Photography: surfing lesson by kevinzim.

In this post I want to suggest an innovative new framework for developing tips, tutorials, guides, lessons and other kinds of advice writing. I call this the ‘Building Superheroes’ approach.

At its best, it will help you work out what to write, how to write it, and for whom.

Superheroes?

Readers love content which makes them better, and each piece of advice writing aims to contribute to that betterment in some way. What I want to ask is: what would happen if we reversed the process? What if we fast-forwarded to the point of perfection and worked backwards, drawing out each element that helped make a perfect whole?

The superhero is your niche’s ideal of perfection, and it should, as I’m going to argue, be the starting point of all your advice writing endeavors. Let me take a moment to explain what I mean by this.

Building them up

In any profession, in any hobby, in any sphere at all, it’s possible to imagine a person who has achieved perfection in that niche. Such a person — our superhero — would tick all the boxes in seven key areas.

• Most skilled
• Most knowledgeable
• Most productive
• Most efficient
• Most innovative
• Most organized
• Most successful

Breaking them down

The next step is to deconstruct those seven elements into the individual pieces that make up our superhero. I think an example would be useful here, so let’s imagine that our hero is a comic book illustrator, and start with the first element: skill.

• What makes our superhero the best illustrator possible?
  His ability to use light and shade, his ability to draw expressive faces, realistic bodies, unique environments, and so on.

An expert on the topic could probably dream up a hundred more skills that would be necessary before someone had mastered the art of illustrating. Can you also see how each of these ‘pieces’ is advice writing waiting to be written?

Now for the other six elements.

• How does our superhero know everything there is to know about illustrating?
  He has studied great illustrators before him, he’s familiar with many different styles, he’s aware of how the craft evolved…
• What makes our superhero as productive as possible?
  He’s able to stay motivated to produce lots of illustrations, he’s never short of an idea, he sticks to deadlines…
• What makes our superhero as efficient as possible?
  He employs tricks to draw quickly, he never has to search for tools, he develops time-saving techniques…
• Why is our superhero so innovative?
  He’s located sources of inspiration, has developed new ways of thinking and problem-solving, knows how to put his own spin on traditional ideas…
• How does our superhero stay impeccably organized?
  He has a sophisticated filing system, he writes down everything, he keeps his tools organized, he keeps a useful to-do list…
• What makes our superhero the most successful illustrator around?
  He knows how to get interesting and high-paying jobs, he knows how to network, he knows how to showcase his work, he knows where to find opportunities…

The reader as superhero

We built a hypothetical superhero, we broke him down, and now we have each of the pieces that go into making that whole. Each piece we share with our readers is one part of the process to re-building the superhero from the ground up — from nothing.

Now, imagine that each ‘piece’ of the superhero above was created as web content on a site written for illustrators.

In doing that, we’ve moved from our imagined superhero to creating real-life niche superheroes of our readers, one tip, tutorial, guide, idea or lesson at a time.

Implementing the idea

It’s not necessary that you create a site in which every piece of content is a part of the niche superhero (though this certainly has the potential to work), but I do believe it could be a useful way of approaching content designed to make your readers ‘better’.

Sit down and build, then deconstruct, your niche superhero — whether your topic be blogging, kite-flying, journalism, cuisine, architecture, programming, personal finance, or anything else you can imagine. Write down the seven key elements listed above and list what would be required to achieve perfection in that element. What would you need to know in order to cook perfect meals? What would you need to do to become an impeccably organized journalist? How would you build up an all-encompassing knowledge of architectural styles?

Every bullet-point answer is a piece of your niche superhero, and an advice article (or two, or three) waiting to be written. Starting from the end product and working backwards also has several impressive advantages:

You are not blindly connecting the dots between advice articles but building towards a whole with each piece that you write.

You can generate dozens of ideas in one sitting with this method.

Readers will find it difficult to ignore a site that is slowly but surely helping them become niche superheroes.

When you’re almost done, the value of a site containing all the ‘pieces’ is going to be immediately apparent to loyal readers, new readers and to your niche as a whole.

… Yet you are never done. You’ll never reach a point where the pieces of your superhero can’t be deconstructed anymore. There are always new ideas, new components to be drawn out. Even the greatest superheroes can be made better.