Books! Writing, Editing, Publishing, and Reaching Readers

The essential point for all aspiring book writers to remember is that writing itself has no rules or guaranteed formulas. The only way for it to happen is by putting words together until they take form into sentences, paragraphs, and pages.

This is less obvious than it sounds.

As a publisher and now a demonstrably available adviser, I am often approached by would-be book writers who have set conditions for themselves before they plunge in fully. “I’ll write a proposal and see if I can get an agent,” is one version. This is a trap — and, at some level, a stall or an excuse.

If you have an idea, a vision, an instinct, or an urge, the best thing to do is to accept the prompt and start to write. If you set an objective and limit the excuses (for example, not starting because you need some initial validation from friends, family, agents, publishers, or other writers), you will recognize that there is nothing to lose by just forging ahead.

The water may be turbulent, but you need to jump in to find out. There is no reason to avoid those first tentative, uncertain, insecure emotions.

Years ago, I had a revelation when I encountered a prominent journalist I admired, who confessed: “Every time I put a piece of paper into the typewriter, I say, ‘Oh no, this time they will find me out.’”

This is known as the “imposter syndrome.” It is routine and in its way a reminder not to underestimate the effort necessary to write. My related version of this insight is to realize that if I consider something I have written to be as good as it can be, that is almost certainly not the case.

Nonfiction writing is an extremely broad category that includes just about everything that has a basis in facts, from silly to solemn, from the trivial to the magisterial. Anyone can write nonfiction, just as anyone can draw a picture. There has to be a place to start, the initial foray in which every writer is equal.

If your objective is to write a book, the place to start is to ask yourself, “What is this book about?” Try to summarize its intent in a possible title and a few summary paragraphs. This is the writer’s equivalent of an “elevator pitch.” The pitch by no means guarantees what the book will actually become. But it will help you focus. Staring at a blank page without knowing what you intend to say is a significant obstacle.

Books are defined by genre, “a category of composition.” My experience is mainly in memoirs, autobiographies (there is a difference), biographies, histories, reporting, investigation, and essays. Joan Didion’s books were combinations of memoir, reporting, and essays. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was investigative and revelatory about the environment. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s All the President’s Men described an investigation into the Watergate affair that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation as president. It was also their memoir of the experience.

Writers like David McCullough, Ron Chernow, and Doris Kearns Goodwin have published immersive bestselling biographies that combine the consummate detail of the best historians with narrative momentum and accessibility.

Journalists generally investigate current or recent events and interpret the news, politics, wars, business, celebrity, sports, all of which provide endless material. And most of these subjects evolve over time. So, when writing about a subject and wondering whether it will remain topical, it helps to remember that it can be placed into the context of the time and still make sense.

One of the most venerable topics is scandal. Scandals are enticing because something or someone is getting comeuppance. Many years ago, I was publishing a book called Scandal, about Washington. The author thought we were taking too long to get it from manuscript to sale. She was concerned that there would be no more scandals. I assured her that there will always be scandals.

In fact, over the years since the book was published, in the early 1990s, the pace of scandals has quickened almost to a frenzy.

The author and I have laughed about her fret ever since.

While every writer will eventually devise a strategy of how best to get the words written, it is worth taking the time to develop a strategy based on the experience of others. Brian Lamb, the estimable founder of C-SPAN, hosted a Sunday night program for many years called Booknotes, in which he would interview authors of nonfiction for an uninterrupted hour and would query his guests about their writing process. I found it fascinating and instructive.

Is the room well-lit or subdued to avoid distraction? Should phones be put in a locked drawer? Does it make sense to take a break every hour? One of my writer friends would stay at work until a thousand words were written, ready for revision the next morning before setting out for the next thousand.

Carl Sandburg, the great poet and biographer of Abraham Lincoln, lived for years in southwest Michigan, where his wife raised goats. When the weather permitted, he would write outside in the nude. Whatever works.

Everyone can write, but technique and talent are the key components. Talent is usually inherent, but it can be developed and honed through commitment and acquired confidence. Greatness often reflects decades of very hard work.

Over many years, I have devised a strategy for myself of drafting on paper the point I intend to make and then assembling the material I need to fulfill the objective. If I don’t know where I’m going, I’m unlikely to get there.

On the other hand, ideas can take form or adjust shape as they are expressed. Like sculpture, writing can be molded once the basic ingredients are gathered.

The historian and journalist Rick Atkinson, whose multivolume histories of World War II and the American revolution have been blockbusters, described in a C-SPAN interview his prodigious outlining process: he amasses and organizes thousands of facts and references that in turn become the narrative. This makes the writing process much more efficient, he says.

Technique is also what drafts are about. A “rough” draft gets material to a starting line or beyond. I urge writers to separate in their minds the published outcome from the drafting. If your focus is on impressing an agent, securing a publisher, or basking in acclaim, you are adding pressure to the process that is both unhelpful and unrealistic.

The best way to write is to write for the explicit purpose (and initially the sole purpose) of putting what you have to say into a form where it can be read.

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