Technology
David Brewster
My book ghostwriting tools in 2021

Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.

My book ghostwriting tools in 2021
Work Life
David Brewster
When to avoid showing your vulnerable side

Being willing to reveal a bit of yourself, especially through a bit of self-effacing humour, will lighten your text and give your readers something to connect to.

But this blog post is not about that sort of vulnerability.

No, this time I want to remind you of two of the less inspiring but just-as-important vulnerabilities every writer faces. Those vulnerabilities are backup and data security.

I was reminded recently about this by a rare computer crash that led to me losing a small amount of work. It wasn’t important and was easily recovered, but it could have been so much worse. Imagine losing a whole book to a hard drive crash!

When to avoid showing your vulnerable side
Write a book
David Brewster
No time, money or skill? You can still get your ...

If there’s one thing you learn from spending a chunk of your career in the world of books and writing, it’s that there are a lot of great stories out there. Personal stories of remarkable success against the odds. Business stories of risk taking and growth. Political stories of intrigue and persistence.

It would be great if all these stories could be told. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. Ideally, the stories would be recorded in books because books last. They go onto shelves and into libraries. They won’t disappear or become unreadable with new technologies.

Unfortunately, many terrific stories are never written down. Sometimes that’s because their owners don’t want to share them. Often

No time, money or skill? You can still get your book written
Reviews
David Brewster
The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario

Ghostwriter characters don't make it into fiction very often, but when they do they always seem to find themselves in jeopardy. 

In the 2010 Roman Polanski film The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter working for a former British prime minister. In the end he knows too much and ... it doesn't end well. 

In the Netflix series House of Cards, Paul Sparks plays ghostwriter Thomas Yates who, after struggling to extract a decent memoir out of the president, fails to keep his professional distance, you might say. It takes a while – three seasons in fact – but it doesn't end well for him either.

And now we have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's latest novel, First Person, in which the narrator is a ghostwriter hired to author the memoir of a notorious conman. The story was inspired by Flanagan's own experience, very early in his career, of ghostwriting the autobiography of fraudster John Friedrich in 1991.

The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario
Writing
David Brewster
The joy of a good yarn

I love that my work as a ghostwriter gives me the opportunity to help people get their stories told. What I love even more is the fact that working on other people's stories gives me a front-row seat to those yarns.

Take Around the Grounds, for instance – a book that will be released by Finch Publishing on August 1. 

For this book I've been working with former ABC radio broadcaster Peter Newlinds. Peter's story is a celebration of sport, but from the spectator's side of the fence. This perspective gives the story a level of accessibility that most sporting memoirs, written as they are by former players, can't have. Few of us have the ability to play elite sport, but all of us are more than capable of joining in from the relative safety of the stands.

Of course we don't all have access to the commentary box as Peter did…

The joy of a good yarn

outlining

The art of sorting information for your book

The art of sorting information for your book

I'm currently working on the early stages of two separate ghostwriting projects. In both cases I'm starting with good quantities of raw material. In one case I have transcripts from interviews amounting to about 80,000 words, about three times the target length of the final book. In the other case I have an early draft to work with plus some new material – and a few gaps to fill.

My job now, in both cases, is to sort out the existing raw material and start to give it some shape. From there I'll be able to create initial rough outlines, which will help with refining the material (in the first case) and identifying gaps (in the second).

The sorting step is a point where many inexperienced book writers can get bogged down. The task often seems insurmountable, especially when you have a lot of material, some of which is written down and some of which is still in your head.

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Starting a new book writing project: embracing the unknown

Starting a new book writing project: embracing the unknown

I've recently started working on a new company history project. I've conducted interviews with about 20 people and had those interviews transcribed. I've also been provided with a number of newspaper articles and other items from the archives. All up I have about 200,000 words of raw material that needs to be condensed down to about one tenth of that for the final book.

At the moment I don't have a clear idea of what the finished product is going to look like structurally. I have some major headings in mind, but what order they will be presented in is unknown. And those topics may change too. There might be a few 'ins' and 'outs' along the way.

But that's okay. What I've learnt over the years is that uncertainty at this stage of a book project, or any large creative project for that matter, is quite normal.

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There may be no new ideas, but there are always new perspectives

There may be no new ideas, but there are always new perspectives

Recently we took an international guest to Sydney for the weekend. Melbourne is a great place with heaps to do and eat, but I always feel a visit to Australia isn’t complete until it has included the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Seeing them is as essential as seeing Big Ben in England or the Eiffel Tower in France.

In any case, I just love any excuse to go to Sydney myself. And when I’m there, what do I love doing most? Seeing the harbour bridge and, especially, the Sydney Opera House. I simply cannot spend long enough looking at that wonderful building. Or photographing it.

I must have taken thousands of pictures of the Opera House over the years. Me and millions of others. But that doesn’t stop be taking more. The thing is, the building is so spectacular and in such a great location that there is always another way of seeing it.

The point is that even one of the most iconic, over-photographed buildings in the world can always be looked at, and photographed, in a different way.

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Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

I’ve just finished watching the excellent television drama House of Cards – the US version starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood. If you’re into politics, it’s a must see.

During the third and final season, one of the subplots involves a writer, Thomas Yates, who is commissioned by Underwood to write a biography of him. In many ways it’s a poisoned chalice for Yates. The book is always intended as a puff piece.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting interactions between subject and writer across a number of episodes – interactions I think many ghostwriters and biographers could relate to.

A theme that ran particularly true for me was Yates’s challenge in getting any level of detail out of Underwood.

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The power of outlining in Microsoft Word

The power of outlining in Microsoft Word

Regular readers will know that I am not a big fan of Microsoft Word. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some handy features – it’s just that too often those features are hidden underneath layers of complexity.

The ‘outline’ view is a case in point*. Outline view has been around since the earliest versions of Word, yet many people still don’t know about it or use it.

Depending on your version of Word, the outline view can be accessed via the ‘View > Outline’ menu item, the ‘Outline’ tab (some Windows versions) or the ‘Outline’ button at the bottom of the screen (left side for Mac, right side for Windows).

Here are three powerful things you can do with an MS Word outline:

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

In the context of this monthly series, this post is less of a ‘how to’ and more of a call to arms.
In season five of the brilliant television drama The Wire much of the action is set inside the newsroom of a fictional version of The Baltimore Sun. On a number of occasions we see journalists and editors debating nuances of argument, word choice and grammatical accuracy. It’s a nod to the seemingly old-fashioned idea that getting the words right actually matters.

Sadly, if many of today’s newspapers are anything to go by, the pace and pressure associated with survival in the modern media environment have put paid to this dedication to accuracy. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t find at least one blatant typo in our paper – usually more – along with a missing or duplicated line or an obvious hole in an argument.

However, there is one area of writing in which ‘getting it right’ still matters: the book.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 3: Draft

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 3: Draft

You’re two months into this non-fiction book-writing project and if you’ve been keeping up*, you should now have in front of you a reasonable outline of your book. Will that be the final outline? It might be, but it might not. At this point, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have some form of skeleton on which you can now start adding some meat.

By now you may have noticed a bit of a theme running through these ‘Write your book’ posts. For both collecting and outlining I was keen to emphasis the need for a Nike approach: ‘Just do it’. That same approach applies to drafting.

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How to use threes to magically improve your writing

How to use threes to magically improve your writing

You may not realise it but your favourite number isn’t four, or seven, or 42. It’s three. Three is everyone else’s favourite number too, and you can use this simple truth to add punch to anything you write, from an email to a book.

There’s something magical about three. Pythagoras, who knew a thing or two about three-sided shapes, called three ‘the perfect number’. In Latin there was a saying – omne trium perfectum – which translates as ‘everything that comes in threes is perfect’.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 2: Outline

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 2: Outline

In the previous post in this series, I set you a goal of collecting as much of your ‘stuff’ as you could, in either physical or digital form, or a mixture of the two. With that done, you can move on to outlining your book.

You’ve got a pile of stuff. Now what will you write about?

The act of collecting together all that you know about ‘your’ topic can be quite daunting. Your ‘pile’ of information is probably quite a lot higher than you thought it might be. Which can create a problem. How to convey all that in the space of a couple of hundred pages?

The answer lies in understanding that your book should not aim to be a ‘tell all’. In other words, you don’t need to – indeed shouldn’t aim to – fit everything you know into this single book. This can be difficult for the first-time author to come to grips with but it is very important. 

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