# What to consider before actually writing.



## Ambitious_Singh (Mar 26, 2019)

I have decided to write my first book, a nonfiction dealing with a particular history. I have a list of questions however:

1.) Is it necessary to number pages when we write (using a computer) or can that wait until the end?

2.) Which is better, an introduction or a preface? Can we have both?

3.) What font do we use?

4.) How do we create an index?

Is there an easily accessible guide for this type of stuff? I am also having difficulties with word as there seems to be no structural template I can follow.


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## luckyscars (Mar 26, 2019)

In BLUE



Ambitious_Singh said:


> I have decided to write my first book, a nonfiction dealing with a particular history. I have a list of questions however:
> 
> 1.) Is it necessary to number pages when we write (using a computer) or can that wait until the end? Wait until the end. This is purely for the convenience of who is reading it. Pay attention to the specifications of who you are submitting to to format correctly
> 
> ...


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## Dluuni (Mar 26, 2019)

1: Wait until the end; that's part of the final process of interior book design and things will change around constantly until that is done. You will need several edit stages first. indeed, at some point it is very possible that you will be importing the whole thing into Notepad to strip all the formatting so you can fix a bunch of little issues before reconstructing it. Plus, ebooks reflow anyways. I'd rather read a raw text file than a formatted PDF.
2: IMO? Neither. but I don't write historical works, so your genre might be different. I want to catch people and drag them in in the preview. Pick up a popular book in your field or three and dissect them for structure, etc.
3: That depends on your genre, and it is, again, an interior book design question. interior book design is its own specialty that you can look into. Some people make their living just by doing typography. If you are going through an editor through the standard academic publishing process, they will almost certainly have a typographer on staff.
4: Depends on what you are using. I assume you'll need to do it manually, though, probably using your links from the bibliography.. you can certainly highlight terms so you can find them.


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 26, 2019)

Ambitious_Singh said:


> I have decided to write my first book, a nonfiction dealing with a particular history. I have a list of questions however:
> 
> 1.) Is it necessary to number pages when we write (using a computer) or can that wait until the end?
> 
> ...


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2019)

None of these are things to consider before actually writing. They are things to consider before submitting/publishing a manuscript.


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 26, 2019)

True dat; it is putting the cart before the horse.

I typically advise new writers to not even bother to seek publishing until they have written 200,000 words.
Until that point, they simply lack the experience to craft a marketable book.
It'd be like walking in off the streets and trying to race Michael Phelps.


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## gene (Mar 26, 2019)

I have never felt the need for any of this, I just write. If I don't have the work that I feel is worthy of the public, then no need to even number the pages or even try too clean it up for others to read. 

Here on this forum is my first steps to bring my work to the public, allowing other writers to critique my work. I do this as the final step to possibly getting my work out to the public. 

When I was a younger man my Aunt read a lot of romance novels, so she wrote one of her own. She sent it to publishers and was rejected, this shattered her faith in herself and her work, so she never wrote are tried again. I read her book and although it was a romance novel and not my genre I enjoy reading, to me it was a book, like so many others in that genre. I saw no reason for her rejection, so I asked her to try again sending it to other publishers. She said she could not stand to be rejected again, so never tried. 

I don't plan on going this route through professional publishers, etc,. I will take a different route, will it work, I don't know until I try. What I have today, that my Aunt didn't have back then is the internet. The internet opens up a hold new set of possibilities that I intend to explore.


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## moderan (Mar 26, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> True dat; it is putting the cart before the horse.
> 
> I typically advise new writers to not even bother to seek publishing until they have written 200,000 words.
> Until that point, they simply lack the experience to craft a marketable book.
> It'd be like walking in off the streets and trying to race Michael Phelps.


I'd race him on foot, just not in the water. 
200,000 is a decent round figure. Some 'get it' sooner, some later. Some people like to grow up in public and can take the heat. I like those types. One of my proteges was like that. Had adjectivitis, wrote the most derivative stuff ever. The highs were few and far between. But he got polished by editors and nowadays turns in decent product every time out.
Lots of people don't understand that the whole game is persistence, and they overvalue individual pieces. Keep subbing until someone buys the work. Stop taking things personally. It's just _copy_. Just _words_. If you keep writing, you'll have more and better. 
'Marketable' doesn't mean the Great American Novel. It means work of sufficient quality that someone would pay for it, with themes that appeal to whatever market you're trying to sell it to.


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## luckyscars (Mar 27, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I typically advise new writers to not even bother to seek publishing until they have written 200,000 words.
> Until that point, they simply lack the experience to craft a marketable book.
> It'd be like walking in off the streets and trying to race Michael Phelps.



I've seen you make a similar point to this several times so figure I might as well ask - where do you get these numbers from and why use word count as the primary metric?

I don't necessarily disagree, would just like to hear the rationale and it might be relevant to the OP. 

I don't know if 200,000 words = experience in any meaningful way if it's 200,000 words of safe-space rambling, unfinished, which I know several 'writers' are more than capable of churning out. I personally know writers who have written close to a million words and are still crap.

If we are going to take this seriously, wouldn't some amalgamation of the following be better? And these are not set in stone but from the hip:

- 2+ (beginning + middle + end) novels (of markedly different styles, voices, structures, POV) or 25 completed short stories which must have undergone some level of critique by unbiased contemporaries, ideally by professional or semi-professional writers.

- A reading list of 30+ books encompassing at least 10 books of the canon of different eras and genres.

- A copy, read, of Strunk & White's Elements of Style + Chicago manual of style (or equivalent if writing in non-US English)

^ Just a few things that I can think of that would be far better, IMO, measures of competency than word count. The above may be different for Non-Fiction, may not be. I would think for NF academic knowledge of the subject matter is probably as important than writing ability or 'experience' anyway.


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## Squalid Glass (Mar 27, 2019)

Lucky, essentially you are arguing for education. Haha, that might be controversial with a group of writers! Though I think your requirements are solid and fit in nicely with most introductory English curriculums. And I agree: general reading and writing experience are gonna be the best ways to get one's writing up to par. But I think some of the members on this board are proof enough that public critique also helps even for the novice. I personally think the earlier you get your drafts out there to a peer audience, the better.


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## luckyscars (Mar 27, 2019)

moderan said:


> Lots of people don't understand that the whole game is persistence, and they overvalue individual pieces. Keep subbing until someone buys the work. Stop taking things personally. It's just _copy_. Just _words_. If you keep writing, you'll have more and better.



Man, this is so true.

So far in 2019 I have averaged creating, writing, editing and submitting one one short story (2000-7000 words) a week. Typically I have spent about six hours on a Monday night hammering out the draft, four to five hours on a Tuesday/Wednesday rewriting the draft, then the remainder of the week editing it for a couple hours at a time. Sundays I format and submit and  spend the rest of the day contemplating the next story. Repeat this. Meanwhile I work a day job fifty hours and still manage not to murder my children.

Early days so who knows...but the point is to achieve a certain level of quality and comfort and then BLAZE IT. Once a story is written and subbed I all but forget it exists.Not because I don't care, but because _care_ is a verb as well as a noun and _caring _is utterly useless when it comes to things you cannot control. Once it gets rejected I will automatically send it to somebody else, then forget it exists again. 

Beyond a point, there's no point in dwelling on whether what you're doing is good enough, IMO. Other people will determine that. Pastures new.


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## moderan (Mar 27, 2019)

Take care you don't burn yourself out at that pace. Stuff stops being fun quickly. I do my column every day because I have to. Most of it's research anyway - 50% of my things are links. But I have to read all of the articles and determine how to make the ones I like fit a theme that's both entertaining and informative. It's creative work. Therefore I write fiction somewhat less often. It doesn't pay as well...I do about a thousand words a night on whatever project suits me, unless there's a deadline.
Make it easy on yourself if you want to sustain it for the long term. Writing life has a lot of ups and downs.


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## luckyscars (Mar 27, 2019)

moderan said:


> Take care you don't burn yourself out at that pace. Stuff stops being fun quickly. I do my column every day because I have to. Most of it's research anyway - 50% of my things are links. But I have to read all of the articles and determine how to make the ones I like fit a theme that's both entertaining and informative. It's creative work. Therefore I write fiction somewhat less often. It doesn't pay as well...I do about a thousand words a night on whatever project suits me, unless there's a deadline.
> Make it easy on yourself if you want to sustain it for the long term. Writing life has a lot of ups and downs.



Oh I've been writing for years, just never went anywhere. Discipline issues. Lots of frayed ends and loose pieces and no sales.

Agreed though: It's not fun, it's work. I do it because I don't really know how to _not_ do it. Might as well get shit done and out there instead of cry about it.


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## Megan Pearson (Mar 28, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> I don't know if 200,000 words = experience in any meaningful way if it's 200,000 words of safe-space rambling, unfinished, which I know several 'writers' are more than capable of churning out. I personally know writers who have written close to a million words and are still crap.



Yup, for myself, not a useful sentence in the first draft I wrote a dozen or so years back. Oh, I enjoyed writing it very much, and the family thought it was fun, but by the time I reached 90k I realized there was a lot about my writing _I didn't like_. 



luckyscars said:


> If we are going to take this seriously...
> - A copy, read, of Strunk & White's Elements of Style + Chicago manual of style (or equivalent if writing in non-US English)



...And that's what made the difference. I bought every single book I could on editing and I followed its advice. I bought every single book I could on fiction writing, genre writing, story structure, grammar, publishing, marketing, and much, much more. I still periodically pick up my JC's style manual when no grade is involved in what I'm looking up. I've since traded up to Chicago but find the JC manual superior in its clarity in definition & examples of basic grammar & usage. While I may not have sold any books yet, this self-education helped me through grad school. And, I long since graduated from the 6-figure word count arena with some fiction I think is finally improving enough to consider polishing up for the mass market. I couldn't have done any of this without making craft and style a priority in my writing.

But for someone just starting out, I'd say start writing. Write often, write regularly, write about everything you can. You'll figure out pretty quickly that you don't sound like your favorite authors and that your family will always love what you write, no matter how good (or how bad!) your writing is. And when you're ready, you'll have to decide whether or not you want the expensive education (which is the best route to prepare you for a writing career) or the go-out-and-get-it-yourself kind. Either way, and even if you pursue Moderan's friend's marketplace plan, eventually we all must gain some competency with our craft if we expect to be published. (At the very least you'll need it to double-check your grammar checking software.)

The great thing is, all you need to start is a pen and a blank sheet of paper.


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 28, 2019)

I use 200,000 words because that is roughly 1.5 books for a beginner.
That first book will usually stink the place up, and in almost all cases, should not be published.

I also use the 200k mark because I have personally seen that this is about how much practice it takes before a writer can understand character development and other advanced concepts.
I have seen this when working with new writers; until they achieve this milestone, they tend to not understand the concepts I am trying to explain.
Until you reach 200,000 words you are still learning the *mechanics *of writing, and the *philosophy *of writing is so far above you it might as well be clouds.

200,000 words is like this thing we have in aviation, known as the* 100 hour pilot*.
See, a pilot with a brand new PPL thinks they know everything.
But after they rack up their first 100 hours, they begin to understand just how much they DON'T know.
Prior to that they were not even aware of the fact that they were incompetent. (This is known as the unconscious incompetent.)





" I personally know writers who have written close to a million words and are still crap."
I have to admit that I absolutely despise this form of debate...the extreme case, the .0001% argument.
I liken it to not calling your shots in pool.
Essentially you try to nullify an idea simply because of a few outliers. 
The 200k rule is a guideline, not an absolute law of physics.


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## luckyscars (Mar 28, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I use 200,000 words because that is roughly 1.5 books for a beginner.
> That first book will usually stink the place up, and in almost all cases, should not be published.
> 
> I also use the 200k mark because I have personally seen that this is about how much practice it takes before a writer can understand character development and other advanced concepts.
> ...



First of all, I _didn't_ attempt to nullify your point whatsoever, Ralph. I began with 'I don't necessarily disagree with you...'  

I understand what you're saying. It's just far better, IMO, to talk about some of the things that should be done in that time rather than quantity. 

I strongly believe it's a LOT more than .001% who can write and write and write and still not grasp 'advanced concepts' whether it be at 200k, 400k, or hell, their entire lives, because they don't want to do anything else except write. It seems like a benchmark with enough exceptions to not be very helpful. At the very least, I am sure we can agree somebody who writes 200,000 words but seldom if ever reads (or reads trash), is going to be a crap writer. 

 And before you accuse me of picking extremes, I don't think there's anything extreme or rare about those people. I suspect they may even be verging on a majority, in fact. Plenty of people want to write more than they want to read or listen or learn. And more than enough who are sufficiently deluded to reach 200,000 words of junk powered by ego.

But let's leave that as a hypothetical. Agree to disagree, etc.


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## moderan (Mar 28, 2019)

The difference as I see it is in that percent who hope to write for filthy lucre. Submitting accelerates the learning curve more than anything else.


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## luckyscars (Mar 29, 2019)

moderan said:


> The difference as I see it is in that percent who hope to write for filthy lucre. Submitting accelerates the learning curve more than anything else.



Agreed. 

Submission rate, of course, has nothing to do with raw word count.


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## moderan (Mar 29, 2019)




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## Megan Pearson (Mar 30, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Until you reach 200,000 words you are still learning the *mechanics *of writing, and the *philosophy *of writing is so far above you it might as well be clouds.



How true.  

I did that while studying dressage, except the barrier was set at 1,000 hours in the saddle. I, ah, have found I do much better with the pen. But no matter the setpoint, the truth of your statement remains; certain concepts will never be learned unless one is willing to invest oneself fully in one's art, whether it be flying or writing or pottery. It has to be internalized, and the mechanics have to be allowed to discipline the artist. 

My husband left his study of martial arts after having taken it for several years (although still periodically returns to the practice on his own). Many years later, out of the blue, he comes in all excited, exclaiming, "I got it! I figured out what my instructor meant by___," and he gave me this really deep theoretical insight behind a certain set of moves his instructor had been trying to show him years before. "It was like the light went on," he said. 

That is precisely what the continued practice of our art should be like. I think a good education can facilitate reaching that point, but even the person without the college courses should be able to achieve that 'it was like the light went on' effect at some point following diligent study, reflection, & practice. But I think it will take longer. 

I think there comes a point where the true student of any discipline must be brought to realize by his subject matter that, for all his years of study, he knows nothing at all. It is only when he comes to this point that he can truly begin to learn.


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## Megan Pearson (Mar 30, 2019)

moderan said:


> View attachment 23501




It's usually in the doing of a thing that I learn what I value about it, and in turn, it leads me to a greater vision & understanding of whatever the thing is I am doing.


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## Chris Stevenson (Mar 30, 2019)

I go down to the root beginnings I guess. For non-fiction, which I have written before, and assuming I have the skill and writing experience, I make damn sure I have the platform first. I have really taken a beating for not having the proper platform to create some of my favorite non-fiction books. A terrible let down and waste of time.

For Fiction, I'm helplessly stuck with the requirement of having the best premise, or most unique idea I can think of before I start. I just have to be different, and put a radical slant on even a very popular or overused idea or plot. I know it's been done before, but I convince myself that it's mine oh, mine! It gives me more of a sense of freedom.


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## JustRob (Mar 30, 2019)

I have always regarded writing as one side of a conversation. If I can't imagine my reader's side of that conversation and the questions that they will be asking then I don't know what to write. This attitude arose from writing many detailed technical documents during my working life. Often I wrote several on the same subject, each aimed at a different type of reader. The information that we provide, the prominence of particular aspects of it and the words that we use all need to be chosen to suit a particular type of reader. I cannot conceive how it is possible just to project words into an undefined vacuum or what purpose doing so would serve. If you have no conceptions about your probable readers then you may have no reason to write anything at all. Hence I always regard forming that conception to be one of the first things to do.

I myself have been doing historical research into a challenging minor subject for many years. It is a very local matter, so I may safely assume that I am now the world authority on this relatively insignificant subject. I have considered properly documenting my findings for posterity, but as I don't have any of the disciplines of a historian I have to ask myself a key question, which is whether what I believe to be true is actually history or simply my impressions formed from very limited facts. I could simply catalogue all the facts that I have collated and cite their sources without embellishing them with my interpretation of them, but that would just be a tedious chore and would tell no story. That is the problem for me though, knowing the extent to which even accepted history is only a story based on fragments of information from the past. At what point is the quantity of source material insufficient to justify calling the story history? I suspect that my likely readers would rather read a fascinating story about local characters that might admittedly be speculative in places than not be given the chance to read one at all. Indeed, the only currently published fragment of this history is very much fiction when set against the facts that I have discovered, so my attempt at a history would certainly be much closer to the reality than that however I treat it. 

So, if you are contemplating writing a historical work then to my mind it is just as essential to have a clear perception of your likely readers as it is when writing fiction. How you set it out, as pages and pages of undoubtedly accurate but tedious facts or a possibly fanciful impression of events coloured by your own perception, must suit your anticipated readers.

So to answer the question directly, before writing any type of work consider your readers, otherwise that conversation may only be with yourself.


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 30, 2019)

Megan Pearson said:


> How true.
> 
> I did that while studying dressage, except the barrier was set at 1,000 hours in the saddle. I, ah, have found I do much better with the pen. But no matter the setpoint, the truth of your statement remains; certain concepts will never be learned unless one is willing to invest oneself fully in one's art, whether it be flying or writing or pottery. It has to be internalized, and the mechanics have to be allowed to discipline the artist.
> 
> ...





Truer words were never uttered.
You cannot understand something on a philosophical level until you have done it _ad nauseum_, to the point that you see beyond the mechanical processes.
I have seen that that point, on average, is about 200,000 words worth of writing experience.
Until then you are still focused on the mechanics.



What I *DID NOT SAY* is that after 200,000 words you will be a great writer.
Never said it, never implied it, never even hinted at that.
Some folks never get the hang of writing.

The 200k guideline really just declares that after that level of experience, you will begin to understand writing on a philosophical level*.



*assuming you are wired to write.


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## luckyscars (Mar 31, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> The 200k guideline really just declares that after that level of experience, you will begin to understand writing on a philosophical level*.
> 
> 
> 
> *assuming you are wired to write.



Ralph, out of interest, what do you consider 'a philosophical level' as opposed to 'mechanics'? Not sure I grasp the distinction. I certainly don't 'feel' a distinction between the philosophical aspect of my writing and the mechanical. 

You mentioned character development as an example, I think, of a concept that only becomes terribly meaningful (on average) at 200,000 words. Disregarding whether that's true or not, I'm guessing you're not saying that character development is only something that should become a feature of writing _after _that point is reached, right?


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## MichelD (Mar 31, 2019)

1.) Is it necessary to number pages when we write (using a computer) or can that wait until the end?    Wait

2.) Which is better, an introduction or a preface? Can we have both?  Forget that for now.

3.) What font do we use?  One you like to read

4.) How do we create an index?  Worry about that later.


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## Jack Dammit (Mar 31, 2019)

Actually and how it kills your credibility


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 31, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> Ralph, out of interest, what do you consider 'a philosophical level' as opposed to 'mechanics'? Not sure I grasp the distinction. I certainly don't 'feel' a distinction between the philosophical aspect of my writing and the mechanical.





If you are still talking about things like sentence structure, adverbs, adjectives, and arcs, then you are still mastering the mechanics.
If you are talking about maximizing multicharacter interactions, then you are prolly into the philosophy.

Mechanics are exactly what they sound like, the basics; SPAG, how to describe a scene, introducing characters, paragraph structure, descriptions, and basic character development.

But when I edit a book for someone who is working in the philosophical range, I'm not looking at their SPAG, I'm looking at much bigger issues: flow of the story, character interactions, theme, economy of words, complex-character driven story...




luckyscars said:


> You mentioned character development as an example, I think, of a concept that only becomes terribly meaningful (on average) at 200,000 words. Disregarding whether that's true or not, I'm guessing you're not saying that character development is only something that should become a feature of writing _after _that point is reached, right?"



A: Noooo!


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## MichelD (Apr 3, 2019)

If you're writing non-fiction, think about the different subjects that will make different chapters.

If it is recreational angling, you could talk about fish species, different methods for streams and small rivers and large rivers for example. Pond fishing, small lake fishing, large lake fishing. Using hardware like spoons and lures vs spinners, spincasting, flycasting, trolling on lakes, using bait, not using bait, the philosophy of fishing, the list goes on. You might have a whole separate section on salt water fishing.

Or if you're talking about restoring cars, that would be about sources, types of cars, How-to , frame restoration, engines,  transmissions, body work, parts sources, faithful restorations or hot roddingand on and on and on.  Info, info, info. How to source fuzzy dice and beer holders, etc. Get that into your book. 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/344943389392042/


All that other stuff you were asking about comes later once you figure out what you've got.


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