What do you want your legacy (as an individual, group or organization) to be? What gives your life purpose and meaning? What types of actions are aligned with your values? How do you want to show up in the world? What do you want to accomplish in your life? What are you willing to do to achieve those accomplishments?[2] X Research source
Thought webs can help you to connect many different ideas. Make sure you are adding as many connected details as you can. This will also help you to build an outline. Lists are a great way to get a lot of ideas down quickly. Make a list for each section of your manifesto, and to title them appropriately. Stream of consciousness writing can help you to get your brain working on the topic. By writing whatever comes to mind, and not worrying about the punctuation and grammar conventions, you can feel free to express important concepts. Give yourself a time limit, and see how much you can jot down in that time.
Read other manifestos on a similar topic for useful tools and arguments. Famous manifestos include: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, or John F Kennedy’s “Man on the Moon”. Strengthen your arguments by reading the opponents of your views online. Take a class if you have the time and the money. Familiarize yourself with theory surrounding your topic. Go to your local library or bookstore and ask a librarian or clerk to help you find similar writers.
Use Roman numerals to number the major sections. Use uppercase letters to list details about the major sections. Use Arabic numerals (1,2,3) to give specifics or examples about the details of your major sections.
Make sure that you share life details related to your ideas. Relate important experiences from work, school, or life that help readers see you as an authority. Mentioning your degree in art might be useful in an artist’s manifesto, just as civil service would be worth mentioning in a political manifesto.
You can use bullet points to list your precepts. Follow a precept up with a sentence explanation if you need clarity, but save most of your explaining for the body paragraphs. If it isn’t merely presenting the precept, don’t put it in the introduction.
Focus on verbs to evoke a sense of action. Avoid verbs like “am/is/are”, “have/has” and other passive constructions. For example: “Every artist manifests Art itself,” instead of “Every artist is Art itself. " Use concrete details. Avoid words like “thing” and “something”, as these are not specific. For example: “Something in our political system disturbs me” becomes “Negligence in our political system disturbs me. " Take a current problem and re-imagine it changed through your ideology.
Give each precept its own paragraph. For longer sections, use a subheading.
Rethink structure, such as paragraph order and focal points. Elaborate where needed. Cut out anything unnecessary.
Check for cohesion and flow by assuring each sentence connects to the sentence which follows. Make sure your information is accurate. Use stronger language. Seek ways to build sentences that are more clear and exact.
