How to finish writing a book
Why is it so hard to finish writing a book? Surely, after creating the thousands of words that make up the rest of it, this should be the easy part?
If you’re in this situation and feeling alone with it please don’t. I talk with many authors in your shoes and I know that, when you’re sooo close to finishing, the end can seem even further away than when you started.
Finishing is, of course, important. Writing most of a book isn’t going to help you or anyone else. It’s only when that book makes its way into the world as a published title that your dreams for it will come true.
So how do you unlock your creativity and propel yourself towards that finish line?
In this article, I’ll give you three powerful techniques for igniting your passion for writing in a way that gets your book completed. Let’s dive in and discover the keys to overcoming ‘finisher’s block’.
Fence it
Seven years ago, a logistics expert asked me to ghostwrite his book. The reason he hadn’t written it himself was that, whenever he sat down to plan it, he felt like he was at an ‘all you can eat buffet’. He couldn’t stop loading his plate with a chapter on this or a section on that – on and on it went. The result was a smorgasbord of content that was sure to overload the appetite of any reader.
So we worked together to write a book that focused on the most important aspects of logistics. And because we targeted the content tightly, this gave me space to add a lot of personality and readability through stories, analogies and examples.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the end of the story. After I’d sent him the final manuscript, he found the buffet tempting him again. The delicious smells and the beautiful array of dishes were too hard to resist, and – against his better judgement – he began loading up his plate once more.
We talked about it, but he’d now reached a point where he could no longer see the wood for the trees. Even worse, he was so paralysed by indecision that he felt unable to send his book off for publication. It was years before it saw the light of day.
This points to how important it is to draw boundaries around your content. Your book should start by meeting your readers where they are now and end at the point where they need to get to – and no more. It’s surprising how little people need to know to get results, compared to how much information you have in your head.
In other words, if you’re wondering whether to put one more lesson or anecdote in, the answer is probably no.
For more help with outlining your book and drawing boundaries around your content, you can read this post. Another option is my book Your Business Your Book, my award-winning guide to writing a business book. You’ll find lots of advice on where to start and finish, along with how to plot your structure.
Freeze it
I his book James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses, Frank Budgeon recalls a conversation with the famous author.
Joyce: “I’ve been working hard on Ulysses all day.”
Budgen: “Does that mean you have written a great deal?”
Joyce: “Two sentences.”
Budgen: “You have been seeking the mot juste?”
Joyce: “No, I have the words already. What I am seeking is the perfect order of the words in the sentences I have.”
I think you know what I’m going to say here.
It’s not only the big picture that can prevent us from finishing our books, it’s the small one. When you find yourself going over your text repeatedly, or removing a comma only to add it in again (guilty as charged here), you know it’s time to let go.
Because perfection is a state your book will never achieve.
And what is perfect, in any case? Who’s to judge? The most successful books that have ever graced the bestseller charts have their flaws – I’m sure you could find a few if you wanted. But would you honestly bother?
The other option is to hire an editor to do the nitty gritty for you. They’ll save you from spiralling down into an endless debate about what word goes where and ensure you end up with a professional manuscript.
Test it
Have you told anyone you’re writing a book? If you have, I imagine they’re impressed.
‘How clever you are, I could never do that’, they say. ‘I can’t wait to see it when it comes out.’
Feels good, doesn’t it?
But telling people you’ve published a book provokes a whole different kind of conversation.
‘Congratulations! How many copies has it sold?’ Or, ‘Wow that’s brilliant. Is it a bestseller yet?’
Eurrgh. It’s so much easier and safer to keep revising and editing than to push the button and be judged for the book you put out into the world.
What if you get a negative review? What if nobody buys it? What if your peers think it’s too simplistic and everyone else thinks it’s too complicated? These are thoughts that plague many a prospective author.
The good news is that there’s a great solution. It’s to ask a sample of people in your target audience (‘beta readers’) to read your book before it’s finalised. This has two benefits.
One is that you end up with a better book because you have their feedback to work with. The other is that it’s a ‘soft publish’ for you to try out how it feels to expose your tender pages to the eyes of others.
I highly recommend you do this. If you’re not sure what readers to choose or how it works, this post about working with beta readers will help.
As a summary, if you want to know how to finish writing a book, there are three ways to do it. Creating strong boundaries around how much content you include, resisting the tempation to produce the perfectly written book, and taking account of your fears around publication. Fence it, freeze it, test it. All will help you to finish your book.
It’s only when your book published that it makes a difference in the world. To you, to your readers, and to your industry.
