Lacking the Knowledge to Write a Book? [KOCPU #6]

Lacking the Knowledge to Write a Book?

I can’t write a book… I know nothing.

Sindore

Is that you?

That was me years ago. I took an expensive course, went 20% down in salary to take one day off per week to write, and when the teacher told me that I would have written a book before the end of the course…

I didn’t believe him!

Now, hundreds of books later, I still have plenty of ideas for books.

And knowledge?

You want to know my secret?

If you really want to learn something, you should write a book about it.

Sindore

This is not just theory. Check out “Britt Malka” and “for absolutte begyndere”. (That means “for absolute beginners”.) I wrote around 25 books for beginners to computers, all published through IDG Books, Denmark. (They changed their name to Libris later.)

Do you think I knew all there was to know about PHP, making homepages, using Windows, Word or Excel?

Oh, no. But I learned a lot on the way. And I discovered a funny thing: What I learned stuck.

It’s probably the best way to take in new stuff, by teaching it to others.

Sure, you can do research, too :)

Sindore

It’s best to write books about topics you know all about already. But that doesn’t happen often.

In most cases, you’ll have to do research.

I’ve found that I get much more done if I keep writing and researching apart. I discovered that in a hotel room without wifi many years ago. I had no way to do research online, and I’d never written so many words in such a short time before.

If possible, write first. Then do research.

I use placeholders in my text, if I have to look something up or confirm something.

Like in rare cases, I can only think of the word in Danish. So I’ll write it with capital letters inside the text, like this:

In this sentence I’m missing an UDTRYK, so I’ll look it up later and find that it’s called “expression” in English.

Or if I have more in depth research to do, or find a name or something, I’ll mark it with capital Xs like this:

There are XX theories about time travel.

Lately, I've started to use square brackets around the words I need to look up or do further research about. It makes it easier to find them when the are [surrounded like here].

Don’t overdo your research

You are not supposed to know everything about a topic or a setting or whatever you’re researching.

Keep it to the minimum you need to share.

Sindore

Search for it online, or use authority sites you know are reliable when it comes to the topic you’re researching.

Sometimes, for bigger works, you might even want to watch a video or buy one or more books.

Don’t put everything you’ve learned down on the pages either.

The best is to write down an outline of what you want to share, and then do the research.

Write, don’t edit.

I have to confess that I have a hard time doing that myself. When I discover a missing letter in a word, I go back to correct it.

But that’s about as much editing as I do while writing.

Besides that, I focus on writing and getting as many words down on the paper as possible. Then I can weed out superfluous “and’s” or check spelling of words, or check if the heroine had green or brown eyes in the beginning of the story.