Once you have sorted and selected your topics, you are ready to put the inside walls together. The chapters and topics have formed the foundation. This exercise will take some time to complete but it should be done before any writing is started.
Start with the first chapter. Look at the first topic in your list, does this topic warrant being the first one? If not, re-sort your topic list so the most important one is at the top.
Write a sentence about this topic. The sentence should state something significant that makes this topic important enough to write about. For example, your topic may be “”Office Requirements”. The sentence you write could be similar to “When first starting your home office, there are certain pieces of equipment that you should purchase”.
This sentence describes the importance of having the topic in the book. You need to go through every single topic in your book and do the same thing. I have sometimes found that I need to change the topic because I cannot find anything that is truly significant.
Once you have finished writing your significant sentences, go back and change the sentence to a question. The reason for this is to create a question that you need to answer when writing about your topic. In the example above, you might change the sentence into the following question “What pieces of equipment should I buy for my office?” This question opens the door for discussion when writing about your topic.
Changing the significant sentence into a question for each topic gives you the framework for writing. You may ask if you need to do all the topics before beginning to write. I recommend that you do so because when you start writing you will not want to have stops while you organize the next chapter.
Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at BizMechanix.com BizMechanix.com. You may also view her latest publications at BlueprintBooks.com BlueprintBooks.com. Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker theNationalNetworker.com theNationalNetworker.com.