How I Write A Book From Start To Finish

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at MSU chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

As a three-time self published author, I believe that I have finally nailed down the writing process that works for me. Between writing, editing, marketing, and publishing, it can be a lot, but with careful and detailed planning, writing and publishing can be what it’s always supposed to be — fun.

Story, character, and plot ideation

Every good story begins with an idea, and writing a book is no different. For me, inspiration can come from many places and strike at any time, so I’m always ready to jot down some notes and expand on any basic ideas that I have. Once I have something solid: an idea for characters, their story, and how the plot might go, I immediately start mapping it out. My favorite tool for this is Milanote, it’s an online platform that allows creatives to make inspiration boards for any kind of project they could be working on. I use it to create many different boards for the book I’m planning out. This is where I go into depth about the main characters: planning things like their physical and personality characteristics, motivations, character arcs, careers/jobs, friends, even what kind of clothes they wear and where they live. I create sections for any research I do,  brainstorming character storylines and the overall blurb, a novel mood board, world building, a story outline, any chapter ideas I may have, main character boards, character maps to explore their respective families, and a playlist. I include loads of pictures for visual inspiration, and once I have something extremely detailed that resembles a skeleton of a good book, I begin the first draft.

First draft

This is always my favorite draft because it’s raw, genuine, and filled with the initial ideas that I have to connect all my inspirations and story details into a plotted book. It’s the first draft, so it doesn’t need to be perfect. I put in all my ideas, write long or short chapters. I don’t overthink anything, I just write. I let the storyline flow from my brain to my fingertips and type them into my computer. I try not to go back and do any editing during this process because this is just the stage of writing until I’ve finished telling the story.

Second draft

This is when I complete developmental edits. I go through each chapter and use a highlighter to highlight the different scenes. Green means it’s good and doesn’t need any changes. It makes sense to the story and doesn’t need to be changed at all. Orange means that I want to keep the scene because I need it for the story, but something is missing from it; more details need to be added or maybe some need to be taken away and added into a later or earlier part of the story, something about a character needs to be changed, or the scene just needs to be developed more. Lastly, red is used for scenes that just need to be removed altogether: It doesn’t make sense or isn’t needed to propel the story. I go through each chapter using these color codes, and once I’m finished, I begin deleting and editing scenes. During this draft, I try to stay away from line editing; grammatical errors can be fixed later on.

Third draft

The developmental edits are complete and once I have the new and improved manuscript, I do my first round of line edits to fix any simple grammatical errors before sending it off to beta readers. This step is important if you want real feedback on your story from people in the book and reading community who primarily read in the genre that you’re writing. Typically a month is an appropriate amount of time to give beta readers to read and give in depth feedback. Once I get this back, I complete the third draft, taking in any recommendations from my beta readers to give my book a better appeal and make sure that the reading experience is the best for my potential readers.

Marketing

This is something I do throughout my entire writing process, from when I begin the first draft, all the way until I publish the book and even after. Doing this makes sure that my story gains traction before it’s even fully done, and gets readers interested in buying my book once it’s for sale. I work with a graphic designer, and she helps with creating the marketing graphics I use, as well as the cover, spine, back of my book, and any interior book designs I want to have. It’s important not to neglect the marketing while writing your book. I love doing reveals on social media like title, cover, blurb, dedication, and character art reveals. I also use trends to my advantage, book-ish trends or making a trend book-ish and using my own books and characters to do them. All these things help gain an audience for my book, so I always start documenting at the very beginning, even if it’s just posting a short video of me writing and talking about the book using a voice over.

Publishing tips

Without going into much detail, as an author who self-publishes and does everything myself, there are some things I have to keep in mind. Buying barcodes, ISBN’s, and copyrights is important to do before you get too far into the publishing process because you need all of these things to register your book and make it accessible, especially if you’re setting up a pre-order (which is another marketing tactic that helps your book gain traction). Writing, marketing, and publishing all at the same time can definitely be overwhelming, especially when the process for me takes 1-2 years, but that’s why I make a calendar of important dates. I even share this calendar with my graphic designer so we’re both on the same page.

Final edits

Before uploading the manuscript to the publishing service I use (Ingramspark, Barnes & Noble, and/or Amazon), I make sure to do one last line/copy edit to fix any grammatical errors I could have potentially missed. When I do this line edit, I like to have a printed copy of my book, which is why it’s important for me to be on top of publishing, because in order to do this last edit everything needs to be done and ready for upload. The only thing I should need to go in and change is the final version of the manuscript. Once the final line edit is complete, I can upload the manuscript, and then let out a long deep breath because the book, and the entire writing process, is complete.

Notice how I said that only the writing process is complete, because unfortunately for us self-published authors, the marketing never stops!