5 Ways to Start a New Piece of Writing

Starting is always the hardest part. That’s especially true about writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a novel, an article, or a blog post. Even if you have the best idea ever, there is still a hesitation in writing those first few lines. That perfect piece of writing that you have in your head is bound to come out a sloppy mess. But that’s why it’s called a rough draft. And over the years, I’ve utilized several techniques to help me face that jumping off point. Here are 5 ways to start a new piece of writing.

1. The stream-of-consciousness draft

Say an idea has just come to you. It’s great, exciting, and it just happens to come to you when you have the time and energy to write it down. That’s a rare occurrence that you need to take advantage of. That’s when I recommend the stream-of-consciousness technique.

Open your laptop or notebook and just start writing. Don’t worry about structure, spelling, or even making sense. Write down every thought as it comes. Write until you run out of thoughts. Don’t stop to separate paragraphs or even to correct a typo. Get your thoughts down as fast and complete as possible.

When you finish, you’re going to have a piece that requires a lot of editing and cutting, but the hard part is done. There is no blank page to stare at or stressing over how to word a particular sentence. Now all you need to do is revise, revise, revise.

2. The outline draft

The outline draft is how I constructed this very post. The idea came to me late at night. So, I typed up each of the five writing methods and added some bullet points with thoughts about each method beneath them. Now, I’m filling in the details around those thoughts.

An outline is like stepping stones that help you to cross over from one point to the next. Some writers outline entire books before they write them. They know exactly where they want the story to go and what beats they want to hit along the way.

This is a great method to feel better on those nights where you don’t complete any writing but have a jump start on a piece for another day.  You can finish the day feeling more productive, and your writing time will go much faster with less editing to do afterward.

3. Writing out of order

Introductions and conclusions are a big hang up with many writers. Introductions especially are what cause us to procrastinate and put off writing at all. But who says you have to start at the beginning?

This is even true of writing fiction. My second book was written completely out of order. I started with the scene that inspired me to write the book in the first place. Then, I went from there.  Sometimes I wrote a beginning chapter, sometimes I wrote a chapter that takes place toward the end of the book. For some reason, this method worked for this particular story. Ideas kept coming regularly, just enough to keep my momentum going.

Of course, this means a lot of editing, just as with the stream-of-consciousness technique. But it’s better to work from something than nothing. And procrastination is the worst enemy of a writer. Besides, editing is another way we can avoid procrastination when we have nothing new to write.

4. The research method

Maybe you don’t have all of the information you need to write a new piece. Maybe you want to write about a topic that you need to learn more about first. In this case, spend your writing time doing some research. Take notes, or copy and paste the information you find into a document that you can review later. Make it count as writing time.

As you read through your research, an idea may begin to form as to what you want to write about or how you want to tackle this research topic. When I wrote my Andy Warhol article for Ok Whatever, I spent a lot of time researching the topic before I wrote a word of the piece. Once I had all of my research, I began to pull out information that I wanted to incorporate into the piece.

Then, I interviewed my sources, and pulling from their quotes became a side project on their own. I then built my paragraphs around these quotes along with the facts I had found from other sources. As a result, I just had to fill in the blanks with my own personal writing style and a smoother structure.

5. The edit as you go technique

It’s true that you can genuinely draw a blank as you’re writing. You can’t force words to come out if there’s nothing there. And if you lose momentum, you’re going to end up wasting your time staring at a blank page or screen.

The other techniques I have mentioned above advise you to ignore the editing process. This technique asks you to embrace it. Write until you hit a wall. Then, go back and start tightening up sentences, change your wording, and fix your spelling and grammar.

While you edit, new ideas might come to you. It’s a two steps forward, one step back technique, but it’s still productive, and it’s especially helpful when you have a word count limit. This technique will keep you from getting too wordy and having to do a lot of cutting later.

It will also keep you from procrastinating when it comes to sitting down to edit the piece. After all, writers need all of the motivation we can get.

What tips do you use to help you start a rough draft? Leave your answers in the comments below!

Buy it!

Buy a copy of this Simple Rough Drafts Workbook, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Pin it!