Questions to Ask When Writing a Book
Questions to put to yourself before and during a book: what it is, who it is for, how the draft gets finished, who reads it first, and what publishing it will cost you. Useful for a first book and for one that has stalled halfway.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What is this book about, in one sentence you can say out loud without notes?
Why ask it
If the sentence takes ninety seconds and three qualifiers, the book has two or three books inside it. The version you can say at a dinner table is usually the one worth writing.
Who is the reader, and what do they have at the end that they did not have at the start?
Why ask it
"Anyone interested in the subject" is not a reader. Naming a specific person and a specific change decides what you can assume, what you must explain, and what can be cut.
Is this actually a book, or is it an essay, a series of posts, or a talk?
Why ask it
Plenty of good ideas are ten thousand words long and get padded to eighty thousand. If the material would be stronger short, the book will show it as repetition around chapter six.
Which three or four books would sit next to yours, and what does yours do that they do not?
Why ask it
You need to have read your neighbors. An author who cannot name them either has not looked or is about to rewrite a book that already exists, and reviewers will name it for them.
Why are you the person to write it?
Why ask it
The answer can be expertise, access, a decade of doing the thing, or an obsession nobody else has. It matters because it decides your voice and it is the first question an agent, publisher or reader will ask.
What is the shape of it: what are the parts, and why in that order?
Why ask it
A table of contents that could be shuffled without loss means the order is arbitrary and the reader will feel it. Each part should need the one before it.
How long is it going to be, and does that length suit the form?
Why ask it
A target word count converts a vague ambition into a daily number. It also catches mismatches early: a hundred and forty thousand words for a practical guide is a sign the structure is not holding.
What research or reporting do you need, and where does it stop?
Why ask it
Research is the most comfortable way to avoid writing, because it feels like work and has no end. Decide in advance what you need to have read or seen before drafting, and treat the rest as fact-checking later.
Which chapter are you avoiding, and what is behind that?
Why ask it
There is almost always one, and it is usually either the part you do not understand well enough yet or the part that costs you something to say. Both are worth knowing before you are eight months in.
When exactly will you write: which days, which hours, for how long?
Why ask it
"Every morning" collapses in the first week of a hard month. A named slot on named days, and a rule for what happens when you miss one, is what separates finished manuscripts from drawers full of chapter three.
What are you giving up to make that time?
Why ask it
The hours have to come from somewhere: evenings, a hobby, sleep, income, time with people who will notice. Deciding which, rather than hoping the time appears, is the part most writers skip.
What does a finished first draft mean for you, and what will you refuse to fix before then?
Why ask it
Without a definition, revision starts in chapter two and never leaves. Deciding up front that you will leave gaps marked and keep going is what gets you to a complete, bad, fixable draft.
Which three readers will see the draft, and what will you ask each of them to look for?
Why ask it
A general "what did you think" produces praise and line edits, neither of which help at draft stage. Ask one reader about structure, one about accuracy, one whether they were ever bored, and note where the boredom clusters.
What will you do when a reader you trust says the part you like best is not working?
Why ask it
This will happen, and the favorite passage is usually the one you wrote for yourself. Deciding in advance to sit with the note for a week before defending it saves a great deal of wasted argument.
What is the deadline you would be embarrassed to miss, and who else knows about it?
Why ask it
Private deadlines move silently. A date you have told two people, or a submission window you cannot reschedule, is the only kind that reliably changes behavior.
Which real people appear in this book, and what do you owe them before it goes out?
Why ask it
Memoir, family history and reported work all put people on the page who did not choose to be there. Decide who gets a warning, who gets to read their pages, and what you would change if they objected, before you are on a deadline.
Which publishing route fits this book, and what does each one cost in money, time and control?
Why ask it
Traditional publishing trades years and creative control for editing, distribution and an advance; self-publishing trades money and marketing labor for speed and rights. The wrong choice for the book is usually made on temperament rather than fit.
What are you willing to pay for: developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading, cover design?
Why ask it
If you self-publish, these are your costs and the order matters, since a proofreader cannot fix a structural problem. Naming a budget also protects you from services that charge for what publishers normally provide.
What would make this worth having written even if very few people buy it?
Why ask it
Most books sell modestly, so a plan that only works at scale is a plan to feel cheated. Reasons like the argument existing on the record, the work it brings you, or being the person who finished it survive a quiet launch.
What happens the day after you finish?
Why ask it
Writers underestimate the flatness that follows a long project. Having the next thing sketched, or a deliberate empty month, is worth deciding while you still have the energy to decide it.
Getting from an idea to a finished manuscript
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start drafting
Write the description before the book
Draft the paragraph that would appear on the back cover, then the table of contents. Both are quick to change now and expensive to change in month seven.
Read your competition properly
Read three or four books close to yours, all the way through, and note what each one leaves out. That gap is your book's reason to exist, and it is far easier to see from inside someone else's chapters.
Pick a length and divide it
A target word count divided by the number of writing days you actually have gives you a daily number. If the number is impossible, change the deadline or the scope now rather than discovering it later.
Keeping a draft moving
- End each session mid-sentence, so restarting is typing rather than deciding.
- Keep a separate file for research questions and doubts, and put a bracketed marker in the draft instead of stopping to resolve them.
- Track days written rather than words written when the work is hard; the streak is what protects the habit through a bad chapter.
- Write the chapter you understand best when you are stuck, then return to the difficult one with momentum.
- Leave the first chapter until late. It is the one most shaped by what the book turns out to be.
- Save every draft with a date and never overwrite the previous one, so cutting boldly costs nothing.
Feedback that helps
Ask for a specific job
Give each reader one assignment: is the argument sound, does the middle sag, would a newcomer follow chapter two. Unfocused readers default to grammar, which is the least useful thing at this stage.
Trust the location, not the diagnosis
Readers are reliable about where they lost interest and unreliable about why. When two people stumble in the same place, believe the place and ignore the suggested fix.
Wait before you revise
Read all the notes, then do nothing for a few days. Immediate revision tends to follow whichever comment stung most, which is not the same as the one that mattered most.
Common ways books stall
Revising chapter one forever
Polishing the opening is the most respectable form of not writing the book. It also wastes work, since the opening usually has to be rewritten once the ending exists.
Treating research as progress
Another twenty sources will not resolve a structural problem. If you have been reading for months without adding pages, the block is about the shape of the book, not the material.
Announcing instead of writing
Talking through the idea repeatedly can discharge the pressure that would have gone into the draft. Keep some of it unsaid until it is on the page.
Waiting to feel ready
The confidence tends to arrive after the pages, not before them. Most finished books were written by someone who was not sure it was any good until the second draft.