31 Jan Ready to Write Your Book? … Here Are Hot Tips From A Top Book Editor

Grab Your Must-Have Tools for Book Authors

Written by Bryan Szabo and Daniela Cavalletti

Writers and authors are builders … No really, stick with me for a moment here.

Like a mason or bricklayer who must skilfully pile brick upon brick to build a house, as a writer you’ll need to take the same meticulous step-by-step care. You’ll have to stack word upon word. Sentence upon sentence. Page upon page. All needs to fit just so if you want to create a book that reads well and leaves your reader hungry for more. There are no shortcuts (sorry!), but … Luckily there are many handy tools (see what I did here?) that clever authors can use to make their writing not just good … but excellent:

#1 – Simple Writing Power: MS Word

Microsoft Word is still the gold standard in word processors. It has competitors, and each of them has its devotees. But often those apps that try and buck the word-processing trend are more concerned with being different than with offering any real useful difference.

Yes, when it comes to typing your book out, one word-processor is as good as the next. Software such as Scrivener is a powerful tool for writers to initially store and organise plentiful notes and ideas for manuscripts. MS Word, however, proves its worth when you’re ready to start editing your manuscript. Whether you are doing this on your own or working with a professional editor, MS Word’s often-imitated but never-duplicated track changes feature will keep the editing process clear and organised for you.

If you’re working with an editor, it’s a virtual certainty that they’ll be using Microsoft Word and its track changes feature to help guide you through their suggested revisions. When the editor and author are using different platforms, something is always lost in translation. Even if you’re using an Apple Mac, invest in the MS Office suite before you start clacking the keys.

#2 – Light Up: Ideas Are The Heart of Your Book

This one might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many authors (even experienced ones) begin writing with only a vague topic in mind. If you want your book to be a reputation multiplier, you need to do more than provide information; you need to share ideas and vision. You must give your reader insight into a particular problem or, even better, you need to help them solve it.

Try to start writing a book without a guiding idea, a central premise, and you’re bound to find yourself adrift in the writing process without sail or rudder. With a guiding idea at the helm, your book will start to cut through the waves. Best of all, it will have a definite destination. Once you’ve got a destination in mind, setting a course becomes more effortless. And it will be substantially easier to tell when you are on, or veering off, course.

#3 – Classic: Pen & Paper 

Once you know what it is you want to say, it’s time to start looking at how you want your argument to unfold. The good old pen and pad will help you with this. You’ll find them indispensable when you are in the outlining stages. You can do this sketching work on your computer, but word processors limit how you can range about on the page, and mind-mapping software sometimes takes too much time-consuming fiddling, which hampers the creative process. So don’t be afraid to go old-school: take a pen and a note-pad and leave the laptop at home. Sit down on a park bench or in a quiet coffee shop and start breaking your idea down into manageable chunks (these will be your chapter topics and chapter sections). Doing this by hand often sets the mental wheels in motion in surprising ways.

Pen and paper can also be valuable tools when you want to do the small but crucial work. If, for instance, you are struggling with your title, start hand-writing down words that connect to your topic or idea. As little as 15 or 20 minutes of dedicated work like this and a title should start to come into focus.

The same goes for important paragraphs (those that begin or close the book or its chapters). If the blinking cursor is giving you nightmares, you might experience a breakthrough if you spend some unconnected time in a calm, quiet environment. With nothing but a pen and a pad. Let the ink flow – and the inspiration will follow.

#4 – Get It: Dictionary & Thesaurus

Even the most experienced authors use reference tools to improve their writing. One of the most intelligent men (and best writers) I’ve ever met kept a well-thumbed dictionary on his desk. This book never moved from its place, and it was always open. If you’re not absolutely sure that you’ve chosen the right word, double-check its meaning in the dictionary. When you’re editing and proofreading your book without professional assistance, be meticulous. And if you’re not 100% certain, look it up.

A good thesaurus is equally important. We all have words we lean on a little more than we should, and a thesaurus will provide options that will make your writing less repetitive and more fluid. When you are editing, keep your eyes peeled for these repeated words or phrases. When you find them, use a thesaurus to find a different (and perhaps even more accurate) word. This will not only make your writing more readable; it will also steadily improve your vocabulary.

Your word processor has dictionary and thesaurus tools, and there are plenty of free tools online as well. These free tools leave much to be desired, though, and you cannot rely on them for a catch-all. Professional books are always proofread not by a machine, but by a person – and one who wasn’t the author or editor. They are too familiar with the written piece and will miss crucial errors or omissions. If you don’t want a pile of reference books on your desk, invest in a reputable online dictionary, making sure that you pick the correct one for your region, so what you find uses the correct local idioms and spellings.

#5 – Style Guide: Do You Really Need One?

Even if you’ve been writing since your hand could grasp a pen (or pound a keyboard), a style guide will help you fine-tune your writing style in very important ways. There are countless books that provide writing instruction, but most of these don’t make it past a first printing – and for good reason. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel: the established style guides remain as good today as they were when they were first published.

You won’t need more than one good style guide. Strunk and White’s timeless and short text, The Elements of Style, can be found on the shelves of almost all writers. It can be used as a reference book, but it can (and we think it should, but then we would, wouldn’t we?) also be read from cover to cover. For a more modern writing advice, pick up either Collins’ Good Writing Guide, or immerse yourself in Steven Pinker’s thoroughly enjoyable The Sense of Style. It’s a writing classic in the making.

As with dictionaries and thesauruses, style guidance can be found online, but online sources often disagree with each other. For consistency and accuracy, pick an established guide and make it your style bible.

#6 – Time: Your Friend, Not Your Enemy

If you’re a first-time author, you might have a rough date in mind for when you want to finish and publish your book. Perhaps you are launching a new business, service or product, or your book ties in nicely with a seasonal event. Beware, though. Estimates by a new author of how long the completion of a book takes are mostly significantly too short. Remember, the editing process can take a couple months to complete once the writing is done. While your editor is doing the hard yards during the editing process, you will also need ot find time to review their work or usually 2-3 editing rounds.

You may be able to churn out 2,000+ words a day. But, as Ernest Hemingway allegedly said: “the first draft of anything is shit”. While our view and experience is not quite as harsh, we do know that when you’ve reached the end of writing your first draft, you’ll need to begin the more difficult work of paring it down (ideally, down to the bone of the core idea we’ve mentioned above).

It’s during these revisions that a professional editor will most prove their worth. When working with an experienced editor, they’ll often ask you to add new material, or to revise sections or even entire chapters. This is can often seem difficult work, but your editor will provide helpful structured guidance that will make this process clear and so much easier. Still, be prepared to spend perhaps as much time revising your book as you may have spent writing it. If the revisions your editor has suggested look like more than you have time for, talk to them about placing the revisions in their capable expert hands and let them ghostwrite for you. This will save you much time and effort.

Writing Can Be Hard – But It’s All Worth It (Take it From The Professional Editor!)

Approach your writing with the right toolkit and you’ll find yourself making steady, happy progress. And it can be a really heady experience seeing your thoughts flow onto the page, and share your ideas, opinions, knowledge and passion with the world! Your paragraphs will turn into pages, your pages into chapters, and your chapters into a flowing, readable, and reputation multiplying book. Even if you’re mid-way through the writing process: it’s never too late to subtly or dramatically change your approach to writing. Even a single tool or a conversation with your trusted editor or writing coach might make all the difference.

Share Your Writing Experience!

What writing are you proud of? What are you finding difficult to approach?
Let us know in the comments; let’s talk about your ideas, passions – and writing niggles.
We might just have another tip or five up our sleeve for you!