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A Service Spotlight: Ghostwriting

In our ongoing series of unpacking what exactly it is we do here at Book Architecture, we’ve shared what both a Phase One and Phase Two of developmental editing looks like, with the former featuring manuscript evaluation and the latter manuscript revision. But what about the clients who don’t have an existing manuscript? What if they’re looking to us to largely help generate that?

What we’re talking about, then, is ghostwriting.

Ghostwriting is a term that can have a lot of negative associations, but while we have ghostwritten dozens of books in as many disciplines, we’ve never once ghostwritten someone their philosophy. We are hired writers, the way a business hires an accountant or a lawyer — but those professional service providers don’t take credit for an organization’s success. With that out of the way, let’s get into the nuts and bolts of what the process looks like.

The First Draft: Generating Material

When a ghostwriting project commences, we begin by digesting all of the material that already exists on the topic, be it the client’s video presentations, white papers, collections of notes, stabs at an outline, and/or general research. Then, we begin to generate new material with purpose, but openness, as everything that is unearthed during this phase has value. Zoom-based video interviews that we transcribe often form the heft of this step, but we might also send the client a series of email prompts to which they are encouraged to respond in an unselfconscious way (i.e., no copy editors here). They might keep notes on their phone of anything that comes to them, or in a journal that they will later type up and send to us. Whatever adds to the expanding vision is of help here. By the end of this stage, we will have a glorious mess of between 50,000-70,000 words…the length of an actual first draft.

Between The First and the Second Draft: The Outlining

Time spent here in analysis both allows our creative mind to rest, and pays huge dividends for a reorientation to a successful second draft. We use a series of proprietary exercises from the Book Architecture Method to see the work from different angles than the mindset we previously applied. Without forcing it, the end goal of this interim stage is the generation of a detailed outline which accounts for all of the best material that has been generated thus far, and that serves as our personal roadmap for moving forward. 

The Second Draft: Bringing the Best Parts Up a Level

Draft two focuses on three things: what is truly working (something that was identified during the previous analysis), on new opportunities for generating first draft material to be woven in, and of course, on what can be cut. During this phase, the client becomes the editor, reviewing drafts and offering comments through whatever mechanism is comfortable for them. Much of the collaboration during this step also occurs via video calls that will be transcribed, only this time around the questions have grown much more focused. 

Between The Second and the Third Draft: Working with Beta Readers

Beta readers are people who read a work before it is finished and offer feedback, and they should be chosen for their diversity — while also being part of what the client sees as the audience for the book they’re writing. We can recommend and hire beta readers on the clients’ behalf, or they may have people they are connected to personally and/or professionally that they want to bring into the process. Beta readers are then given a questionnaire with ten specific questions that we have generated to weigh in on, thereby targeting their responses into useful, actionable insights. 

The Third Draft: Making It Shine

The first draft is about getting it down, and the second draft is about making sense. The third draft is about making it good. Beta reader responses can contribute powerful information to this last stage of the drafting process. With the client, we populate a punch list of changes that we want to make and sections we want to improve. The best way to keep the momentum here—an inevitable challenge at this juncture—is to keep the subject matter of the revision fresh. Or, as a mantra for this draft might read: “Hit it, and get out.” Where we land at the back end of this is the polished draft, and it is this draft that will go to copy editing—a palpably exciting moment!

Look Out, Kid: The Book Architecture Method in Miniature

Regarding The Book Architecture Method, sometimes the simplest demonstrations are the clearest. In this case, let’s focus on a song that I, personally, think kicked off the 1960s. Well, the good part, anyway…and that is “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” by Bob Dylan.

Now before you go stating that song lyrics aren’t literature, let me just say that October 24th is a national holiday in the Book Architecture offices. That is the date in 2016 when Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Validation for many of us (despite tweets like Jodi Picoult’s: “I’m happy for Bob Dylan, #ButDoesThisMeanICanWinAGrammy?”) that few Americans have had a greater impact on arts & letters than one Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota.

Glad that’s out of the way. To study a song or poem in the context of longer-form literature, begins with an appreciation that poetry was the first language art. Long before writing existed, in fact, poetry as an oral tradition helped human beings remember their mythologies and their histories — even their laws — because the rhythm and repetition helped early humans commit things to memory.

This rhythm and repetition is at the heart of The Book Architecture Method’s focus on series: the repetition and variation of a narrative element so that the repetition and variation creates meaning. For a song, this repetition is often centered in the chorus. In Subterranean Homesick Blues, there is no chorus, but there is an important clue…

We interrupt the unfolding of this piece to let you know that if you would like to read the lyrics of Dylan’s song, you can find them here. If you would like to listen to the original you can find it: here. If you want to listen to a bluegrass version where the lyrics are even clearer, you can go: here. And if you want to listen to 11 versions of the song in the same playlist compiled by some fanatic, you can go: here.

So, where is the key repetition and what does that series tell us about the theme of this song? Each of the four stanzas has a section that begins, “Look out kid.” The singer is positioning himself as a kind of elder who is giving the listener advice, even if they don’t necessarily want to believe how bad things have gotten. (Timely song alert.) 

What the kid needs to look out for is different in each stanza. “It’s something you did / God knows when / But you’re doing it again,” (if you listen you can almost hear Dylan smiling through these lines). This progresses to “Look out kid / Don’t matter what you did,” just so we’re clear that the paranoia of the burgeoning counter-culture in the mid-1960s doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Then we get, “Look out kid / You’re gonna get hit / By users, cheaters / Six-time losers.” And finally, in the clearest formulation: “Look out kid / They keep it all hid.”

These four repetitions of the Look out kid series point to the theme of the song: Don’t follow leaders. The scenes in this case are the other data points present. On the one hand, as the poet thinks about the government, we get someone with a badge looking for a payoff, the “heat” (slang for police) planting bugs and tapping phones, a DA who has to make a bust in a certain timeframe, plainclothes policemen, and law enforcement capable of training fire hoses on the protestors of the Civil Rights movement.

But on the other side, we have you, kid. You probably know to avoid scandals. You may even strive to keep a clean nose. But even more importantly is that, as the listener, you trust your own perceptions. “You don’t need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows.” And of course that you watch your parking meters.

In four stanzas of 18 short lines each, less than 325 words, we have a central series which repeats and varies, and points up the pyramid to the theme, and down the pyramid to the scenes, or symbolic manifestations. We have a voice which reaches its audience through the agency of tone, which includes shared referents and values. Is it easier to pull this off in a condensed carousel of largely surrealistic images? Or is it easier to organize and deploy your structural elements over the course of 300 pages? Or is it the same, provided that you work with scene, series and theme to keep like with like, and introduce movement to get your point/s across? 

As we like to say at Book Architecture, “These are the questions.”

Service Spotlight: Phase Two

As you may recall, earlier this year we detailed what the first phase of working with us here at Book Architecture typically looks like when it comes to developmental editing. We call it a Phase One and, in short, it’s about manuscript evaluation. Today, we’re going to discuss what happens next: Phase Two, manuscript revision.

If we get an inquiry from someone wanting to start in this Phase Two, because they have seen the Three Phases document on the website, I will usually decline. If it is an author I have worked with before, or an author whose work has already had extensive editing and I am being brought in to get that project over the finish line, I will consider it. But for the most part, Phase One provides the overview—just as the name says—not only for the author but also for me.

Additionally, if an author does resonate with my Phase One written commentary, and we have had a good follow-up conference, chances are excellent that we have already begun to map out the direction that their revision can take. In the case they choose to continue our work together for a Phase Two, there are two primary options as to how that can happen:

  • Option A. I describe this to the author as quite similar to the Phase One process we just completed. First, they finish the work and then I read it closely, adding extensive comments on the pages. I draft a cover note of 2-3 pages detailing the major concerns, which we discuss in a follow-up conference of 1.5-2 hrs that also covers any of my comments that they have questions about.
  • Option B. This includes progressed feedback as the author moves through the rewriting of the material; coaching that will help discern which topics to tackle in which order; feedback on the new material via page-by-page commenting and cover letters with live conferences as needed; and notes on how to weave new material together with the old so that the entire hangs together. Together as author and editor we progress through the rewrite until it is ready for beta readers. The advantage of Option B is the continual support authors receive as they rewrite the book once with a clear and confident direction.

In both cases, the comments I provide that come directly from the content of the manuscript are supported and furthered by suggestions that arise from the projective exercises I lead clients through, largely centered around the Book Architecture Method, such as: scene structure, narrative arcs, questions on their way to being answered (or not), thematic work, or anything that was treated in the previous chapter, such as POV, tone, characterization and relationships, the dimensions of a work, authorial intrusion, audience and genre.

The nuts and bolts of Phase Two, whether a client opts for Option A or B, are pretty straightforward: I receive revised sections of approximately 25 pages from the author (around 5,000 words) and comment on the material. The author reviews those comments and we may meet to clarify anything outstanding or brainstorm solutions to agreed-upon problems. The author then revises that section again and sends it to me for a re-read after which we move forward to the next 25-page section. Through this process we work our way through the manuscript doing essentially two revisions at once while feeling secure that we were heading in the right direction at all times.

Clients Crushin’ It: Bjarne Tellmann

When he’s not teaching, contributing articles to various publications, or running his consulting and advisory business, Bjarne Tellmann is writing books. Earlier this month, Madison Utley spoke to him about the publication of his second, Law in the Era of AI: Clients, Firms, and the Future of the Legal Industry. 

MU: To start, can you tell us a bit about your background, both professionally and in terms of your writing journey?

BT: I came off of a 30-year legal career, 18 of which I spent as general counsel of several large companies. It was a long journey that took me to many different parts of the world leading big teams. In 2014, I joined a company called Pearson. They were going through huge disruption and that was my first forced education with technology, process optimization, and thinking about running legal departments as a business. That was also the first of several times I’ve led teams through times of disruption and change.

Writing has always been a big part of my job. Lawyers write a lot. They read a lot. And then I wrote my first book back in 2017 called Building An Outstanding Legal Team off the back of the Pearson experience. I just love writing. It’s a great way to think deeply about something. 

MU: In both cases you went on to write a book, what was it about the topic that made you feel you needed a longer form format than the articles you also write?

BT: I’m a very curious person. If I find myself immersed in something that I’m interested in, I want to get to the heart of it. I don’t know a better way to do that than to write something in long form. Once you pick a topic, you unpack and unpack; you do more research than you can actually put in the book, so you have to pare it back again. It’s that process of layering, research, and then paring things back. Constructing an argument, and then backing up all those arguments. It’s like a masterclass in whatever you’re doing. I enjoy that process immensely. 

I also enjoy trying to make complex things feel simple. I want to explain them in a way that someone who doesn’t have background context could say, “Yeah, I understand,” while at the same time, keeping the writing at a level where people who are in that space feel like it contributes something to their work. 

MU: With your global background and being based largely in Europe, how did Stuart get brought onto your Book Two team? 

BT: I had an amazing editor for my first book. She was incredible, but this time around she wasn’t available and so I had to find someone else. Stuart was working as an editor for a friend of mine, Michele DeStefano, and she put me in touch with him. I’m very glad I found Stuart. He’s absolutely brilliant at what he does. Truly, he’s a genius. 

When you’re writing something that is based on the deep understanding of a specific profession or area of knowledge, it’s so helpful to have someone who isn’t familiar with those things to go, “I don’t really understand what that means.” It wouldn’t even occur to you that someone wouldn’t, and then you realize how deeply in the bubble you are. So it was Stuart’s honesty and fresh eyes I so valued. He’d push back and say, “This is redundant. This doesn’t make any sense. This is good; double down on it.” That is so helpful. If I attempted this on my own, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to what it’s like having worked with a knowledgeable third party. 

MU: Artificial intelligence (AI) is obviously a hot topic right now. What do you have to say to people who are terrified of what it might mean for them and their work? 

BT: I’ll talk about it in the terms of my book. Legal work is not really one body of work. You can break it down into a million little chunks. Each chunk is a discrete task. Some tasks require human judgment. Those are usually the tasks at the top end of the pyramid. The 30-year partner who weighs in and has instincts and good judgment in a world of uncertainty. Then there are the tasks at the other end, the things anyone could do. The question is: which of those tasks could be done by technology? Of the ones that could be done by technology, which ones could be done better by technology? The answer is that a large number of those tasks actually can be done better by technology, and that can be a scary notion. 

But I think the interesting and optimistic message is: tasks change. As technology evolves, new tasks emerge. If you think about going to somebody in 1798 when 98% of America was engaged in agriculture and you told them that in 2026, 2% of Americans will be engaged in agriculture but we’ll be producing 10 times as much, they’d be panicking. “What are all those people going to do?” But it turns out there are all these jobs they never could have conceived of–virtually every job we have now, really. So I’m optimistic that as we head into the new era, it’s less about machines taking everything over, and more about machines taking over certain things and freeing us up to do new things. It just takes time for those things to emerge, but I do believe they will come. 

MU: What do you have to say to other professionals who are interested in writing a book but might feel they don’t have the time or the specific expertise necessary? 

BT: I have a friend who has written a couple of books and the advice he gave me before my first was very helpful: start with an outline. Start with your table of contents. Just that one page. And then break the table of contents into subchapters, and then consider what are the sub subchapters?

Before you know it, you have the outline of your book and then it’s paint by numbers. Once you start getting into the flow, you’ll realize you know more about your topic than you thought you did, and you’ll become absorbed in all the intricacies of learning it top to bottom. In other words: think big but start small.