David Barnes @ Packt

When you're planning a chapter or a whole book, chances are you have a clear idea in your mind of what the reader needs to know in order to succeed.

"HTML", "Understanding the TisWas Module", "Overview of Taxonomies".

To succeed in writing you try to put yourself in your readers shoes. And readers are far less interested in what they need to know than they are in what they want to do.

So instead of planning chapters that tell your readers the things they need to know, plan chapters that show them how to do the things they want to do. Chapter titles and major headings should all make the reader think: "this book is going to show me how to do exactly the things I want". Just looking at the headings should make the reader say, "wow! my dreams have come true!"

It certainly shouldn't make them feel bored or overwhelmed with a ton of technical jargon, background, and overview.

So what about things that the reader really does need to know?

At the planning stage, forget about them. They will crop up as you are writing, and you won't struggle to work them in.

Identify what the reader wants to do, show them how, get out of the way.

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When you plan a book or a chapter it's dangerous to think in bullets.

Bullets encourage you to think of each topic as a separate item, with no relationship to each other:

Making tea:

• Teabags
• Tea pot
• Milk
• Sugar
• The importance of boiling water
• Loose leaf?

If you plan a chapter that way, you'll end up with a mini-essay on each topic. "Now lets talk about teabags. Teabags are very important. They work by putting dried tea in a porous paper packet". But readers usually learn more from understanding the connection between ideas than we do from the ideas themselves. It's bringing ideas together that gives readers understanding.

We use the word "coherent" to mean "understandable". The origin of the word has to do with "all the bits stick together well" -- the cohere. They connect.

Instead of outlining your book in bullets, why not try to describe each chapter in a paragraph? That way, you can see if there is a logical connection between each idea... and you can start to see those connections right from the start:

First of all we'll look at teabags, which are the most common way of making tea today. We'll see how to use teabags with a teapot and also with a mug. Once the tea is made, people like to take it in different ways -- so we'll look at adding milk and sugar, the most popular ways to take tea. We'll see why it's so important to use boiling water when you make tea, and wrap up the chapter with an advanced tea making technique -- loose leaf.

Now somebody who doesn't know much about tea will understand the progression of ideas in the chapter, and even if they don't know about they ideas themselves they do all connect together in a clear way. it can also reveal gaps in the progression that aren't obvious in bullet form (what about lemon? should we cover making tea in the mug?)

Form a plan that brings ideas together instead of tearing them apart with a barrage of bullets.

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You know I've lost count of how many times authors have told me that the goal of their book is:

To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of using Moodle (for example) in a friendly, example rich way.

(I choose Moodle as an example here, not to imply anything about the excellent Moodle authors I have worked with and continue to work with.)

Even if you're self publishing the book, take the time to give it a big hairy audacious goal.

Here's how to do that.

Step 1 -- Focus on the outcome not the process

Few people -- especially beginners -- buy a book because they want to learn about a tool. They buy books because they want to do something with the tool. There's that old cliche people buy holes not drills. Ask yourself, what is the hole here?

For example, Moodle is about creating e-learning courses. For a reader, "creating e-learning courses" is a more interesting goal than "learning Moodle". So get that into your goal. So our goal would now be:

To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of creating e-learning courses using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

Better, not not big, hairy or audacious yet.

Step 2 -- Remove anything that sounds boring

Big hairy audacious goals are sure not boring. "Principles and practice" sounds boring. Yeah, we know the book should cover it, but it makes me sleepy. So get rid of it, at lest from the goal:

To provide a clear introduction to creating e-learning courses using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

Step 3 -- It's the reader's goal, not yours

The first step is to turn the statement around so that it's not talking about what the book will do, but what the reader will do. So istead of starting with words like "provide" (which is a statement of what you as an author, or your book will do), choose a big hairy audacious word for the reader. Like:

Create!
Build!
Develop!
Discover!
Design!

You might need to put "learn how to" before that magic word, depending on the sort of book you're writing. That's OK.

Another part of this is, remove anything that describes the book rather than the goal. The qualities of the book are important. They are not part of the goal. They are part of how you acheive that goal.

You'll have a short goal now:

Create e-learning courses using Moodle.

That was a lot of work to make something shorter. At least it is a goal now, and one that a reader will hook into. But it's not big, hairy, or audacious yet.

Step 4 -- Provide more information about what you'll build

"Create e-learning courses" is good. But we don't want to create any old e-learning course. We want to create BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS ones. But what will your reader consider sufficiently big, hairy, and audacious? Try to find the words... they could be:

Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses using Moodle.

It's looking better now. But it's not enough to create big, hairy, audacious courses. We also want to create them in a big, hairy, audacious way.

Step 6 -- Talk about the process a bit

How is the reader going to acheive this task? Will it be hard work with lots of brain draining and headaches? That doesn't sound much fun. Let's be big, hairy, and audacious and claim that our reader will acheive this goal quickly and easily, at least:

Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses quickly and easily using Moodle.

Sometimes these statements are obvious and hollow, and only make the goal wordier without making it bigger if you get my drift. Only follow this step if it feels worth it.

Step 5 -- Design your book around that goal

Compare the goal we started with and the one we ended with:

Before: To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

After: Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses quickly and easily using Moodle.

I hope you can see that these different goals imply a completely different focus for the book. The first book is all "let's talk about Moodle" blah blah blah. The second is "let's create some cool stuff". The books will look and feel completely different, and guess which one will be most fun and interesting to read? From your first page, show that you're serious about this big, hairy, audacious goal and don't let the reader go until they've achieved it.

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If you're thinking about writing a tutorial book, before you start grab a piece of paper and make some notes around each of these themes.

They're in no particular order, and as you make a decision about one point it will affect the others too. There are no right answers to these questions -- the most important thing is to take a view, and be consistent.

1. Who is your perfect reader?
   Books are a private affair. Even if your book sells 1,000,000 copies, it will be read by one person at a time. Get a clear idea in your mind of who you are writing for -- just one person. Make sure it's somebody who you like and want to help. If the reader feels like you like them, they will like you.
   
2. Why will readers want to learn this?
   Every effort we make relates to some basic human want. Take a view on how your tutorial relates back to basic human wants and needs. People want money and security. They are curious. They want status. They want more free time. Try to understand WHY your reader will want to learn the topic covered in your tutorial.
   
3. Why do I want to write it?
   Be honest with yourself -- why do you want to write the tutorial? Capture that somewhere. And make sure your wants and the readers' wants are compatible, before you start.
4. Is the goal to "know" or to "have"?
   Some tutorials aim to lead the reader through a process, so that by the end they have the artiface they wanted to build -- the web site, blog, or wiki, for example. The reader's goal is to have something by the end. Other books, including most books about programming, aim to give the reader knowledge that they can use later. The goal is to know something by the end. You might build example programs, but you are unlikely to build the program you wanted as you work through the book. What will the reader have by the time they've worked through your book? A valuable object, or the knowledge required to build one?
   
5. What should the pages to look like?
   You can learn a lot about a book just by flicking through it. Will your book be mainly paragraphs of text? Or would you prefer if it had lots of diagrams, tables, screenshots, headings, bullet points, and so on. Which will be better for readers? Get a picture in your head before you start, so that you don't end up with a book that looks heavy with text, when you wanted something accessible and quick to read.
   
6. What's my teaching method?
   Figure out how you are going to deliver knowledge to the reader. What will your method be? Will you have one long example in the book? How will you decide what order to cover topics in? There are many possibilities, just make sure you've chosen one you like before you start? The best teaching methods have a balance of instruction, explanation, information and "connection" (the bits that show readers why they should care). Every few pages should contain a bit of each.
   
7. What's the high concept pitch?
   A high concept pitch means picking another successful book  or series and drawing an explicit comparison with it. "Jaws on a spaceship" is a famous high concept pitch for a movie. Yours might be "like a Rough Guide travel book, but about Drupal". Then make sure you have a copy of the "comparison" book, and 'borrow' as many of its good points as you can.
   
8. What selling points do I want to appear on the cover?
   Before you can appeal to readers, you need to appeal to customers. Customers decide to buy usually based on just a couple of hundred words that set out the selling points of the book. Try writing 200 words or so that explains to your reader what this book will do for them -- how it will give them what they want. Then when you write, make sure that above everything else you deliver on these promises.

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