Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Three questions I use as a basic framework for writing.

One of the questions that people ask me about writing is:

Where do you start?

When asking this, they are seeking a basic framework, a place to start when they have a blank piece of paper and need to write something on it with a pencil. I do have a place to start and I use it some 98.6% of the time. I use three questions:

1. What?
2. So what?
3. Now what?

These were given to me by a friend some 15 years ago. He probably doesn’t remember the occasion, but I did. The questions expand to:

What? What is it that you have to say? For example, for this post, what I have to say is that I use three questions as a basic framework for my writing.

So what? What does this have to do with me or my situation? You may be a writer or someone who is trying to pass important information to someone else and are struggling to put it together. These three questions may help you.

Now what? Okay, I understand your point and what it means to me, so now what am I supposed to do? Practice. Try these questions. If they work for you, use them. If not, forget them.

I pass these three questions along to people who are reporting project status to me.

Tell me what happened: There is a leak in the conference room this morning.

Tell me why I should care: We have a Vice President from another company who may partner with us on a key project visiting us this morning and we were to use the conference room for the meeting.

Tell me what you propose to do about it: I have a repairman on his way. We have replacement ceiling tiles on hand. We have also found another conference room and we have someone cleaning it and preparing the audiovisual equipment.

(The above items about a conference room are actually happening this morning as I write this post.)

There is a fourth item or question that I sometimes toss in. It is:

gut

The gut item asks,

How do you feel about this?

What emotions do I have while writing about this?

Per the conference room example, I feel all chewed up inside. Why did this have to happen today? Then I can address these feelings. Why am I upset about rain? Rain happens. Calm down. And by the way, let’s get someone in here soon to inspect the roof and other possible leaks. Winter is approaching.