# Before You Start Writing

1. *Know Your Audience*  
    Who are you writing this blog post/report/article for? Knowing your reader helps you with deciding a number of factors, from the language to be used to the extent of detail you need to add.
2. *Research, Research, Research*  
    Read up. Talk to people who have personal/working knowledge of the subject. Knowing your topic well makes a huge difference in the kind of storytelling you are doing. Even if it a personal anecdote, it will be good to do enough research so that you can add links for anything that needs extra reading or is of special interest.
3. *Write Your Synopsis*  
    This is your **guiding light** and your **anchor**. Every time you are stuck for content, this is what you need to return to, for inspiration. If you are not sure whether your article/blog reads right, return to this synopsis and you will get an idea of what needs to be set right.  
      
    [![Synopsis.png](https://wiki.aikyamfellows.org/uploads/images/gallery/2024-09/scaled-1680-/synopsis.png)](https://wiki.aikyamfellows.org/uploads/images/gallery/2024-09/synopsis.png)  
    
    1. Keep your synopsis short, not more than *100-150 words*.
    2. You can do a *bullet-point* style synopsis, if that helps you think better.
    3. Cover the following points in the synopsis: **who** you are writing for, **what** they will take away from this piece (do you want them to learn something/take action?), the **broad idea** of what you are trying to cover and all the **important points** you need to touch upon within this topic.

##### Here is an exercise for you:

<p class="callout success">Think of a topic that you want to write about, in a blog post of about 300-400 words. This can be about a program you attended, an interesting book you read, a conversation that made you think, a wonderful person that you met, the last good movie you watched... Anything works.  
Create a **100-word synopsis** about this topic.  
</p>

*[![cat-full-stop.png](https://wiki.aikyamfellows.org/uploads/images/gallery/2024-09/scaled-1680-/cat-full-stop.png)](https://wiki.aikyamfellows.org/uploads/images/gallery/2024-09/cat-full-stop.png)*