One of the first rules of writing is to just get something out there.  You can edit later, but you need to get your thoughts down so you have something to build on.  But what if I said that first draft can be a whole lot closer to the final and polished version than you ever thought possible?

Let me walk you through how you can write your book in such a way that you won’t have to heavily edit later.  Instead, you’ll just have to go through and touch up a few things here and there to really enhance the story instead of what could essentially be a complete re-write.

The Three Step Process Before You Start to Write

Before you begin writing, you have to go through your book with three different lenses.  These lenses will capture different components of what your story will be all about.  If you’re writing your own book, that’s about you and your life story, it can be a little bit easier.  If you’re ghostwriting, taking someone else’s story writing it from their point of view, this is absolutely necessary to ensure you tell it through their eyes.

Overview – The first step is to go through the entire story and hit all the highlights.  This will become the main component of your outline; the main guide that will ultimately turn into the entire book that you’re writing.  Put everything you can think of into this, in as orderly a fashion as possible.  The result will be a 30,000 foot view of the story you plan to tell.

Details – Now that you have your overview, you can really hone in on the different stories and aspects of the book.  It’s time to go back through each story in that overview, and really get the details of what everything was like.  What happened, what did it look like, how did it all transpire.  For those writing a memoir or an autobiography, this can be tough when you’re thinking back decades into your past.  Don’t worry about 100% accuracy here, because you’ll want some of that storytelling to really draw in the readers.

Emotions and Feelings – With all of the physical details in place, now you have to go back and really beef this thing up.  Every one of those stories has emotions and feelings around it.  This is where your book is really going to shine and capture the attention of the reader.  When you walked into that room, what did it smell like, what did you think and feel, was it hot or cold, was it bright or dim?  Really dig deep into those descriptive aspects.

How to Outline Your Chapters to Really Draw People In

As you go through this process, you’ll start to notice natural breaks in the story.  These are perfect times to break the book into those different chapters.  Depending on what you’re trying to tell and relay, you might want to do the cliffhanger method.

Many creative writers leave each chapter with a little cliffhanger (you see this all the time in TV shows, they end one episode making you wonder what’s going to happen; they usually do an even bigger one at the end of the season so you’re anxiously waiting for the next).  Leaving a loop unclosed allows you to keep the reader wanting to know more.

How to Write the First Draft that Rocks

Now that you’ve gone through the story at least three times, you have the big picture, you have the details, and you have the emotions, it’s all a matter of wrapping it up into something that sounds really cool.  Just sit down and start writing the story out weaving it all together.  Your first draft will turn out far better with all this prior planning, but there still may be a few aspects that don’t exactly flow just right.

That lack of flow can be fixed with a developmental editor.  A developmental editor ensures there aren’t any inconsistencies, not gaps in the story, and readers aren’t scratching their head because you jump around too much or fail to introduce something in the right way.  Nearly every book needs a developmental editor, but it’s one of the most skipped steps in the publication process.

Learn How to Write a Book with Scott Sery

Now you’re sitting here thinking, “Shoot, that’s a lot!”  Well, the good news is I can guide you through the entire thing.  Start to finish, even if you haven’t fully developed the idea yet, I’ll coach you on getting your book done.

It’s a 3 to 6 month program (3 if you work hard, 6 if you tend to dawdle like most of us do).  But in the end, you’ll have a book that’s all ready for copy editing, design, and to head to publishing.

Schedule a time on my Calendly and we can talk about if this program is right for you.