You're Writing: Need to Use the 5 Ws and the H

Writing, it can often seem overwhelming and it can stem from the decision about your communication format but it doesn't have to be. There are a few simple rules about putting things down on paper and you'll recognize that these rules don't restrict your creativity and free flow of ideas. This can provide you with a road map, whether it is a rigid formal outline or an informal listing, this frees up your mind to get to work on deciding how to best complete the task.

Learning a few simple steps about how to plan your writing will simplify the task of actually doing the necessary writing. You'll see that you will basically follow the same steps regardless of what it is you are writing about. It all boils down to determining the five Ws and the H:

Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
How

Determining the answers to these questions will help prepare you to write. The answers help you see what needs to be said, from the beginning to the end. In other words, the answers help form the vision for your work.

You can think of this stage in much the same way, as you would plan a trip. Unless you have an unlimited expense and time budget, you'd never embark on a journey without some preliminary planning. In mastering a few essential steps will let you be more effective, efficient, and produce quality writing, which will result in easy-to-understand communication.

Who?

Who will need to read what you've written? Will that reader be able to determine who wrote the stuff he or she is reading? Your audience, the who, affects the final how answer you'll need more than anything else on your list of preliminary, fact-finding questions.

Unless you're writing in your journal, where the only audience you please is yourself, the first fundamental question you'll need to answer is: Who am I writing for? Once that is settled, you're ready to refine further.

Does my reader already know me?
Is my reader somebody "in house" or will I be writing to somebody outside my center of influence?
Will my reader know anything about this topic?
Will my reader be receptive to what I'm writing or will I need to include any special motivation for continuing?
Will I need to anticipate and overcome any objections or any uncertainty?
Next you need to ask yourself: Whom should the reader perceive as the author of this particular writing?

Should the author of the piece be invisible to the reader? If so, then first-person pronouns, such as 'I' or 'we', should not be used.
Should the reader feel as if the author is speaking directly to him or her? If so then you'll want to use the second person pronoun 'you' a lot.
Should both the author and the reader be invisible? Then only third-person pronouns should be used, with no reference to 'I' or 'you'.

What?

In answering this question helps you better determine the subject about which you need to write. What kind of information do you plan to circulate? Are you writing about a new procedure in your company?

What will your readers already know? You've heard the expression, "beating a dead horse," by including too much information that people already know; you lessen the impact of the new points you're making. Only give enough information necessary to provide context.

When?

Knowing when to set your piece is a very important aspect of writing. Are you setting the piece in the past? If so, be careful to maintain the illusion and not include things that weren't invented yet. Even as innocent as a tea bag could be just as inappropriate in the period of the story. Research the historical context of the period you're writing about to avoid jarring inconsistencies.

Where?

Where, in some ways, is inextricably tied to when, but don't underestimate the importance of setting.

Where are the major events of your story taking place?
Where are they expected to take place?
How does the setting affect the characters and their interaction?

The question of where can also apply to "where" your readers will be reading the piece you're writing. Writing for the Web or other forms of multimedia takes a different approach than writing for a newspaper or magazine.

Why?

No matter what you're writing, you should always have a grasp on the reason you're doing it. This keeps you focused and on point.

Is your objective to provide a set-by-step, systematic guide to accomplishing some task? Then all that's really important is the steps, accompanied by enough information to give it context. Too much explanation bogs down the reader and can bury the point you're trying to make, lessening its impact.

How?

Determining the how for what it is you're writing will help you determine how best you should tell that story.

How do you plan to get your point across?
Do you want to tell a linear story?
Do you plan to use flashbacks to establish the history of your characters?

Keep all of these questions in mind when you're plotting and coming up with the things you'd like to write about. As a preliminary step, you might want to make a checklist and check each off each item as you address it.