Back to Basics: 6 Methods to Right-Size Your Next Writing Project
[Ep 227]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHave you ever written a blog post and found it's growing too big and unwieldy? Or you set out to develop a book only to realize you don't have enough material to fill a 45K- or 50K-word manuscript?\xa0\n\n\n\nIf so, you're struggling with Goldilocks Syndrome: your idea is too big or too small for the project\u2019s purpose and the way it\u2019ll be published or shared with the world.\n\n\n\nYou\u2019re trying to cram everything you know about, say, computers into 800 to 1,000 words. You\u2019ve got the makings of a book when you set out to write a blog post. How do you narrow it to a reasonable length?\n\n\n\nOr you\u2019re trying to stretch the idea of cooking with crackers into a book-length project, but it\u2019s not enough material. How do you broaden the concept to produce a compelling cookbook?\n\n\n\nWhat does it take to land on that just right length for your next writing project?\xa0\n\n\n\nThe 6 Right-Sizing Methods\n\n\n\nTest these six methods for narrowing\u2014or broadening\u2014your next writing idea and you\u2019ll land on the perfect length, approach, and slant to suit this project\u2019s audience, purpose, and medium. In the process, you\u2019ll gain clarity and solidify your ideas. \xa0\n\n\n\nThe six different methods to right-size your projects are:\n\n\n\nTimeLocationCategoriesAudienceIssueStructure\n\n\n\nLet me describe each one, starting with time. When does it mean to right-size your project using time?\n\n\n\n1. Time\n\n\n\nYou can use time to focus on decades, a stage of life, or an era. For example, depending on your topic, you might limit your idea to focus only on the 1950s, only early childhood, or only on the Middle Ages.\xa0\n\n\n\nIf you\u2019re writing a memoir, you\u2019ll limit the scope of your book to a specific time in your life in which you experienced struggle and transformation.\n\n\n\nIf you\u2019re writing about plants, you could focus on the planting stage.\xa0\n\n\n\nIf you need to broaden your idea because it\u2019s too narrow, you can simply expand from the 1950s to the first half of the 20th century or from early childhood to Kindergarten through sixth grade.\n\n\n\n2. Location\n\n\n\nLocation is another way to land on the right size for your project. You could focus on geography, meaning anything from a continent or country all the way down to a city landmark, neighborhood, or business.\xa0\n\n\n\nBut you could think of location on an object or a space. The gardener may want to write about an area of the garden or the location on a specific plant, such as the roots or petals.\n\n\n\nIf you\u2019re writing about flight, you could focus on small airports in a given state or areas within a specific airport.\n\n\n\n3. Categories\n\n\n\nWe can also use categories to think through an idea we find to be too big and broad or too small and narrow. Find some commonalities and group those things that are similar.\n\n\n\nIf you\u2019re the garden blogger, you could focus on one category\u2014vegetables\u2014instead of flowers, trees, or groundcover. Dial down even more by categorizing nightshades or spring vegetables or weeds.\n\n\n\nThe blogger who writes about planes can narrow to categories such as biplanes, jets, or airliners.\n\n\n\nBy focusing on a small category, you easily narrow your idea. And then you can broaden by including multiple categories.\n\n\n\n4. Audience\n\n\n\nFirst-time authors often want to write a book for everyone in the whole world. That\u2019s not realistic. The first step in right-sizing will be to narrow your audience.\n\n\n\nFor a specific project, you could narrow even further, selecting a sub-group within your target audience.\n\n\n\nMaybe you write for parents, so to narrow the topic you outline an idea for parents of preschoolers or parents of teens.\xa0\n\n\n\nSo you can use a subgroup of your broader group to narrow. Including more types of people in your audience will broaden the idea and inform how you write it.\n\n\n\n5. Issue\n\n\n\nMany topics have issues baked into them: gun control, parenting philosophies, technology use.\n\n\n\nWriters may take one side or another on these topics to automatically right-size their idea. Addressing only one issue related to their ide...