You have an idea for a paper. Maybe it arrived in the shower, or listening to a speaker at a conference, or halfway through reading somebody else’s article. Maybe you woke up with it. Yay!!! It feels good. Maybe it is A Something.

You want to play with your idea for a bit to see if it has the potential you’re hoping for. And then you open a new document and the idea just sits there. Your lovely idea won’t turn into sentences. It’s stubbornly resisting all of your attempts to realise it.

Sigh. We’ve all been there. The temptation is to start at the beginning and write the introduction. But the introduction is probably the hardest place to begin. Why? Because an introduction has to say what the paper argues, and at this stage you probably don’t know. You have an idea, but the paper is still some way off.

You need somewhere to start.

So here are six starters. They’re quick. And they will help you to sort out if your idea is as good as you think it might be/you hope it is.  You don’t have to show the results to anybody. Starters are not your paper. They are just ways to help you work out what you think before you start on the process of formulating the paper proper.

1. Write a postcard

Pick a friend who isn’t in your field. Write them a few lines about what you’re working on and why you care about it. A postcard is small, so there’s no room to fudge or pile up references. And you’re writing to someone who likes you, which helps.

2. Talk it into your phone

Go for a walk and explain the paper out loud to an imaginary colleague. When we talk we have to put things in some kind of order, and we can’t go back and fiddle with them. Most phones will transcribe for you, so you come home with a rough page. And its something that already sounds like you.

3. Write ten titles in ten minutes

Titles are helpful when they talk about the point the paper is going to make. So make these titles about the point you want the reader to take away with them. Don’t write a title that is just a description of contents. Bad titles count. So do silly ones. Each title is a slightly different take on what the paper is about. Have a look at the one you keep going back to. That’s probably where there’s a real paper.

4. Plan a dinner party

List the five or six scholars you want at your dinner table. Who sits next to whom? Who’s going to argue with whom and about what? And what do you say when they turn to you and ask what you think? This is literature work in miniature. And you’re the host, so it’s your conversation to lead.

5. Finish the sentence

Set a timer for fifteen minutes and begin with “What I really want to say is”. When you stall, write the phrase again and just keep going. Most of these will end up in the bin and that’s fine. But there may be one or two sentences worth keeping, and they’re often the ones about your argument.

6. Storyboard it

Use one sticky note for each move you think your idea paper involves. Put them on a wall or the kitchen table. Shuffle them about. Take one away and see if anything falls over. It’s much easier to move sticky notes than paragraphs, and you can see the whole idea worked out at once.

And you don’t need to do all six of these. One or two starters are usually enough for you to know more about who the paper is for and what it might say.

Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash