 Don’t be intimidated. Be prepared.
Some projects simply require a ton of text. It could be a book, a website, an annual report, a catalog, an advertorial, an instruction manual, or a long-format video script, to name just a few. In any case, the final product must be consistent, cohesive, on-message, and compelling—which is hard enough to do when you’re working on short-form projects. How, then, do you make small work out of a big assignment? Get your marching orders straight. In a perfect world, you’ll have all your ducks in a row before you begin. That means all the input, the layout, the intended visuals, a style guide, a brand voice doc, and so on. It rarely happens. Indeed, the bigger the project, generally the more teams there are contributing to the input, meaning that the client has their hands full wrangling them all. Your job: Be flexible, patient, and uncomplaining. Which can be really hard! That said, it’s also your responsibility to get a full reckoning of what input is required, what you have/what you’re awaiting. This way, you can… Carve, carve, carve. This, incidentally, is the step that will do the most to contain your blood pressure. Looking at the project from 30,000 feet, you’ll be able to see how it can “fall” into components/bite-sized chunks of work. Just how big is one of these chunks? Depends upon your resources. If you can devote, say, six person-hours per day to the project, then that’s your unit of measure. How many of those chunks are needed to do the whole project? Be sure, of course, to figure in contingencies/late arrival of input/some parts being harder than others/additional research or interviews required, etc. And that’s not including revisions, after you’ve submitted your first draft. All of this lets you… Set a pace. Let’s say the project will require 600 person-hours. And you can devote six person-hours per day, as postulated above. That, obviously, works out to 100 days of turnaround time. All of this is important because you’ll need to work up a calendar in order to keep the project on track. Set milestones. Share them with your client. Touch base frequently. Sometimes a project will fall behind; sometimes new elements get added by the client; sometimes you can get ahead of your projected pace. Keeping the lines of communication open throughout the project will eliminate surprises, and let you prioritize and manage your time and resources better, e.g., “Will this section require late-night hours and/or weekend work?” Get help. By their very nature, projects like these are often too big to do alone (at least within a reasonable timeframe). So that’s when you’ll need to task your team with the different chunks/assignments. Your job is to manage them and make sure they’re clear on their marching orders/deadlines, and hew to the style and voice that’s required. In that regard, you’re less writer and more editor/project manager. Not sexy, but essential. You can also carve up the assignments creatively. You may have some people with more of a creative flair; they might be best suited to working up multiple versions of headlines and subheads, while others crank on the long-form copy. You’d be surprised how efficient this approach can be, applied properly. Get more help. Large projects may well transcend the ability of both you and your internal team. In that case, don’t suffer. Pick up the phone. Bring in a reputable outsider and dump off as much as you want: from the long form, to the creative, to the interviews, to the project management. We do this kind of work all the time; contact us today and let us help you make short work of that long-form assignment.
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