Have you ever sat down to write an article, only to stare at a blank screen? I know I have, but I’ve found a pretty simple solution that lets me write a lot of material, quickly and simply. After I find a topic I know about, I just ask myself a few questions and I answer them.

Find A Topic

Consider your reader for a moment. What is he looking for? What’s bugging him? Go to his favorite online hang outs and look for questions. Fire up keyword tool and find out what he’s been typing into search engines. Make a short list of your findings.

Look over your list and see if there’s one idea that you know about. If you can answer questions about that subject without doing too much research, then you’ve found your article topic.

Now, you may find that you’d rather write about other ideas because they seem more interesting. But maybe with these subjects, you don’t have much experience. That’s not too big of a problem; you’ll just have to do a bit of research.

Brainstorming

Take out a sheet of paper and a pen and write down anything that comes to mind about your article…ideas, concepts, words, symbols, doodles and phrases. You’re not writing the article at this point, so don’t worry about making sense or being neat. Be sloppy and scribble if you’d like.

Three Point Outline

Once you’ve dumped a bunch of insights and thoughts onto your paper, take a look at the mess you’ve made. Remember, all these scribbles should be directly related to your article idea. Look for three points that you’d like to cover in your writing. These should be closely related ideas that are simple and that look easy to explain to your reader.

Words, Sentences, Questions

Write these three ideas in a simple outline; just one to three words each. Don’t make it complicated…no more than three words for each element of the outline.

Now expand on each phrase in your outline. Flesh out the idea behind the word or phrase and write a complete sentence.

After you’ve turned each phrase into a complete sentence, change those sentences into questions.

Answer Each Question

Once you’ve completed your questions, answer them.

This preparation takes a bit more time than just jumping into an article and writing free form. But, after the prep work is finished, your article will be far easier to write. All you have to do is react to the questions as you would were someone to ask them in an interview or on a forum.

Using this method, you may find that you’re able to produce more writing in a shorter period of time. You may also find that you have fewer problems with writer’s block.

Write Headline, Intro, And Summary

All that remains is to write the introduction and summary.

I’ve saved the intro and headline until this last step because it’s easier writing them at this stage, since you know exactly what your article is about.

To write the headline, read your article once more and think about the central idea. Connect this idea to your reader. What’s he really going to get by reading what you’ve written? Turn this idea into a reader centered statement or question and you’ll have your headline.

For the introduction and summary, simply state in a few brief sentences the subject matter the article covers. In the introduction, you will use future tense language…”This article is about so and so.” (Just be a bit more creative than that.) And for the summary, you’ll use past tense…”This article covered so and so.”

Include in the intro and summary exactly why your reader should care about your main idea…how this information impacts him or benefits him.

So for your next article, pick three points on a topic you’re familiar with, turn those three points into questions and then answer them. Give the article a simple introduction and summary and move on to the next article. How much easier can this get?