How to Write a Book

How to Write a Book

© 2023 Lee Pletzers

Raging River Press

Wellington New Zealand

Cover art Pixabay Free Images. License CC0 

The right of Lee Pletzers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No copying or reselling.

This Book (print, audio, video and eBook versions) is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This product may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

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This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described here are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher.

Dedicated to all writers.

Recommended writing movies:

Throw Mama From The Train.

Finding Forrester.

Secret Window.

Stranger than fiction.

Shakespeare in Love

Recommended writing books:

Giants of the Genre

Dean Koontz How to write bestselling fiction

The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

The Kick-Ass Writer by Chuck Wendig

Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder - perfect for showing how to write a synopsis.

Story Structure Architect by Victoria Schmidt

Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker

Each book is a universe with a part of you inside, peeking out.

Lee Pletzers

INTRO.

This is my second non-fiction book. Why (yet) another book on writing? The answer is simple. You see, I've read a lot of books on writing. In the hopes of gaining knowledge of outlining. The writing process is, for me, learned by fire. I'm a discovery writer but I wanted to know how to outline, and as I learn by doing, writing a book about it seemed the best option. And I'll do it as blog posts—using the blog for the first draft. As all writers know, things change, especially when writing.

The books I have read over the past two years (I will not list them) have all dealt with outlining. I want to know how to do this as it may improve my output. Writing a book is not an easy process. It takes more than creativity to pen a compelling tale. You will need a strong dose of willpower and determination.

Writing is a solo act, even if you write books with a partner. When you sit down to scribe, it is just you. And if you are a social person who loves to be surrounded by friends and going out on dates, dancing, drinking, etc, every weekend—it's going to take you a long time to finish your book. 

This book is in response to Million Dollar Outlines author David Farland. In the book, he says that he'll show you how to write an outline. After reading through the book to the final chapter Writing Million-Dollar Outlines, he said: "I'm not going to show you how to write an outline." So, pissed off, I decided to do exactly that.

Image by me. 

When I wrote this How to book, I was basically teaching myself.

Image by me. 

At the time I was working on a werewolf novel, like none other. That book is in a rewrite, holding pattern as I switched to writing a couple of thrillers, screaming to escape my noggin. I might get back to it one day. I mean, I do have the outline.

Image by me. 

This book deals with novel writing AND outlining using Scrivener. However, I'm using Zoho Docs to write this book. It seemed like a good idea to utilize an online platform as I use more than one machine on a daily basis. Also, writing more than one book on one piece of awesome software at the same time seemed like a bad idea, as I would be closing one file to open another file to make notes and changes. An online universal program appeared to be the better choice.

Whoops, I got off track (a habit of pantsers AKA Discovery Writers). All the books I read, even by famous writers and all dealing with outlining, gave no actual outline details or buried gold nuggets with the text making it impossible to find, or they used films to describe the outline (and that’s just cheating. The film’s already been made). Each book spoke of characters, settings, and so on. Not one of them gave any solid plan. Not a single one of them showed us what they did, or even gave us a starting point.

This is why I have decided to write this book. It is short and to the point. Also, I penned this book at the same time as I was working on my werewolf novel. Everything that is mentioned in this writing book will be reflected in the novel.