2. How to write a book
Step 1.
Pour yourself a glass of wine.
Step 2.
Contemplate what your story is about.
Think of a title.
•Harry meets Sally
Create a log-line: (what the hell is a log-line?).
{see tips at http://wizardsforauthors.com/log-line-tips/ }
•A beautiful woman seeks romance and finds a dark side.
Realize that everything above is probably wrong, except for
the wine. Before you’ve submitted your manuscript, you’ll
change everything multiple times. So don’t try for perfection,
just write something down. You’re a writer! Lie!
3. How to write a book
Step 3.
If you’ve completed step 2, have a sip of wine. Good job.
Think about the leading characters, the protagonist(s):
•Harry, a handsome fellow
•Sally, a beautiful woman
If you have Cheetaah for Writers, use Character Wizard to
document your characters, otherwise use a spreadsheet.
4. How to write a book
Step 4.
Lets create a skeleton manuscript. If you have Cheetaah for Writers, use Novel Wizard to just do it. If
not, format a Word document according to the Chicago Manual of Style or Writers Market format guide
lines.
5. How to write a book
Step 5.
Create an outline.
But first, have another sip of wine.
1.Some writers abhor an outline and refuse to do it. Some say
their characters have a mind of their own.
2.Others can’t write without an outline and adhere to it to the
bitter end.
3.Some use the outline as a rough guide and modify it as they
go. Nothing is frozen in concrete.
I recommend that you follow the third choice.
If you have Cheetaah, you can use the Plot Wizard to create
your outline. We will show you how.
6. Enter a description of the first scene (or first chapter) depending on how much
detail you wish in your outline.
7.
8. How to write a book
Step 5a.
Continue making your outline.
When you need to create a new chapter, at the end of your
last paragraph of text, press the enter key ONCE. This will put
you at the beginning of a new empty paragraph. Click New
Chapter. You will now be at the beginning of the next chapter.
The Wizard will insert the correct chapter number.
If you’re using Plot Wizard, note that the scene point text can
be hidden. As you add new chapters, or insert chapters
between existing chapters, the Wizard keeps everything in
order, renumbering chapters as you go along.
At first you might only have three chapters: beginning, middle,
and end. As you write your chapters, you can insert new
chapters, and all the subsequent chapters will automatically
renumber, and your outline will adjust accordingly.
Once you’ve completed your first pass at an outline, use the
Plot Wizard’s Create Outline Doc. Save it and print it.
As you develop your manuscript and modify the scene points,
you can use Create Outline Doc. for an update.
10. How to write a book
Step 6.
Have another sip of wine.
Begin with the first scene.
•Don’t start with a Prologue. It’s usually a lazy author’s info
dump that many readers skip anyway.
•Don’t start with the weather or “It was a dark and stormy
night.”
•Start in medias res, in the midst of things, in the action, in the
conflict. Don’t start with a travelogue with the trees and
ocean. Start with the action.
•Don’t tell us backstory. Wait until chapter three.
Try to get the first paragraph, the first page, to jump out. Let it
provide INTRO, the Irresistible Need To Read On.
While you may not get the first page perfect on the first pass,
you will get it perfect before an agent accepts it for
consideration.
For more information on how to write a great novel, see the
recommended books at http://wizardsforauthors.com/books/
Now, don’t buy them and put them in the bookcase. You must
do more than read them, you must study them.
11. How to write a book
Step 7.
Write the rest of your novel.
This is a first draft.
•Don’t worry about minor grammar or spelling mistakes.
•Get the story down.
•Do worry about characterization.
• Your hero/heroine can’t be boring or a jerk
• Your antagonist can’t be boring.
•Do worry about the story plot.
• Ensure threads and subplots are carried through
• Use red herrings, disinformation, where appropriate.
• Every scene must move the story forward.
• No scene should be filler, backstory only, or info dump.
• There should be dramatic tension on every page. (There is
no such thing as too much tension)
•Update your outline. Review the outline. Is it a good story?
Will the reader care? Is the tension? Is there INTRO?
12. How to write a book
Step 8
You’ve finished the first draft! Aren’t you proud?
Before reading the next few lines, drink both glasses of
champagne.
•Ernest Hemingway said, “First drafts are shit!” He rewrote
the ending to A Farwell to Arms 39 times.
•Sol Stein, editor to many famous writers, said he never saw a
first draft that was publishable.
If you thought you could clean up the spelling and a few
commas before shipping it off to the literary agent, you’re
mistaken. There’s still a lot of work to be done.
Writing is rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.
Now, wipe the tears away, and do the following.
Put the manuscript away for a couple of weeks. Take a
vacation from writing.
13. How to write a book
Did you enjoy the vacation?
Now comes the rewrite, the self-editing.
First: Developmental Editing
•Developmental Editing is a significant structuring or
restructuring of a manuscript's discourse.
•You can do it through a GOOD critique group, hire someone,
or do it yourself.
•Developmental editors offer specific suggestions about the
core intentions and goals of the book, the underlying premise,
the story, character development, use of dialogue and sensory
description, the polish, narrative voice, pacing, style, language.
They don’t do grammar and spelling.
•You must be willing to kill your darlings, that is, those
wonderful scenes you love, but don’t really move the story
forward. You must chop, move, change. The result may be so
changed that it doesn’t resemble the original first draft.
•We recommend Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert
Zuckermen as a guide to this type of editing.
14. How to write a book
Second
Line and Copy Editing
When you’re finalized the story in the previous steps, you
need to clean up the manuscript. Here you check for grammar,
word usage, format, spelling, legal issues, etc.
If you’re using Cheetaah, you can engage Grammar Wizard.
However, before doing so, use Burster Wizard to burst your
contiguous manuscript into separate chapter-files.
Run Grammar Wizard on the first chapter. Make corrections
as needed, and instruct the Wizard to skip anything you know
you don’t have a problem with. For example, if you’re sure
you don’t confuse can and may, indicate that in an early
chapter, and the Wizard won’t flag it thereafter.
Even after you’ve made all the corrections you can find, you
need to have someone else review your work, for our eyes
only see the words in our head, not the words on the paper.
15. How to write a book
Finally.
Have another sip of wine.
You’re ready to market your book.
You now must spend a considerable amount of effort in
preparing your submission package you will send to literary
agents, publisher editors, and the like. Again, writing is
rewriting. Expect to rewrite your submission package until it’s
perfect.
While marketing is beyond the scope of this presentation,
don’t fail to spend the time and effort here.
So many writers spend a year writing their manuscript, and
ten minutes on the query letter, synopsis, log-line, blurb, and
proposal.
