Eight steps to writing your book

Professional writers spend years exploring and experimenting to develop a writing method that works for them. At The Dreamwork Collective, we’ve come up with a clear path to help authors complete their manuscripts.

Step one: Determine your goal/reason/vision for publishing the book.

Step two: Organise your ideas. Write down your ideas, thoughts, and notes. Start looking for themes, identifying character traits, significant moments/passages of time, important events, and so forth, as these will become the storyline.

Step three: Start from the end. Endings are the hardest part of any book, so think about how you are going to conclude the book. Often writers send us manuscripts without a proper ending! Once you get in the flow of writing the chapters it becomes a lot harder to know how to wind it all up and conclude the book.

Endings are the hardest part of any book, so think about how you are going to conclude the book.

Step four: Create an outline. Begin outlining the chapters and/or sections of your book. Try to think from the end of the book first. What do you want your readers to walk away with at the end? How do you want the story to culminate? Once you have a general idea of how your book will end, create the outline moving toward that end. 

Step five: Determine how you will write. How much time can you set aside for writing each day? This is the most important part of writing your book. You can’t write only when you feel inspired or motivated. You must create a daily (or five days a week) writing habit. It’s best if you can write at the same time every day and commit to a number of words you’ll produce at each sitting. Start small with a goal of writing 200 words each day for the first week. Then increase the number of words until you reach 1000-1500 words a day.

Step six: Create the environment. Find a spot in your home that you feel is conducive to writing.

Step seven: Write, don’t critique! As you’re writing, try not to constantly review and critique your work. Just write. That consistent writing habit is so important. You can always go back through the book many times to re-write and edit if you don’t like something. But it will give you a huge boost to just finish the book and stay committed to the process. 

Step eight: Revise and polish. Once you finish the book, set it aside for a few days or a couple of weeks. You’ve been so close to this project while writing it that you need to create some distance. Then go back and read over the entire book again, correcting mistakes, rewriting sections as necessary, cutting out wordy parts, and tightening it up. Take out words and passages that aren’t absolutely crucial to the story or message. Go through this process a couple of times until you feel pretty good about what you’ve written. Once you have reviewed your masterpiece a couple of times, and perhaps even shared it with others to review, then you’re ready to submit it for publication.

Good luck!

–By Kira Jean, founder, conscious book publisher, The Dreamwork Collective

About Kira Jean: Kira Jean is a highly sought-after success coach and founder and CEO of The Dreamwork Collective. Kira is a passionate writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who writes and speaks on topics such as leadership, entrepreneurship, self-mastery, and creativity. (Instagram: @kirajeanofficial)

Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed in The Brew View – our opinion section – are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TheBrew.ae, the company, or any of its members.