Tutorial on How to Write Tutorials
Often I see people posting anatomy tutorials when they themselves do not have a good grasp of anatomy, or posting tutorials on other techniques that they have barely grasped. Or they write tutorials that assume you have exactly the same knowledge of the software as they do – or the best; a colouring tutorial that lacks any images to show you how your own image should be progressing. Genius.
If you want to write a tutorial you must first ask yourself whether you are prepared to share the knowledge you have without reservation; if you want to show people how to do something, but want to keep the best tips and tricks on how to make it look good to yourself – so you’ll always be that little bit better – forget it. Don’t write a tutorial.
So here is some advice to help people write better tutorials:
1. Don’t assume people have the same knowledge as you. Imagine having to write instructions on how to make a cup of tea for someone who has never used, or even seen a kettle before, ‘boil kettle, add teabag, add milk’ simply wouldn’t work. You’d have to tell them how to plug the kettle in, to fill it with water first, where the switch was to turn it on, etc. The same principle can be applied to your tutorial, don’t just tell people, for example, to apply a Gaussian blur in photoshop – you need to tell them
how to apply the blur – what drop down menu do they need to access to get to the blur options, what settings are they supposed to be using, and what layer are they applying it to? Write your tutorial as if talking to someone who has little or no previous experience of the program.
2. Explain to people why you are instructing them to do something. Telling someone to stick a layer on multiply will let them know that to achieve that one effect, they need to have the layer on multiply – telling them what the tools do and why you’re using them will allow them to apply the knowledge in other situations.
3. Images are nearly always useful. Especially in tutorials about how to paint, colour or draw things. If you tell someone to ‘click on the pen tool’ it might be useful to provide a small image of what button they’re looking for – print screen/screen dumping is your best friend. Where the ‘print screen’ key is will depend on your keyboard, on normal qwerty keyboards it is one of the six keys above the directional controls. On a mac, you need to press command + shift + 3.
4. Share with people every step and technique you’re using. There’s nothing more annoying than getting to the end of a tutorial, finding your image looks nowhere near as good as theirs, accompanied by a little note saying ‘I fiddled around a bit with my settings.’ You’re writing a tutorial because you want to
share your knowledge. If you don’t want to share everything you have to offer, don’t write the tutorial in the first place, leave it for the people who aren’t so selfish. One of the most annoying examples is 'now jut shade the left side of her face' ... using what brush? And on what settings? 'advice' like that is
useless.
5. Honestly consider whether you are good enough to write a tutorial. No one wants to see a tutorial on how to draw faces if the person writing the tutorial hasn’t themselves, got a good grasp of the human facial structure. Also look at what tutorials are available already – what’s the point in replicating a tutorial three other people have already done if you can’t add anything extra?
6. Take account of feedback. You want your tutorial to be useful, if someone comments to say they don’t understand one of your steps, review what you have written, and see if you can make your meaning clearer. Don’t go off in a huff at them or accuse them of being stupid – remember, if student has failed to learn, then the teacher has failed to teach.
7. As you refine your own methods, refine your tutorial as well. Maybe someone better than you will come along, and show you another trick you can do to make your finished product look even better – if they do, update your tutorial. Share the knowledge.
8. Clarity is important. You need people to be able to understand your instructions, if they can't, your tutorial is useless. Get a friend to check that it makes sense, and run it through a spell-checker.
9. Maintain a logical order. A logical order is more important and useful than your own chronological order. When colouring an image you may jump all over the place as choice takes you - if your tutorial followed exactly the same pattern, it would be very confusing. Try to keep it as logical as possible - get all the flats down before you start shading the hair, etc.
Related:
SEO HOWTO - How to make search engines love your tutorial.
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