So how do you actually get to that point?

PLANNING

Should I plan my book first?

I am asked this question all the time. Mostly by writers who are stuck four chapters into a book and have told their entire story. The question always makes me smile. There is only one answer to this: OF COURSE you should plan!

What often makes a book ‘good’ or even a bestseller is not the brilliance of the writing at all. In novels, it is the story. In non-fiction, it is the clarity of the concept, the argument and/or the way the information is presented.

Planning a book is the work of a writer. It is your job to turn an idea into a solid, gripping and relatable book structure. Planning a book requires a lot of focus because a book is a long-form piece of writing. It is not an essay, a speech or a presentation. You are going to be asked to write a minimum of 50 000 words to get your book to a publishable length – that’s a whole lot of writing.

DECIDE ON YOUR GENRE

When I ask what your genre is, this doesn’t mean I want a breakdown of your plot. It means I want to know what kind of book it is. Simply put, I want to know on which shelf we may stock it in a bookshop, or which section we

will load it on Amazon. Knowing what genre you are writing is the absolute first step towards clarity any writer must take before they write a single word.

Genre is a one-sentence answer: It’s a travel memoir. It’s a historical romance. It’s a young adult dystopian novel. It’s a gluten-free cookbook. It’s a personal finance advice book. It’s a sports memoir. It’s a business advice book…

Not: ‘Well, it’s the story of my life, but I have fictionalised it. It is about love, and loss and family dramas.’ Nope.

Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. It tells the booksellers how to sell your book. It also tells you, as the author, what kinds of elements need to be in your book to satisfy a reader: if you buy a book promising you a weight-loss plan and it doesn’t have an eating plan and suggested food lists, you’re going to be fuming, aren’t you?

YOU NEED TO HAVE A STORY

This is a basic requirement.

If it’s a novel, you are going to have to dream up a story and a plot that fits within your chosen genre. Writing a forensic crime novel? A reader expects a book filled with clever clues, red herrings, a mystery, detectives or law enforcement characters and hopefully a body or two.

You also need to devise a plot with a number of cleverly planned events to draw your reader through the story along with your protagonist. That’s what it takes to write more than 60 000 words and keep the reader gripped.

ALL NON-FICTION BOOKS NEED

A BIG IDEA

You know what you want to say and it feels logical to you, but how do you present it to the reader in a way that is clear, logical and compelling? Enter the Big Idea. All non-fiction books need one, or they run the risk of being a mish-mash of all your thoughts, ideas and lessons.

The Big Idea is a single and clear statement that answers the question: ‘What is your book about?’ You don’t want to imply this, or hint at it – you want to state it clearly, and upfront. Most Big Ideas are stated (or contained) in the title, or at least on the cover of your book. For instance: you can see grief as magic if you look at it differently (My Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion). You

need to change the way you think about money if you want to get rich (Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki). Only 20? Learn to manage your money if you want to succeed. (Manage your money like a f**king grownup by Sam Beckbessinger).

BUILD YOUR BOOK IN SECTIONS

The difficult thing about planning a book is working out how to break down the information; often it feels as if there is just this great mass of data swirling around in your head. Perhaps it is your story, or your decades of work experience. Perhaps it is theory you teach or unpack. The task now is to break this down into a series of chapters. All books (even novels) start with the author making a working plan

on how the story will unfold.

In non-fiction you need to group all your information into chapters, which become a well-organised Table of Contents (TOC). A TOC is critical to keep you focused, and it allows the reader to choose the chapters they want to read and those they may want to skip.

Memoirs and biographies have a totally different plotting structure to non-fiction books: their framework is closer to the plot structure of a novel. You need to tell a story, and you will plot these books using scenes as the building blocks of the story rather than chapters.

YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY WRITE

Aah yes, the writing time… Writing a book is a long journey, but this is also the magical part. Once you have the right structure over which to drape your words, they will flow. Or you will force them out.

Either way, you have to actually write. My advice is always to write the first draft of a book fast. I like to push writers to write it in under four months. Writing time is an investment in your future as an author.