Writing a book

After choosing an idea, researching, and doing a first draft, you are ready for the fourth step in writing your book — rewriting.

The first thing to do is to copy the file of your first draft and label the copy “Draft 2” or “Draft Nov 3 2011” or whatever self-explanatory code you wish.

For your first rewrite, you have to do three things. You have to check your facts; that means looking up names and dates on the Web or going to a library or asking people. You have to go over your first draft to remove repetitions (believe me, there will be lots of those). You have to reorganize your paragraphs according to some conventional pattern (chronological, thematic, logical, whatever). Word processing has made it easier to spot repetitions (use “Find”) and to reorganize (use “Cut” and “Paste”), but the Web has paradoxically made checking facts harder (websites tend to contradict each other).

Enter your corrections in the copy that you labeled “Draft 2.” If you are using Microsoft Word, use “Track Changes” (click “Review”). This will enable you to remember your corrections. (If you are distracted by the colored marks, click “Final” under “Final: Show Markup.”)

After you have checked facts, removed repetitions, and reorganized paragraphs, you are ready for the fifth step — writing the full second draft.

Again, copy your “Draft 2” and name the new file “Draft 3.” The reason for making multiple copies of the same manuscript is this: sometimes, you will realize that you should not have corrected something in your earlier drafts and you need to be able to retrieve your first thoughts or expressions.

For your first draft, you need not have started with Page 1. You could have started in the middle (as Perry Mason loves to say), and worked both ways. You could have written Page 40 before your started writing Page 4. For your full second draft, you start with Page 1.

Start on Page 1 and rewrite until you reach what you think should be the last page. Do not be surprised later if this last page will not look at all like the last page in the final book. You have a lot more rewriting to do before you finish.

Rewriting does not mean starting from scratch. It means taking what you have written so far, changing the words if you do not feel comfortable with them, keeping the words if you feel you can be proud of them, adding words here and there if you feel that you can say a lot more than you already have. In short, it means improving the draft that you now have.

Now comes the sixth step. Again, copy the file and make another file (“Draft 4”). This time, go through the entire book letter by letter (seriously!), checking spelling; word by word, checking grammar; and sentence by sentence, checking transitions, logic, style, and consistency. You can save some time by using the “Spelling & Grammar” feature of Microsoft Word (click “Review”), but do not put all your trust in software. Computers do not know the difference between “he” and “she” or “his husband” and “her husband.” The human eye is still the best proofreader.

After you have done what is known as Language Checking (spelling, grammar, and style), you are ready to show your masterpiece to someone else. You are ready for the seventh step.

If you want your manuscript to be published professionally (not by yourself through Publish On Demand), you have to be professional about your writing. That means that you have to spend money. (Publish on Demand, of course, is another option, sometimes an even better one than going to a publisher. I will write about that in future columns.)

The seventh step is sending your manuscript (“Draft 5”) to a professional copyeditor. Copyediting could be free (your spouse, your sibling, or your best friend may be able to do it out of love for you), but if you want to be a professional, you should employ professionals to help you with your writing. Professional copyediting is not cheap (rates are per word or per page of the original manuscript), but if you want to be taken seriously by a publisher, you need to have it done.

After another person has gone through your manuscript, you are ready to submit your work to a publisher. Send “Draft 6” to the publisher.

Surprise! Your work begins all over again! (Nobody promised you that writing would be easy!)

The publisher will send your work to an editor (distinguished from a copyeditor). An editor does what is known as developmental editing (also known as substantive, content, or comprehensive editing). This means looking not only at spelling, grammar, and style, but also at the marketability of the book. 

Publishing, after all, is a business. No one will invest money on a book that will sell only a handful of copies. If you are really serious about writing, you want a lot of people to read your book. Otherwise, you would just email your manuscript to your loved ones.

In short, be ready to face someone who may sometimes seem to be your worst enemy but is always really your best friend — the publisher. (To be continued)