Answer the One Question Your Reader is Asking

You may be worried that if you focus on one question, or one message, you will leave people out. That is a valid concern, but the truth is, your message is not for everyone. If you try to make your book appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one. Worse, it will not appeal to the very person that God has called you to help.

If you try to answer every question, your readers may see that you know a lot, but they will not know what to do with what you gave them. They may finish reading and still be unable to say what changed, what they learned, or why the message mattered.

Narrowing your message does not reduce its reach; it increases the impact.

Think about a conversation with a friend. If you ask one serious question and they respond by discussing ten unrelated subjects, you may admire how much they know, but you will still be waiting for an answer. Your reader needs the same care from you. They are not looking for a display of everything you know. They want to know whether your message meets the need they have.

This is where writing becomes an act of service. You are deciding what the reader needs to solve the problem they currently have and sharing only that while leaving everything else for another time.

“What is the person reading this trying to understand?” You are not asking what you want to teach them in general, and you are not asking what you have learned across the years. You are asking what they are trying to understand right now.

The answer may sound simple. It may be, “Can I trust God after what happened?” It may be, “How do I obey God when I am afraid?” It may be, “What does healing require from me?” It may be, “How do I move forward when I feel stuck?”

Once you know the question, you can test every part of your book. Does this story help answer the question? Does this teaching help you understand it better? Does this example make the truth clearer? If it does not, you need to remove it, move it, or save it for another project.

Not every story, testimony, lesson, or insight belongs in the same book.

If you cannot say in one sentence what your message answers, the message is not clear yet. Continuing to add pages will not solve that problem, and more writing cannot replace the clarity that should guide the writing.

This is especially important when you know God has given you a book to write. Before you worry about chapters, titles, word counts, or publishing, you need to know what solution the book is meant to provide for the person who will read it.

I created the Concept Blueprint for this starting point. It helps you name what your book is, who it is for, and what it does for them. You can work through the video, workbook, or audio version and come away with a clearer idea.

Your reader is asking one important question. Answer that question clearly.