Most stalled communications projects don't have a writing problem. They have a brief problem.
When someone asks me to help with a message, newsletter, announcement, or invitation, they expect me to start writing. Usually, I start with five questions. The first twenty minutes of almost any project look the same. Those conversations establish what the work should accomplish, who needs to receive the message, and what constraints could affect the process.
Preparation is important when documents have to move through multiple reviewers and decision-makers. When the goal is unclear, or the approval process is discovered too late, the writer can end up reworking a draft to resolve decisions that should have been settled before writing began.
Here are five questions worth answering before you write anything.
1. What does "done" look like?
A newsletter is a format, not an outcome. The same is true of a flyer, press release, speech, or social media post. The more useful question is what should happen after someone encounters it: someone registers, replies, donates, changes a plan, or understands a decision.
Be specific enough to be wrong. "Raise awareness" can't fail, which means it can't succeed either. "Fifty people registered by the 20th" can. Without a clear outcome, revisions go in circles, because one person wants more detail, another wants it shorter, and nobody has agreed on what the piece is for.
Before writing your draft, ask: After reading this, I want the audience to ______.
2. Who has to approve it?
The person requesting a message, the people reviewing it, and the person with final approval are often three different people. If you don't identify those roles early, the project can stall just when you think it's nearly finished.
At the New Orleans City Planning Commission, I learned how approval chains work. I also learned how to move work between departments, leadership, and the public. The lesson was consistent: find the final approver early. Ask plainly, "Besides you, who else will see this before it goes out?"
People often don't volunteer the answer, because they don't think of a boss, a board, or a partner as part of the process until a draft lands in front of them. When the approver appears in the last moments, they rewrite the work without knowing what the earlier drafts were trying to do. The approver is part of your audience. If you can't say who has to approve it, you're not ready to write it.
Ask: Who has the final say, who reviews, and how much time does that take?
3. Who is this actually for?
"Everyone" isn't an answer. A flyer for current members and a flyer for strangers are different documents, even when the event is the same.
Start with the person whose response matters most, and ask what they already know and don’t know, what might stop them from acting, and what they need to hear first. This doesn't mean excluding everyone else. It means establishing a clear primary audience so the message has a point of view and a logical order. Once that foundation is in place, you can determine what additional audiences need to understand and whether separate versions are necessary.
Ask: If one person had to understand this and act, who would it be?
4. What has already been tried?
Before reinventing the wheel, review previous forms of communications and assess what did and did not work. Earlier announcements, past campaigns, the email nobody answered, the version that got shelved. Each leaves behind reader expectations, internal opinions, and sometimes a phrase everyone has quietly agreed never to use again.
It's the same instinct behind my Heritage & Legacy work. Before searching for an ancestor, I need to find what is already known and what has already been researched. Otherwise, I spend time repeating work or in the wrong branch, tree, or rabbit hole.
Ask: What do we already know from past efforts, and what have we learned to move forward?
5. Which deadline is real, and which one is just comfortable?
Some deadlines are fixed: an event date, a filing, a funding window, a news cycle. Those deserve the rush. Others exist because someone picked a Friday.
Ask who set the date and why. If the answer is "it just felt right," you've found a comfortable deadline. Deadlines can build momentum, but they still need to leave enough time for all the necessary steps of research, draft, review, edit, approval, and distribution.
The answer isn't to reject ambitious timelines. It's to build the timeline around the actual requirements of the project, including the time other people need to do their part.
Ask: What makes this date necessary, and what has to happen before we can meet it?
Put it on one page
Before anyone drafts a word, try filling in these blanks:
The outcome: Done looks like ______.
The audience: This is for ______.
The approval: The final approver is ______, and the review process includes ______.
The history: What’s already been tried: ______. What we’ve learned: ______.
The timing: The real deadline is ______ because ______.
Here's what a filled-in version might look like for a small nonprofit's year-end appeal letter. It's an illustration, not a real project:
Done looks like 40 past donors giving again by December 31.
This is for someone who gave once, two years ago, and hasn't heard from us since.
The final approver is the executive director, and review includes the board treasurer for the financial figures.
Already tried: a mass email last year. What we learned: it asked for money before telling a story.
The real deadline is December 20, because the letter has to reach mailboxes before the holidays.
That's one paragraph; it takes about ten minutes, and it answers most of the questions that would otherwise show up as edits in week three. If you can't answer one of these questions, that doesn't necessarily mean the project must stop. It means you've identified a conversation that needs to happen. You can clarify the audience with the person requesting the work, locate previous materials, or confirm the approval process before investing time in a draft.
CLOSING TAKEAWAY
The writing is the part everyone can see. The preparation is what makes it work. The next time a project lands on your desk, answer these five before you open a blank document.
Which of the five questions has been easiest to overlook in your work?
WORTH NOTING
Vysyons Communications helps individuals, families, organizations, and communities preserve stories, strengthen voices, and build connections through Communications & Media, Heritage & Legacy, Events & Engagement, and Editorial & Publishing.
If you'd like to run these questions against a real project, Vysyons offers a free 20-minute Discovery Call: www.VysyonsCommunications.com/discovery-call. If pieces like this are useful, subscribe to get new Vysyons Journal articles by email: www.VysyonsCommunications.com/blog.