Getting Technical Writing Topics

One challenge I’ve heard many writers complain about is knowing what to write. So, how can you get writing topics? I’ll share some tips in this article.

Before sharing more tips, here’s one major tip:

The more you build/work on projects, the more ideas you have to write about.

I’ve experienced this first-hand. Sometimes it’s almost like I don’t have ideas, but when I go back to my projects or projects at work, ideas—small and big—begin to pop up in my head.

The idea here is the more you work on projects, the more you discover bugs, hacks, useful methods you never knew of (maybe from google search or Stackoverflow), and this sparks new ideas to write on. I’ll share more details about these ideas in the following sections.

Discovered a new feature in the language you use?

Write about it. As subtle as that feature may be, it’s an article idea. Be it an array method, a new data type, a new feature in browsers—these are all writing ideas.

I have two good examples for this:

• Web Share API: I discovered that browsers have a sharing API that supports native sharing apps on browsing devices, and I wrote about it. Many people who didn’t know about this feature before learned it through my article.
• JavaScript String.Replace() Example with RegEx: If you’re a JavaScript person, you’d know that the replace method on strings is used for replacing specific characters in a string. The day I discovered that instead of passing characters like “abc”, I could use regular expressions, it was a writing idea for me, and I shared it.

The more we work on projects (as highlighted in the first point), the more we discover new ways of doing things we never knew before. It’s something to write about

Did you finally understand what you’ve been struggling to understand?

As we go about our tech life, some things are unclear. Sometimes, we go to Google to read articles, but nothing helps us. And maybe it takes a lot of research before the subject makes sense. That’s a writing idea. Instead of having similar people go through that process, you can create that concise article yourself.

Here are some examples:

• RSS Feeds like I’m 5: RSS Feeds have been unclear to me for a while. I’ve tried reading a few articles on it in the past, but it didn’t make sense. Until recently where it started making sense. It was a writing idea for it. At least one person can gain from the knowledge shared.
• Subject vs. BehaviorSubject: If you’re an angular person, this term will make sense. But whether or not, the idea is, I struggled on an Angular project and went through websites online to understand Subjects. When it finally made sense, I wrote a simple piece on it.

Did you just fix a bug you struggled with?

If it’s a misspelled variable, of course, you won’t write about that. But say, a bug you didn’t even understand why it was there in the first place. Think of things like NPM install problems. Something that ought to just work or you don’t know how to solve.

These are things to write about. Before finding a solution, you probably went to Stackoverflow or ran through many articles. That’s an idea. Anyone who runs into such bugs can quickly solve them using your article.

I have one example for this: Dealing with DJVU ransomware. I had a bad encounter with a computer virus in 2019. After going through many websites and articles and applying different solutions, I shared those solutions that helped me.

A few weeks ago, someone was affected by this bug, came to a group, and asked for a solution, and I shared this, which I have written since 2019.

Your experience with tools, frameworks, languages, with tech

As tech people, we explore different areas from time to time. For some, it’s new frameworks. For others, it’s new tools or new spaces. These are things worth writing about.

When I first touched Angular, I wrote about My first experience with Angular. Of course, this article wouldn’t show so much professional experience, but it’s a good example of sharing as you learn. Someone may want to explore angular and come across this article, and that way, they’d be aware of what to watch out for.

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Do you have any tips you’d like to share? Kindly let me know.

Writing is like a diary where you put your thoughts as you learn. So it doesn’t matter what you learn. It’s worth sharing. There’s someone interested out there who would find what you write helpful.

Conclusion

In all these tips I’ve shared, I’m not insinuating that my articles are the final stop for people trying to understand a topic. It may still be unclear to some people, but here’s one thing I’ve learned over time:

We all write differently. We have different writing styles and different ways of explaining ideas. And this means we can’t be for everyone. And this also gives the assurance that no matter what I write about, there’s someone out there who’d benefit.

I’ve shared five tips for getting article topics in this article. I hope they are helpful for you.