old.

It’s going to start like this (I’ll draw a line across a page going upwards) and then come together like that (I’ll make a big circle). And then each of the points will be here, here, and here (and I’ll draw squiggly lines where the points will go). I’ll plop down the story points, or maybe list images I’m trying get across, in the order I think they’ll go.

The shape it takes is entirely up to you.

The point is to create a Preview — a rough sketch of the end product. An overview of the story, the book, the proposal, the biography, whatever. It’s the way you’re expressing your idea.