By: Alireza Hejazi

Writing for the future is an exciting experience (and perhaps a fabulous job), especially for the futurists. In fact, the futurists explain their thoughts and ideas trough writing articles, books and even blog posts. Generally speaking, writing is an effective tool of self-expression and many writers use this tool successfully to express themselves in their related societies. As a futurist, you may be interested in expressing yourself and your experiences among other futurists and futurist societies. There are some simple secrets that may help you improve your writing, especially when you are writing about the future.

In this series of posts at FuturesDiscovery.com, I’m going to summarize some of useful secrets of effective writing for the future and I hope they may be useful for you and everyone who is interested in Futures Studies, Research & Work. In this part, I show the importance of having a plan in mind before doing any kind of writing, including writing about the future and futuristic topics.

There is an old saying in project management, "People don't plan to fail; they just fail to plan." But plans aren't just restricted to project management. Strategic management has its plans. And so does writing articles, books and e-books.

Here are 5 reasons you need to plan before writing your future oriented note:

1. Are you sure your written work will have a reader?

There is no reason to write an article or anything else unless it is going to be read. You're in the futures business (futuring) for a reason and having a reader is central to achieving that reason. One of the things you need to plan and identify during the planning process is your target reader. Who is going to read your article? What are they like? What do they do? There are a number of pieces of information you need to identify your target reader and the market they represent.

2. Are you sure your readers will find your works interesting?

But it isn't enough to just identify your reader. You need to know as much about them as you can. Specifically, you need to know what their problems and fears and dreams are. Then you need to target your article to solve their problems, especially regarding undesired futures. That's how you keep your reader actually reading.

3. Does your article or book have focus?

Really this issue belongs to both the design and planning phases. In design you will ensure that your article or book makes sense. That you don't go off talking about things that don't really matter. In planning, you determine the subject you are going to be talking about. You lock that subject down. You determine how much of the subject you are going to write about. You determine what you aren't going to talk about. This restriction also provides for focus. It allows you to concentrate on only part of your subject.

4. Do you know what you will end up with?

There are a number of alternative futures your article or book can end up in. For example are you looking for a short e-book? Less than 20 pages. Are you looking for a full sized e-book? About 60 pages. Are you looking for a full length book? About 100 pages? Do you want your book to be digital only, or both digital and physical? Do you want to sell your book yourself or are you going to use Amazon or another bookseller? All these will affect what your book looks like and how long it is.

5. What alternatives are there?

E-Books aren't the only possibility for you to publish your works. You could take the same information and turn it into an 8 CD home study course. Or turn it into a DVD series... either in interview or webinar format. Or even in a training format. In fact, why not consider doing it as a live seminar? Each of these alternatives needs their own content map (i.e. design) but they can all work off the same topic map (i.e. information).

Expert writers who write attractive articles or books on the future (usually) have clear plans and follow their own designed plans carefully during their writing endeavor.