How to Write Your Book
This series was published in its original form in Writer's Digest Magazine in 1997 and 1998 as "The
Evolution of a Book," and later reprinted as a long special section in the 1999 Writer's Yearbook Extra
titled "How to Write Your Book." I revised the articles for online publication.
Copyright, © 1997-2000, Paul D. McCarthy
All rights reserved.
by
Paul D. McCarthy
<http://www.mccarthycreative.com/>
How to Write Your Book Part One
2
From Concept to Outline
The Right Idea
Developing the Concept
Beginning the Outline
Concluding the Outline
2
3
4
6
7
How to Write Your Book Part Two
9
From Outline to Complete Manuscript
Planning for the Writing
Three Writing Stages
Preparing to Write
Starting the Writing
Writing Through the Middle
Completing the Manuscript
9
9
10
11
12
13
15
How to Write Your Book Part Three
17
From Complete to Fully Revised Manuscript
Preparing Yourself
Major Development
Major Revision
Comprehensive Development and Revision
17
17
18
20
22
How to Write Your Book Part Four
25
Working With Your Editor
Presenting The Fully Revised Manuscript To Your Editor
After Your Editor's First Reading
Receiving And Considering The Editing
Developing And Revising In Accordance With The Editing
1
25
25
26
28
30
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
How to Write Your Book
Part One
This series was published in its original form in Writer's Digest Magazine in 1997 and 1998 as "The
Evolution of a Book," and later reprinted as a long special section in the 1999 Writer's Yearbook Extra
titled "How to Write Your Book." I revised the articles for online publication.
From Concept to Outline
How to plan the initial stages of your book's development.
Copyright, © 1997-2000, Paul D. McCarthy
All rights reserved.
by
Paul D. McCarthy
Writing a book begins with an idea. Sometimes, if you are lucky, inspired or talented in a
particular way, the idea is sufficiently clear, strong and well-formed that the writing can
begin immediately. You know what the book should be and how to write it.
Most of the time though, starting the writing will not be that easy or quick. What we can
benefit tremendously from is solid, extended and thoughtful preparation. Many of you
are probably already doing this. You think hard about the kind of book you want to and
should write, consider various ideas, choose the concept that seems best, and then
develop it into a brief or detailed outline that will guide you through the writing of the
manuscript.
The advantages to this kind of preparation are many. For example, ideas that aren't
working can be discarded before you've gone too far with them. It's a lot better to find
out when your book is still in the note-taking stage that it doesn't have the potential you
thought it did (or even that it's just a bad idea), than to discover this same truth when
you've written a third of the manuscript, can't see where it's going, and don't like what
you've done. Also, it's much easier to develop and refine a concept when it's in the form
of notes and an outline than to revise or restructure a partial or complete manuscript.
Whatever your current knowledge and experience, you probably want to learn more
about developing your book ideas. To build on what you may already be doing, or
develop a process that will help you write your first book, let's examine the basic stages
of conceptual development and explore ways of making your preparation for writing and
development of your ideas even more efficient and productive.
2
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
The Right Idea
Before deciding which book idea is best, you must define your creative goals. You may
want to learn more about yourself as a writer, and challenge yourself by attempting a very
different plot structure than you've used before. Or you may want to write a nonfiction
book when you've previously attempted only fiction.
You also may want to concentrate on expanding the size of your audience. Perhaps
you've written several mysteries, romances or thrillers that have sold modestly well, but
you're now ready to attempt a bigger novel that will satisfy your regular readers and
appeal to a large number of new readers.
Whatever your goals, broaden, don't narrow, the possibilities. Before choosing an idea to
begin work on, come up with as many different ideas as possible that are generally
connected to your defined goals. This can be a very creative process because as you
think of ideas, other ideas will often occur, taking your thinking in unexpected and
exciting new directions.
Consider the kinds of books you enjoy reading and know best, and do exploratory
research in relevant subject areas, whether it is winter gardening in the Northwest or the
history of a nearby Civil War battlefield. Analyze your particular strengths as a writer
and let these suggest certain possibilities. Perhaps you're able to present complex
scientific issues in an entertaining and popular form, or you're well-suited to historical
fiction because you combine a love of research with storytelling ability.
When you've collected a good group of ideas to consider, the exploration and selection
begins. Think through each idea. If it has potential and will help realize your goals, keep
it for further consideration. Discard those ideas that on further reflection are thin, too
familiar, or will require research or storytelling that you aren't interested in doing.
Also, and this may seem obvious, be sure that you like the particular idea enough to want
to give the enormous amount of energy and time that developing and writing a book
requires.
Consider the likely ideas in terms of the audiences for those books. You should either
understand already or be able to understand who the appropriate readers are and what
kind of book will entertain, inform and satisfy them. If those readers are too far removed
from the kind of book you could write well, move to those readers who are much closer
to you in their interests. In developing a novel about ancient Egypt, for instance, keep in
mind the audience for that kind of historical fiction rather than the readers of serious
archeology.
Sometimes it is helpful and necessary to test the remaining possible ideas before making
a final choice. Develop each idea further by taking notes about how it could be worked
3
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
out, compare its potential and interest with the other ideas, and consider how it might
help achieve your goals.
One idea may be a lot of fun to write but have a very small audience. Another idea may
be strong but not as strong as the other remaining ideas. And still another idea may be
very exciting creatively but goes in the wrong direction (for instance, it becomes clear
that the major character is so inherently amusing that the story could only be written as a
comic novel instead of the more serious dramatic narrative you had in mind).
Time can also be a factor. If there is a short deadline for completing the manuscript (to
fulfill a contract, for instance, or to fit into your calendar), don't write a book that is too
different from your previous books or too challenging to be your first book. Such
projects will likely require a significant amount of learning, in research or writing or
both, that will extend the completion of the manuscript well beyond the deadline.
Finally, choose the most likely idea. This choice does not mean a final commitment but
simply a decision to move the idea to the next stage. If the idea continues to work,
develop it through the succeeding stages. But if at any time you exhaust its potential or
lose interest in it or realize that it isn't nearly as exciting and challenging as you'd
thought, set it aside and start conceiving and developing new ideas.
Developing the Concept
You may begin this stage with only the basic idea itself-such as, "a small novel about the
American Revolutionary War from the perspective of a British doctor"-or with pages and
pages of notes and ideas about how to develop the book concept that you produced as you
went through the first, exploratory stage. Wherever the development begins, the goal at
this stage is to keep adding to the idea or material until the overall form and structure of
the book starts to emerge.
Continue testing the concept's value and appropriateness. Perhaps no matter how hard
you think about it or how much more research you do, the idea can't be developed
further. Maybe it was more limited than you realized, or while it may be a great idea for
someone else, it doesn't excite your imagination and creativity the way it needs to. A
novel about two emergency room doctors who fall in love and then have to deal with the
combined pressures of emergency medicine and a relationship may have seemed rich
with dramatic potential but then in the development it becomes extremely depressing.
Sometimes, wonderfully, the idea keeps opening up, getting more complex, provocative,
and challenging. You get steadily more excited about it, with the ideas for development
flowing with increasing rapidity. In this case, stay with the concept until every note and
thought that occurs has been written down. Perhaps you anticipated that the genealogical
research on your mother's family would yield only the usual biographical facts, and then
4
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
discovered that your maternal ancestors were notorious and wonderfully colorful people,
making the family history a far more vivid narrative than you had imagined.
There is considerable freedom in this stage of development. Don't be concerned yet
about arranging your thoughts and notes into any formal structure or outline. Think long
and productively about the concept, keep adding to the conceptual material, and revise
your notes, deleting those that are no longer relevant or that need to be changed because
of the new ways in which you see the book.
The notes and thoughts can be about anything related to the book. The possibilities
include very particular aspects of character or plot; the overall narrative progression; how
the book should be different from other, somewhat similar books; the nature and extent of
the research; and the book's unifying structure and its moral and psychological themes.
As the note-taking and thinking continues, a pattern and implicit structure may begin to
emerge and suggest itself. There may be so many notes about the main and secondary
characters that it becomes clear what the interrelationships, conflicts and ambitions
should be. These qualities, in turn, suggest how the plot should be developed or revised.
Your basic concept is a novel about a loving and large family that suffers the deaths of
two of the children in an earthquake or forest fire, which also destroys everything they
own After considerable thought about the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of the
family members, you start to see how, inevitably, the family would respond to the
tragedy.
Perhaps you have an idea for a book about criminal computer fraud on the Internet but
aren't sure how encompassing it should be, whether it's best to concentrate on a number
of representative cases or on a single, dominant criminal figure. Then, in researching
Internet crime and studying other books on the subject, you determine how to
differentiate your book from the others and deliver a thrilling narrative by concentrating
on the dominant figure whose criminal career would serve as the spine of the book while
simultaneously incorporating relevant issues.
It is also possible that even with extensive notes there is not yet an apparent structure.
This doesn't mean that the concept isn't working or that the process isn't productive; it
does mean that you must invest deeper thought about how the book should be plotted or
organized.
This stage of development concludes when one of three events occurs: the book's
structure becomes evident in the notes; your thoughts about the structure are sufficiently
complete that you see clearly how the book should be arranged; or when you've recorded
every useful thought and idea and are ready to start arranging this mass of material into a
rough outline.
5
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Beginning the Outline
The complete outline should be a concise overview of the whole book. During this stage
keeping working with your notes until that overview is achieved.
If a structure or pattern in the notes can be discerned, or there are extensive notes about
how to develop that structure, arrange your content notes so they follow the approximate
order of the roughed-out structure. If the story is about an unfaithful spouse who seeks
redemption in good works, determine the opening-perhaps the infidelity or the
circumstances that produce it-and then indicate how the novel develops from there,
whether a lapse from redemption with further infidelity or an increasing religious
fanaticism that has its own consequences.
The structure does not need to be firm and is better left flexible. In this initial stage of
organization, the goal is simply moving from loosely ordered notes to something more
linear, thematic and direct, something that makes it easier to see which thoughts and ideas
are not longer appropriate and should be cut, where the book is well thought through or
thinly developed, and what other developmental possibilities there may be for the book's
overall structure.
Because this is a stage of clarification, clear away as much conceptual material as
possible, retaining only what is essential. As you were developing the concept, masses of
thoughts and details were fine but now refinement is vital. Too much material is
obscuring and confusing. It's not necessary to get rid of the deleted material entirely, of
course. Save it somewhere in case you want to go back to it later for inspiration or to
confirm that there is nothing usable.
If you're planning a biography, for instance, divide the life of your subject into significant
periods, or organize the material thematically, grouping it in terms of the main issues and
crises that your subject struggled with. Keep your organizing elements large so they are
easier to keep in mind individually and collectively, and keep the notes focused.
You'll need to proceed differently if you're beginning this stage with only a mass of notes
and thoughts and no particular and evident structure. Start grouping the notes, even if
only joining one or two at a time. Put all your thoughts about a character in one place,
the major conflict in another place, and the book's intended audience somewhere else.
You may find that the process of arranging stimulates your thinking and produces new
ideas. When that occurs, place those ideas within the emerging groups and patterns.
Gradually, the notes will become organized into major groups, and the book's structure or
plot will become more focused. As the sharper focus occurs, adjust your organizing so
that it follows the book's appropriate new directions and changing form, even if it means
rearranging all your notes.
6
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Your fully organized notes are close to an outline but there's one more step: distillation.
Concisely express each note and clarify what's essential. In the process of distillation,
you will further focus your thinking about the character, theme or plot point you're
addressing in the notes, and about the overall book. Also, you will make it easier to keep
track of the book's various parts.
While each note should be concise, the outline itself can take whatever length and detail
is appropriate for you and the project. You may need only a single page that reads almost
like a table of contents but has all the chapters carefully worked out. Or you may be
more comfortable with an extensive outline that includes a host of characters with
psychological profiles and family histories, a detailed description of the plot, and notes
about the places where the point of view will shift from one character to another.
Once the outline is revised to the point where you understand the book as well as
necessary, begin the actual writing, with the outline as your guide.
If you aren't sure whether the outline is sufficiently developed, begin writing anyway. If
the writing goes well, keep the outline on the side and continue writing. If after a good
start, you realize you're losing your way in the writing, go back to the outline and develop
and rework it, at least from the point at which you got lost.
Concluding the Outline
Starting the writing does not necessarily mean that the outline is finished or no longer
useful. Sometimes your preparation has been so solid and the outline is so elegantly
thought out that the whole book can be written with little reference to the outline and with
no further additions or changes to it.
Often, though, the outline continues to be a work in progress that is regularly referred to
and revised as the manuscript is written. To get the most benefit from it, keep revising
the outline so that it incorporates all of the significant new developments in the book.
Keeping the outline current can often be done economically. As you understand the book
better, make your notes more brief and the outline more skeletal. If you're writing a work
of history, revise the table of contents to reflect the reordering of the chapters, or the
addition and deletion of other chapters. If you're halfway through a thriller, you may
only need a sketchy reminder of the major plot twists in the first half and the probable
twists in the second half to keep your writing focused.
It may not be necessary to keep revising the outline all the way through the writing. If at
any point the outline has done all it needs to, complete the manuscript without it.
However, it may also be so helpful that you revise and refer to it through completion of
the manuscript and even through manuscript revisions.
7
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
As you continue to write, gain experience with the process of developing a book from
concept to outline, and learn better the particular approaches that work best for you, adapt
these suggestions so they are most effective for you. You'll no doubt add other methods
and approaches learned from other authors or devised on your own. Also, expand or
contract the amount of time spent developing the book in each of the four stages in the
ways that are most appropriate for your style of writing and the particular book.
Through it all though you should not only become a better, more productive and efficient
writer but get an increasing amount of pleasure and satisfaction from your writing.
In the next article, Part Two, "From Outline to Complete Manuscript," I'll explain how
you can realize your outline's creative potential and move through the process of starting
and completing your rough draft of the manuscript.
8
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
How to Write Your Book
Part Two
From Outline to Complete Manuscript
How to start, continue and finish your rough draft.
In my opening article in this series, Part One: "From Concept to Outline," I described the
basic process for producing an outline, which is a good starting point for writing a
manuscript.
Once the outline is done, you're ready to begin writing the manuscript, and in this article,
I describe how you can prepare and plan for that writing, the forms of writing,
representative stages of the book's development, and various goals. There are many ways
to achieve a complete manuscript and with accumulating experience you'll figure out
what works best for you but the process of writing I describe should clarify and deepen
your understanding of what's fundamentally involved in attaining that goal.
Planning for the Writing
At this point, you're eager to get the book started. But if you go charging off before
you're fully ready, you're probably going to waste a lot of time and creative energy. Be
patient. It's important, useful and efficient to plan your work and writing before you
begin the manuscript.
Start by thinking ahead to the kind of preparation you may need to do before you begin
the actual writing-including additional research, time for reflection, a review of the
outline and so on. Make a list of those things, as the first part of your plan.
It can be confusing and intimidating to think of writing the entire manuscript as a single
difficult and lengthy process. So, think next about how you can divide the writing into
various stages of work. This division allows you to consider the work in smaller, more
manageable chunks. It also makes it easier for you to plan the specifics of what you
should do at each stage.
The number of stages will vary with the length and nature of the book, your experience
and your working methods. You may be writing a series of golf novels, and as you plan
your work on the fifth novel, you divide the writing into only two stages because of your
extensive experience with the series and the rather uncomplicated plotting of the books.
9
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
However, if you're writing your first book and it's a monumental work on genealogy,
requiring several years of research, and outlined to run 60 chapters, you'd probably
consider ten or more stages, with 4-6 chapters in each one, and plan a much more
complex building process.
Whether it's two stages or a dozen, figure out the number of stages that you believe will
work best for you and the book you're writing. Make this the next part of your plan.
Three Writing Stages
In this article I wanted to show a representative process. For this hypothetical project, I
decided to divide the writing into three stages, each of which encompasses about a third
of the manuscript. Each stage is broad and inclusive enough to cover the three forms of
writing that you'll engage in as you complete your manuscript: development of the ideas,
writing the actual manuscript and revision of the manuscript.
Here are the stages:
1. Starting stage: begins with the first page and continues through the partial
manuscript.
2. Middle stage: the progression from the partial to the nearly complete
manuscript.
3. Concluding stage: from the nearly complete manuscript; ending with the full
draft.
The nature of the work at each stage determines the form or forms of writing that will be
emphasized. For example, when you're starting the manuscript, you've already done a lot
of development in the outline and it's too early for revision, so you concentrate on the
writing.
However, when you're in the middle of the book, you're revising what you've already
written, continuing the writing of new material, and looking ahead to refine your thinking
about the book's direction.
In contrast, when you're finishing the book, you just want to get to the end. So you write
and write, but you also keep looking back at the nearly complete manuscript to make sure
the conclusion you're developing fits perfectly.
If you can anticipate how your emphasis will vary as you move through whatever number
of stages you've worked out, you can plan your work at each stage more precisely, and
better anticipate the amount of time it will take.
10
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Also, include in your plan, approximate, motivating deadlines. Deciding to draft the
partial manuscript in three months and the rest of the manuscript in another seven
months, gives you some sense of how much you need to push yourself.
Set rough limits ahead of time on the amount of developing and revising you plan to do at
each stage. You could spend many months revising draft material or doing additional
research. In the meantime, the book remains incomplete.
Keep your planning and scheduling rough. Don't try to work out all the details and dates
ahead of time; they'll keep changing as you continue writing. Organize and plan enough
to give yourself a basic sense of deadlines and directions, and then adjust as you go.
Use these limits and deadlines only as a guide. Don't stop revising Chapters 9 and 10 just
because you've been working on them for seven weeks and your schedule says it's time to
move on. Ultimately, what matters is how productive the work is. If you're making real
progress on any part of the book-whether writing, developing or revising, separately or in
combination-then just keep working. Forget the schedule. Concentrate on the work.
However, once that part of the work is done, or if you find that whatever you're doing is
resulting in only insignificant improvement or progress, move on.
Your ultimate goal is finishing the manuscript. It's OK to take a long time to achieve that
goal but you must always keep moving toward it. It's vital to maintain your momentum
and motivation by working steadily and making visible, solid progress.
Pace yourself too. Just as you don't want to dally, don't be so compulsive that you burn
out and can't finish. Whatever stages you've divided the work into, take breaks as
necessary. Sometimes an hour will be enough, or a day or a week. But as soon as you've
recharged, back to work. You're a writer, and you need to be writing.
Preparing to Write
Now that you've got your plan set, you're ready to start the creative preparation that leads
to the best writing. If your plan calls for research, do that now, along with whatever else
is on your list of preliminaries.
Next, review your outline. This re-immersion in the material makes the book more clear
in your mind, which will help you start writing. It also allows you to identify, and then
solve or answer, any significant problems or questions you may not have noticed before.
Perhaps you're studying the outline of your third novel, a bitter narrative about a family
in crisis because of the oldest son's addictions, and realize that the son's motivations are
confusing and contradictory. Or you may tentatively decide that your book about
11
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
obsessive/compulsive disorders should focus on representative behavioral problems
rather than trying to be comprehensive.
In either case, before going any further, analyze and resolve the problems or confirm the
decision. Don't begin writing the book while there are unresolved issues. That leads to
further problems and to material that's going in the wrong direction-and you don't want
that.
After your review is finished, and you've internalized the book's elements and dealt with
any issues and problems, your preparation is complete-at last. You're ready to write and
you know how you're going to start and continue.
Starting the Writing
At this starting stage, your two goals are:
1. Complete a rough draft of the first third of the manuscript by your scheduled
deadline.
2. Establish a solid foundation for the book that you can build on as you go
forward.
When you begin, write thoughtfully and carefully but keep the writing moving forward.
You'll have a much better perspective on the book's strengths and weaknesses after 100
or 150 pages than after 15 or 20 pages. Also, this steady continuing helps you maintain
that vital creative momentum, which you might lose with too frequent pauses.
However, solve significant problems as you get to them. This does not contradict the last
paragraph's advice: The resolution of significant problems will have considerable impact
on your writing as you go forward.
You may, for example, be writing a biography of a French king, beginning with his birth
and following his life chronologically from there. You soon realize that in spite of all
your research and your own interest in his early years, you can't make that portion of the
narrative dramatic or illuminating.
Don't stubbornly keep writing. Simply continuing will result in a book with a long,
boring opening that significantly affects the tone and style of the rest of the book.
Instead, analyze the problem. Perhaps you should begin at some dramatic juncture in the
king's life, focusing on a critical decision he made while on the throne that exemplifies
his character and the volatile French issues of the period. That powerful opening could
12
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
set up the rest of the book strongly, providing you a fresh viewpoint from which to write
about his early years.
Perhaps you realize three chapters into a novel that the first-person narration is too
limiting. In response you may choose to redefine the narrator's occupation so she's able
to see and describe more of the story's events. Or you may decide to start over and write
the novel in the third person. Either way, the decision will affect the entire book and
shouldn't be left for later.
While you write, refer regularly to your outline, which serves as a convenient and concise
map of the book, and an easy way to remind yourself of the important elements.
If, through this starting stage, you find your work essentially following the outline, you
can postpone revising the outline until the next stage. However, if the partial manuscript
is becoming moderately or significantly different from what you've outlined, revise and
update the outline as you go. Don't stop writing to work on the outline if the writing is
flowing and you know where you're taking the book. But if your momentum has slowed,
take the time to update your map. The more current the outline is, the more useful it is to
you when you consider the book in overall terms. Continue this process of updating and
revising as necessary as you go through the middle and concluding stages.
Writing Through the Middle
In this middle stage, you want to:
1. Complete the second portion of the manuscript by the appropriate deadline.
2. Build strongly on the solid foundation established in the first portion of the
manuscript.
3. Revise the nearly complete manuscript, as necessary, to set up the book's
concluding portion.
When you reach this stage, you may be writing the book so powerfully that there's no
need to pause for research, revision or development. If so, just keep working and riding
that wonderful momentum.
Alternately, you may decide to stop, so you can complete the research necessary to write
the coming section, reconsider the book's structure and tone, add further complexities to a
too-simple plot, or remove most of a confusingly large cast of secondary characters.
At the appropriate time-now, if you're pausing, or later, if you've kept writing-review the
outline again. Refine your ideas about how the book should develop through the middle,
13
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
and confirm that the outlined conclusion still works. If your thinking about the middle
and end of the book has changed considerably, revise the outline accordingly.
Also, reread the partial manuscript and take notes about how it may later need to be
developed and revised. However, don't revise the material now unless there are major
problems that you couldn't resolve until you'd written at least the first part of the
manuscript.
Perhaps you're writing a guide to adolescent health care, and you experimented with long
and short chapters because you wanted to see which worked best in clearly presenting
medical material. Before writing new chapters, study the current ones and make a final
decision about how long each chapter should approximately be. Then revise the written
chapters as necessary and plan to write the remaining chapters at the length you've
decided on.
Once you've finished any necessary revisions, start writing again. You may be able to
write until you're ready to prepare for the concluding stage. Or you may find as you go
that, because of your larger and fuller perspective, you begin to recognize problems or
possibilities in the draft material you hadn't perceived before.
If the possibilities and problems won't materially affect how the writing continues, make
notes and revise later. But if these are larger problems or represent exciting creative
opportunities for enriching and expanding the book that may have consequences for the
remaining portion, then stop, go back, and develop and revise as necessary.
Perhaps you've written more than half of an ambitious thriller and gradually realize that,
given the way the main characters have developed psychologically and professionally,
they could no longer oppose each other in the violent confrontation that was supposed to
lead directly to the apocalyptic ending you so delight in.
While this shift in the novel means that you need to reconceive both the confrontation
and the ending, you see it as both a problem to be solved and a creative opportunity. You
return to what you've written about the characters' personality and occupations, and
subtly increase their emotional range and professional responsibilities. Then you revise
the outlined collision and conclusion so there are more dramatic complications for the
characters to deal with, including their forming a temporary, unexpected and dangerous
alliance, which further heightens the response and counter-response on the psychological
level.
When you've finished developing and writing the middle portion, go back to the
beginning of the manuscript and revise straight through. In revising though, stay focused
on identifying and dealing with major problems, improvements, and developments.
There will be plenty of time later on to deal with such matters as small details of plot,
rough spots in the writing, minor reorganization of the material, and slightly inconsistent
14
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
characterization. Don't get sidetracked or distracted. Concentrate on significant revision,
and keep moving forward, so you can stay on schedule, meet your deadlines and get this
part of the manuscript finished.
Frequently look ahead to the conclusion to confirm that all of your revisions are steadily
and appropriately moving the nearly complete manuscript toward that conclusion.
Inevitability is part of what you're trying to achieve in the developing, writing and
revision of the nearly complete manuscript. Your goal is to set up and combine all of the
book's major elements so effectively that as the book progresses, its concluding form and
direction become increasingly inevitable, and the characters, themes, plot and elegant
presentation of the information are so integrated, cohesive and fully developed that they
must be written out in very strong and evident ways.
Let's say you're writing an investigative book about street crime in Chicago. To this
point, you've presented and probed deeply almost all of the major social and police issues
involving that type of crime, using a combination of interviews and research material. As
you head into the final section, you've established a powerful inevitability about
concluding the book with the same research/interview combination and your presentation
and analysis of the remaining major issues.
Completing the Manuscript
When concluding the book, there are again two basic goals:
1. Finish the rough draft of the entire manuscript by the set deadline.
2. Make the conclusion inevitable.
As you move into this stage, once again keep writing or stop, depending on how well the
book is going, your momentum, and the closeness of the deadline. If you're writing
productively but are starting to slow down, consider taking a break to recharge. If you're
running into major problems, stop and think them through. But, of course, if the writing
is hot or you feel the creative force starting to build, then write that book.
If you never have to stop before you finish, that's great. Usually though, that won't
happen. When you do pause, use the time to prepare fully for writing however much of
the book is left.
Begin by strengthening your basic awareness of the book's important elements and the
continuity that's been established. Go back through the draft and carefully follow and
make note of everything, from characters to themes, that should lead into and be resolved
or otherwise concluded in the final portion of the book.
15
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Next, analyze the conclusion-both on its own terms and in the context of everything
preceding it. The concluding elements must work well with each other, and then with all
that's been established in the nearly complete manuscript.
Maybe you're writing an anecdotal book about cats and plan to end it with a charming
and amusing story about a small cat that outwitted three dogs that had been stalking it.
However, after reviewing the stories in the manuscript, you realize there are more tales
involving dogs than you'd thought, and that one more would be excessive. Since all of
the preceding cat and dog stories are carefully integrated in the manuscript, you decide to
replace the planned final story with an endearing one about a male cat and his kittens.
When you've established the proper correlation, balance, harmony and continuity in the
outlined conclusion, start writing the remainder of the manuscript. By now, you should
have the inevitability of the book's finish solidly established, if not clear in every detail.
Follow, be guided by and extend that inevitability in the writing. Refer to the draft pages
and the outline to remind yourself of exactly where the book should be going. But keep
writing.
If you keep this up the way you should, at some point you'll write the last page. Then
you can collapse.
Congratulations! You may be exhausted, but you've achieved your goal of writing a
complete draft of the book. With that comes substantial, well-deserved satisfaction. And
you'll now have the creative advantage of being able to base your development and
revision work on the foundation of the whole book.
But that's the work of another day-and another article. I'll cover that process in Part
Three of this series, "From Complete to Fully Revised Manuscript."
16
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
How to Write Your Book
Part Three
From Complete to Fully Revised Manuscript
How to turn your rough draft into a finished manuscript.
Writing a book, I said in Part One, "From Concept to Outline," begins with an idea, and
as we moved through Part Two, "From Outline to Complete Manuscript," we turned that
idea into a solid outline and, at last, a completed manuscript.
Completed. But not finished. Now, you're ready to develop and revise the complete
manuscript, improving it until no more can be done.
Preparing Yourself
No matter the temptation, don't rush into revising the manuscript once you've completed
it. You'll work more effectively if you first plan properly.
Begin by dividing your work into four stages:
1. The preparatory stage, where you'll reread the manuscript and review your
notes
2. Major development, where you'll expand and enrich the material
3. Major revision, where you'll rearrange, delete, and rewrite
4. Comprehensive development and revision, where you'll finish improving every
aspect of the book.
While it's too soon to know the full extent of the work you'll be doing and how long that
work will take, you can make rough estimates and establish a schedule, with appropriate
deadlines for each stage. As you move through the stages, with the work going more
quickly or slowly than you'd planned, adjust the deadlines but keep them tight enough to
maintain your focus on getting the manuscript finished.
The preparatory stage is a period for reviewing, rereading and reflecting on your
completed manuscript. First, prepare a very concise overview of the entire book, based
on the latest outline, as a reminder of how you've put it together.
17
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Next, review the notes you made while you were writing. Delete what you've already
done or is no longer appropriate, revise as necessary the notes that are still relevant, and
divide the notes into two groups, comments pertaining to further development of the book
and ideas for revising the actual text. (Later, when you're ready to work
comprehensively, consolidate your notes because you'll be thinking about development
and revision simultaneously.)
As you work, refer regularly to the overview and your notes. Revise them as necessary to
keep them current with the changing manuscript.
Now, do a straight-through reading of the manuscript, to enrich and reinforce your
understanding and recollection. Don't slow down for concentrated analysis or notetaking. That'll occur later. If you identify problems, consider them briefly and move on.
Your general awareness of the nature and extent of the problems gives you a more
substantial context for later work.
After you complete the reading, and relying solely on your memory, think through the
whole book. Consider its overall progression, parts and elements, and whatever else you
can recall. This reflection gives you a different perspective on the book than if you
simply read it again, and may reveal previously hidden weaknesses. As you concentrate
on what you remember or can visualize, identify and note the problem areas.
Through all stages of this work, maintain a full recollection and understanding of the
evolving book. Make every improvement, major or minor, fully appropriate to the whole
and all the parts of the book.
Major Development
There are two basic forms of development: expansion and addition.
Expansion is building on and extending what's already in the manuscript, and ranges, for
example, from briefly continuing an argument two characters are having, to igniting the
smoldering hatred between them and taking it to the level of near-madness with
murderous results.
Addition is putting in new material, and may be simply extending a sentence with a
couple of words, adding just-released study results to a book about public health, or
introducing the issue of his illegitimate child to the biography of a prominent executive,
with considerable supporting documentation.
Expansion and addition are often closely joined. Perhaps you're writing a novel of
modern love, and decide to add a controversial love interest for your heroine. This
18
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
addition will expand the emotional and moral complexity of the heroine's actions and life
by involving her deeply with that love interest.
Sometimes development is both addition and expansion. Inserting "Then he died," adds a
dramatic phrase and a new narrative element, and heightens the impact of the scene.
Keep these possibilities in mind along with the development stage's two goals:
1. Identifying the areas of the complete manuscript that need significant addition
and expansion, and
2. Engaging in and finishing the major development of the complete manuscript.
At last, you're ready to go to work. Read the complete manuscript again, this time slowly
and carefully, and note every part that could benefit from further development. Be
aggressive and imaginative in conceiving the possibilities.
You may be writing a book about animal predators. Consider the advantages of
expanding the scope of the book so that it covers all of the large predators as well as the
insect and reptile predators that you've already discussed very compellingly. You might
also want to add a specific chapter on the nature of prey and being prey.
Also, think beyond the book's specifics to the potential inherent in its basic nature and
subject. Consider what else you could do, given what kind of book it is. Say, for
example, you've written a historical novel. In every historical novel, it's possible to
expand the historical information; extend the time frame; illuminate more or other
themes, issues and customs of the period; and introduce real, historical figures to
complement the fictional characters. Think about whether any of these potential, general
changes would improve your own novel.
Once you've completed the process of identification and decided what major
development to do, start at the beginning of the manuscript and add and expand as
appropriate.
Your notes will guide part of your work but some development, perhaps a considerable
amount, will be the result of your analysis of and response to the manuscript as you work
on it now. Through the actual making of changes, the need for other changes becomes
more clear.
Be fluid in your development. Move back and forth between expansion and addition, or
do the two simultaneously if that's more productive. You may only need to concentrate
on one if that's the only form of development the book needs.
19
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Perhaps you've written an analysis of contemporary presidential campaigns, and decide to
add two more important themes-about the relevance of personal lives in the assessment of
political figures, and the distorting influence of money from special interests. To support
and clarify your thinking on these issues, you interweave long passages of history and
statistics which flow into the similar material you've already written about the other
issues.
You may decide, if you're writing a guidebook about the native wildlife in your region,
that your straight presentation of information is too dry and monotonous, and that you
should enliven the material and bring great color to the information by adding many
anecdotes about the behavior of these animals so the readers are entertained while they're
learning.
Balance fluidity with efficiency. If you're engaged in a particular sequence of expansion
or addition, it may be best to pursue that straight through, then return to where you started
that sequence, and again move forward through all of the material.
For example, if you decide to add a subplot near the beginning of your family drama,
continue that development by working in the subplot material and complications
throughout the rest of the novel. This allows you to concentrate on the logic and
structure of the particular subplot.
Also, use this approach on the whole book. When you've finished the basic major
development, separate the important storylines, themes, issues, conflicts, etc., and
individually follow them through to the end, to confirm that they develop consistently
and substantially and to identify and resolve any remaining problems.
Major Revision
Revision has two basic forms:
Structural revision is any rearrangement, from the minor reordering of words
and phrases to the major reorganizing of the chapters and parts of the book; and
any deletion, from the particular cutting of words, sentences and paragraphs to the
removal of large chunks of the text.
Textual revision is any changing of the words and sentences, from the
replacement of one word with another, to the extensive rewriting of a significant
portion of the manuscript. If it's major enough, textual revision can affect the
structure of the book. For example, you might rewrite and distill the material of
three chapters into just one chapter.
During this major revision stage, you again have two goals:
20
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
1. Identify the potential major rearrangements of the complete manuscript, and
the significant portions of text that should be deleted or extensively rewritten, and
2. Engage in and finish the major revision of the complete manuscript.
Start by once more going through the manuscript carefully, identifying all the areas that
may need structural and textual revision.
You may decide that a troublesome chapter cannot be fixed no matter what you do with
it, and that it's best to cut it entirely. Also, you may realize that the pacing of the
manuscript is quite uneven. Sometimes the narrative moves quickly and smoothly, but at
other times, the momentum is halted by long stretches of tedious and monotonous
material. Mark the slow passages for later work, whether judicious or extensive cutting,
or considerable rewriting.
When you're done, go back to the beginning of the manuscript. Do the structural revision
first, and the textual revision later. It's best to start with deleting and rearranging because
changes at that level significantly influence the nature and direction of the rewriting.
If you move chapters or large passages around, then in the rewriting, you'll need to
strengthen and probably change the connections between them and the progression from
one to the next. Also, you don't want to waste time rewriting material that later you'll
decide to cut.
If you know exactly how you want to reorder the material and which deletions you're
going to make, do both as you go through the manuscript. Otherwise, delete first, cutting
throughout as necessary, then rearrange the text.
Extensive cutting produces a book that's tighter and faster; clarifies many of the book's
elements, including the structure, pace, themes, and plot; and exposes the essential
material, which is then easier to focus on.
Perhaps you wrote a book about today's tennis superstars, with each player profiled in
their own chapter. What you realize now is that the information and observations aren't
consistently interesting or illuminating. As you go through each chapter, cutting the
weak material, you also understand better what's truly important to say about each player
and you remove everything but that.
Once you've tightened the manuscript sufficiently, begin restructuring, and continue the
process until you're satisfied that the material is being presented in the strongest, clearest,
most interesting and well-paced way. Go through the manuscript repeatedly, confirming
the book's logical progression and the right fit of the material, and making any necessary
structural adjustments.
21
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
In the tennis book, as the cutting brought each player more sharply into view, you saw
how a different order of presentation might be more entertaining and informative, and
now you rearrange the chapters in various ways until you settle on the best order.
Maybe in writing your Woodstock novel, you divided the narrative into five parts, each
presented solely from the point of view of one of the major characters. On reflection, you
decide this structure makes the parts too self-contained. So you separate the parts into
shorter narrative sections, and rearrange them so that the characters' storylines are
interwoven rather than independent of each other.
Now, you're ready to strengthen the expression of your story, ideas and information.
Look first to those larger portions of the book that need significant revision, perhaps a
several-page section, a chapter, or a few chapters in sequence. Start rewriting there.
Continue that process until all of those portions are clearly and strongly expressed.
You may decide to revise on the level of style alone, making the writing in a chapter,
where you might have rushed, more polished and refined. Also, you may revise for
clarification, strengthening connections between ideas that are poorly linked, or
extensively rewriting the last third of the manuscript to fit the significantly different
conclusion that you worked out during the previous, developmental stage.
You may have written a memoir, and feel that it has insufficient emotional impact
because of your detached, impersonal style. In the rewriting, you open up and invigorate
your expression considerably so that the material is more lively, revealing, moving,
personal and candid.
Comprehensive Development and Revision
You're now at the final, comprehensive and conclusive stage where your work
encompasses all forms and the full range of improvement, from minuscule to major
change.
In doing this work, you have one goal: Begin and continue improving the manuscript, in
every possible way, until you're satisfied that there's nothing more you can do, at any
level, or with any element or aspect, to make the book better. Work straight through the
manuscript, considering every word, sentence and paragraph; analyzing the thematic,
narrative, and informational substance; and expanding, reorganizing, adding, deleting and
rewriting, as appropriate.
Perhaps you're writing a post-modernist novel and conclude that the style is still too
conventional. It needs to become more staccato, with the punch of separated drumbeats
instead of a steady rolling. You therefore decide, in this last revision, to cut words
22
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
ruthlessly, reducing the sentences to their essential meaning, sacrificing fullness but
gaining intensity. Also, to increase the enigmatic quality of the narrative, you remove
several explanatory passages, and move several descriptive passages closer to the end
where they reveal less.
As you move forward, keep the various improvements coordinated and appropriate. You
may have written a collection of essays, and as you work on the third essay, you delete a
few paragraphs, rewrite other paragraphs, polish the opening and write a new conclusion.
When you've finished that work, reread the essay carefully. If you see that some of the
seams show or gaps have opened, work on them until every element is right. Then move
on.
Generally, proceed steadily through the book. This steady progress gives you the benefit
of building directly on everything you've done. However, if the nature of the work
demands that you move around in the manuscript or if it's simply more productive to do
so, then follow the work.
For example, if it's easier or more efficient to cut all references to a particular
controversial idea at one time, do that. If you decide that a character's dialogue is
inconsistent in the several places in the novel where she appears, concentrate on making
her dialogue consistent throughout the manuscript. If a scene in the first third of the
novel makes you realize that the climax needs one more element of physical danger, add
it now while you're thinking about it.
After you've worked through the entire manuscript, evaluate what you've done, and
decide whether or not the manuscript needs still more work. If what needs to be done is
clear, do it. If you have only a sense of something not quite right, try to find it. But if
you're finished, stop. Don't be satisfied too easily, but don't be arbitrary about revision
and development either.
Because it's possible to work on a book almost forever, the desire for improvement must
be balanced by reason. Make the book as good as possible but also know when to be
satisfied. If the changes you're making aren't improving the book or are so minor as to be
almost invisible, it's time to stop and accept that the book is what it is going to be. If
you're so creatively hungry for more writing or so ambitious you can't be satisfied, start a
new book.
As for this one, you've done everything with the manuscript you can do on your own.
You're ready now to get the assistance of your editor. Perhaps that means simply sending
off the book to the editor who contracted for it. Or maybe you must now begin the work
of finding the right publisher for your manuscript.
23
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
But sooner or later, another person will become involved in your book. In the final
article in this series, "Working with Your Editor," I'll describe how you and your editor
will work together, and how she or he will help you attain the final best book.
24
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
How to Write Your Book
Part Four
Working With Your Editor
How to collaborate in achieving your best book.
My previous three articles in this series, Part One: "From Idea to Outline," Part Two:
"From Outline to Complete Manuscript," and Part Three: "From Complete to Fully
Revised Manuscript," described the creative progression from the idea for the book to the
revised manuscript that's ready to be sent to your editor.
In this concluding article, I'll describe: presenting the manuscript to your editor, what
you need to ask him after his first reading, the possible range and nature of his editing,
and productively responding to the editing as you develop and revise the manuscript.
Now, though, I want to share some thoughts about editors. I've been a book editor and a
writer for many years. I have edited and been edited, and while I think I've helped my
authors, I know without question that my editors have been an enormous help to me.
Therefore:
Never forget how valuable your editor can be, and take full advantage of what good
editors offer: skillful analysis, a solid understanding of your audience, great imagination
in suggesting ways to improve your book, and a deep commitment to helping you as
much as possible.
Anything your editor does that helps you make the book better is worth having, and of
course, the more help you get, the better the book will be.
Editors are chronically overworked. Your editor will do the best he can but it will be a
struggle. You can make it easier for him by being receptive to his thoughts and
suggestions, patient, appreciative, and motivating. In turn, he is likely to try to do even
more for you.
Maybe you feel you shouldn't have to work so hard to get your editor to do his job but
that's up to you. Remember though, your ultimate goal is achieving the best book, and if
appreciating and motivating your editor, gets you closer to that goal, then appreciate and
motivate. In the end, you'll be the one who gains the most anyway.
Presenting The Fully Revised Manuscript To Your Editor
25
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
As a courtesy, let your editor know ahead of time that you're sending in the revised
manuscript, and confirm that this is a good time for him to be receiving it, that he can
read it and later edit it in a reasonable amount of time. If he's crazed, it may be better to
wait a bit.
When you send it in, share with your editor, by phone or letter, your thoughts about the
revised manuscript-strengths, weaknesses, and anything else you'd like him to be thinking
about while reading.
Your editor will probably respond in two stages: read the manuscript and discuss it with
you, then do the actual editing.
It's appropriate to ask your editor, when you send in the manuscript, how long before he
reads it so you'll know when to expect his initial, important response.
Now, you wait, as patiently as you can. Take a break from the book. Recharge. There
will be plenty to do once the editing comes in.
If your editor's very late in responding, follow up but diplomatically. Your patience will
certainly be appreciated.
After Your Editor's First Reading
When your editor has read the manuscript and called you, ask him for enough time to
have an extended discussion because there are a number of important questions you'll
want to ask:
1. What are his general thoughts about the book, not only what needs work but what
you've done well, and about anything else that came to him while reading?
His editorial perspective and thinking will help you understand your book better.
2. How close is the manuscript to acceptability, to the extent that he can tell after one
reading, and therefore how extensive does he think the editing is going to be? Minimal,
massive, moderate?
Since the acceptance of the manuscript means that the publisher has committed to
publishing the book, this is a significant issue. If the book needs only a little work or
extensive revision but will certainly be acceptable once the revisions have been made,
that's a relief.
26
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
If the book needs massive revision, and your editor can't be sure yet about ultimate
acceptability, that's very hard and scary to deal with but at least you know what and how
large the problem is, and you can therefore address it more effectively.
Remember that as the author, only you have ultimate responsibility for the book, and with
that responsibility comes the power of decision and approval. Your editor may request or
make enormous changes but nothing is final until you've acted on his requests and
approved his changes.
However, your editor, as the representative of the publisher who is your partner in the
contract for the book, has the right to determine the contractual acceptability of the final
manuscript, so don't be arbitrary in your response. Sure, you can reject all the editing but
then you may have a book that's all yours but that your editor doesn't consider acceptable
and therefore won't publish.
You and the editor/publisher have the same goal: a book that will achieve the maximum
critical and popular success. While protecting your creative interests, keep the
publisher's interests in mind, and remember that the editor's only there to help you. Don't
lose that advantage by shutting him off.
Keep a completely open mind to everything your editor requests or does, consider all of it
deeply, and then make your decisions on the basis of what you think is best for your book
but also what your editor thinks will be most successful.
3. What is your editor's ambition for you and your book? That ambition on your
behalf may go beyond acceptability. Your editor may confirm that you've turned in a
good book that will be acceptable with only minor revisions but then go on to express his
vision of an even better book which you can achieve with considerably more work.
You may decide to do only what's necessary to make the manuscript acceptable, but even
then, there's still a chance that as you keep working, you'll find new motivation and go
back to your editor ready to be challenged.
However, if you understand and agree with your editor's vision, or at least his ambition
even if not all the particulars of what he has in mind, if you're willing to stretch, risk,
engage in extensive further development and revision, and in every other way rise to your
editor's creative challenge to you, then commit to working with your editor until you
achieve your full creative potential by developing and revising the manuscript until it's
the best book you're able to write at this time and with this particular material.
Whatever you decide, tell your editor now so he knows how to proceed.
4. Is there anything you should be doing or thinking about while he gets to and then
does the editing?
27
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Perhaps he suggests additional research, or asks you to work on the title, or prepare a list
of portions of the book that could be cut for pace, for him to consider when he's doing the
editing. But if there isn't anything, go back to relaxing. Later, you're going to need all
that energy you're storing.
5. What form will the editing be in? Written, verbal or both?
Depending on which is most effective and comfortable for both of you, your editor may
discuss his thoughts with you so you have the opportunity to respond immediately to
everything he says, or give them to you in writing, so you can consider them and perhaps
discuss them with him later. He may also combine the two approaches, calling first and
following up with written notes, or first writing and then calling.
If your editor has added to, rewritten, restructured, or cut the manuscript, he'll give you
the edited manuscript showing his changes so you can review them, perhaps explaining
his changes in a call or by letter.
6. Will he do the editing all at one time, or does the extent and nature of the
development and revision require that the editing be done in stages?
Your editor may feel that it's best to address all the problems and possible changes at one
time so you have a full understanding of everything that he's suggesting you do or
approve.
Alternately, perhaps there are major problems so evident that your editor wants you to
address them first, before he does extensive or detailed editing. There may also be
smaller, specific problems that he can describe and get you started on, while he finishes
other work he's doing.
7. What is his schedule? Approximately when does he think he'll be able to give you
his editorial thoughts and notes and the edited manuscript?
His response allows you to begin planning an approximate schedule of work.
After you've finished your discussions, if there's work you need to do now, do it.
Otherwise, prepare yourself to receive, consider and act on the editing when you get it.
Receiving And Considering The Editing
At some point, your editor gives you his response, asking questions (why like this?),
making suggestions (perhaps do it this way) and comments (this doesn't work, or this is
terrific), and perhaps explaining the minimal or extensive changes he's made in the
manuscript.
28
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Whatever your editor's response, and whether it comes all at once or in stages, make sure
you fully comprehend his thinking and intentions, and his overall vision of the best book
you're both working towards.
Of course, you have your own vision, which guided you during the writing, completion
and revision of the manuscript before you sent it to your editor, but you're now ready to
learn how your editor's thinking enhances and changes your own, so that you can
appropriately revise and refine your vision of your book.
In the course of your discussions, you may both change your thinking about what
constitutes the best book, and mutually develop a new combined vision.
For example, you may have written an objective, balanced biography of a very
controversial scientist. Your editor though feels that you've gone too far in your effort to
be fair, to the point of ignoring or minimizing some of the scientist's most offensive
beliefs, and asks you to add more information about the scientist's dark side, so the
biography is more psychologically comprehensive.
You understand your editor's point but you feel that he's going too far in the negative
direction, so you persuasively explain your reasoning, and the two of you adjust your idea
of what the biography should be and settle on adding more of the dark side but not as
much as he originally asked for.
If you're working with your editor by phone or in person, keep talking until you're
satisfied that you know exactly how he sees the final manuscript and what he's asking for,
whether you agree with it or not.
If you get his thoughts in writing along with the edited manuscript, read and reread the
questions and comments in the editorial notes, and consider carefully his changes. Then,
clarify with your editor whatever you're not sure about, and discuss with him whatever
you may disagree with, choose to do differently, or would like his further thinking on.
It's only by understanding totally your editor's thinking that you can make the best
creative decisions about the manuscript. Your editor has a reason for everything he does
or suggests, and if you know that reason, you can incorporate it in your own thinking
about the manuscript. Even if you decide not to act on a suggestion or approve a change,
the suggestion and change may well have stimulated your imagination and helped you
see your own ways to improve the book.
You don't have to get everything worked out ahead of time but clarify as much as you can
now, and have a strong idea about the work you're going to do next. The more concrete
your vision of the best book is, the more easily you'll see how to achieve it.
29
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
Later, as you work, discuss with your editor anything you're not completely sure about.
It's much better to get your editor's thinking early, while you're still deciding, than to get
it much later, long after you've done the work and perhaps gone in the wrong direction.
Developing And Revising In Accordance With The Editing
Once you've considered the editing and clarified as necessary with your editor, you're
ready to plan your work and set your goals.
Since one of your goals is acceptability, your work and creative decisions should be
guided in large part by what your editor has told you needs to be done to make the final
manuscript contractually acceptable. You may decide to do even more but you should at
minimum achieve acceptability, or the book's not going to get published.
Your work will also be guided by whether you receive the editing in stages or all at once.
If your editor has worked comprehensively, considering every aspect and element of the
book, your own work will be comprehensive and final, subject to your editor's review of
the fully revised manuscript, when a little more may be asked for.
In this case, your goal is to do all of the necessary development and revision. That may
range from only a little rewriting, to greatly expanding what's already in the manuscript,
adding a lot of new material and ideas, rearranging or deleting small and large parts of
the manuscript, and massive rewriting.
In working on the manuscript, your editor may have done as much or little as he's asking
you to do. He may have added a few words and revised a couple of sentences, or done
considerable cutting, reordering, and rewriting.
Your response to the editing and plans for revision depend on how much you're being
asked to do and approve. Minimal or light editing isn't hard to respond to, but if massive
development and revision are requested, you may feel overwhelmed. Therefore,
simplify. Divide the work into stages, perhaps all the rearranging at one time and
reviewing the editorial changes at another time. Because it helps you focus on and clarify
what you need to do at each step, this dividing is a good approach to take anytime, even
with moderate editing.
Now, decide what order to do the work in.
Generally and for the same reason (because it's the most productive and efficient way to
proceed), follow the same order in this final stage of improvement that you did earlier in
developing and revising the complete manuscript. Start with any major expansion and
addition, go on to the minor development, delete and rearrange the larger chunks of
30
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
manuscript, then the smaller, do the necessary rewriting, and conclude by going through
the whole manuscript one last time, considering everything and finishing whatever's been
left undone.
Don't feel required though to follow this progression. If at the beginning or as you go,
you realize or decide that the revisions will go better or be easier if you do them in a
different order, change your plan, and follow the most productive flow of improvement.
Perhaps tremendous expansion is necessary but little change in the existing structure and
text, so you make the small changes first, just to get them out of the way, and then
concentrate on enlarging the book. Or maybe most of the work is going to be revision of
the text, so you start rewriting, and making or approving other changes as you proceed.
Also, you may prefer to start with your editor's first note, and work straight through his
notes and the edited manuscript, doing every form of the work as you get to it.
Before you begin, set a deadline for turning in the final, revised manuscript, confirming
with your editor that your deadline fits the publication schedule for your book. If your
editor needs the final manuscript sooner or can wait, he'll tell you now and you can make
any necessary adjustments to your work pace. Also, keep your editor informed of your
progress or difficulties as you go, so he can make adjustments on his end.
If, however, your editor is working progressively, presenting you with the editing in
stages, each time focusing on different problems and areas, your work varies accordingly
and is also in distinct stages, with particular goals for each stage. Your editor usually
determines the sequence of revisions by the order in which he gives you the editing but
you may also decide jointly what the stages and order should be.
Your editor may begin by asking you to cut drastically your gardening book, perhaps by
150 pages or more, because there's an excessive amount of information, or the enormous
length might make the book too expensive for the intended audience.
You start cutting, keep going until you're done, and then give the reduced manuscript to
your editor who may suggest further cutting, or decide that it's time to move on to the
next stage, which may be reordering portions of the manuscript, or developing further
some of the gardening themes and ideas.
Also, your editor may have gone through the first 50 pages tightening and polishing the
writing to improve pace and style. He shows you those edited pages, and asks you to
decide if the line editing has improved your work. If you think it has, then you can ask
him to continue that editing for the rest of the book, or if you want to do the work.
yourself, you can tell him that you'll revise the rest of the manuscript in the same way.
Because you're getting the editing in stages, you can't know everything the editor is going
to request or suggest. Don't anticipate him. Don't jump ahead and do a lot more than he's
31
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book
asked for. You could be making unnecessary or damaging changes. Instead, concentrate
on what you already know you have to do, and when you're finished, wait for the next
batch of editing.
An advantage to working in stages, whether in response to comprehensive or progressive
editing, is that as you make revisions in the first and subsequent stages, current and
additional problems may be clarified or resolved, and the direction of further work
becomes more clear because you're building on improved material.
However, when you're getting the editing a little at a time, it's difficult to set a final
deadline because you don't know how much more work you'll have to do. What you can
do though is set deadlines for each stage, conferring with your editor, and then as you get
near the end, set the final deadline.
Once the various stages of work are concluded, your editor may decide to edit the revised
manuscript one last time but this time working from beginning to end, considering
everything simultaneously, as he was not able to do previously when he concentrated on
specific problems, and factoring in the effect of all of your improvements. While there's
probably little left to do, he may ask for a few more changes.
Though while you're doing it, the revision process may seem endless and your editor
impossible to satisfy, at some point, you'll have done everything possible, and your
editor's last reading confirms that you are indeed done.
Finally, with the editor's assistance, you've achieved the best book you're capable of
writing. Take some time, celebrate, and get ready for what's next: the publishing
process, which I describe in "Inside Simon & Schuster: A Publishing Story" about an
author, her book, her agent, and her editor. It's going to be an exciting ride, so hold on
tight.
32
Paul D. McCarthy
How to Write Your Book