When you’re planning a tutorial, try to give it a McGuffin.

“McGuffin” is a word invented by Alfred Hitchcock to describe the “treasure” in any good adventure movie. In most movies it doesn’t matter much what the treasure is… only that the characters involved care about it an awful lot. The Lost Ark, The Maltese Falcon, a mysterious glowing briefcase.

If you’re writing a tutorial for a programming language, then the McGuffin could be a program written in that language. But just saying, “we’re going to write a program” isn’t enough. There has to be some story around it. Some reason to care. It doesn’t matter what the program is, as long as it’s worth caring about.

A better McGuffin would be “we will build a thrilling new Web 2.0 application that we need to launch in the next month before the last drop of VC funding runs out”.

Of course, you need to then tell the reader what that application will do – and it needs to excite them, or at least amuse them.

A satisfying McGuffin promises a better life to the person who posses it, and carries a sense of urgency. You have to make a grab for it right now.

Make your McGuffin crystal clear in Chapter 1 of your book, and your readers will stick with you to the end.