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

style

Why overindulging in the exclamation mark is bad for your writing's health

Why overindulging in the exclamation mark is bad for your writing's health

For my recent 50th birthday my wife gave me (at my request) an electronic drum kit. My daughters rolled their eyes. “Mid-life crisis” they said loudly, without having to say anything at all. (There was general acknowledgement that alternative mid-life crisis choices could have been far worse.)

Anyway, to come to the point. As I work my way through a couple of drumming books and numerous YouTube clips, there’s one message that comes through time and time again. It’s that good drumming isn’t about lots of fancy stuff. It’s about keeping a good steady beat most of the time and stepping it up with a flourish once in a while. The art is less about complexity and more about timing – knowing precisely when to break out for maximum impact.

All of this came to mind when I was chatting to editor Heather Kelly the other day. Heather has years of editing experience and has always been an advocate for very sparse use of exclamation marks (or ‘exclamation points’ as they are called in the US). It is a very lucky exclamation mark indeed that survives Heather’s red pen.

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Quote me on this: using single and double quotation marks

Quote me on this: using single and double quotation marks

This is a small thing but being aware of it will help your writing appear more professional.

I’ve written in the past about the need to have a consistent writing style. Nothing shouts ‘amateur’ more than a mixture of American and British spellings on a website, the same word spelt in different ways or, worse still, a variable treatment of the way you spell your own company’s name. (It does happen.)

A common area for written content to become unkempt is in the use of quotation marks to mark speech and to emphasise words. I see this most often in blog posts. So let’s go to school on that.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

By the time you’ve drafted your book, rewritten it once or twice and then given it a good polish, it would seem reasonable to think that you are just about done with it. And you are … sort of.

The good news is that once your manuscript has reached this point you are getting very close to the end. However, there is a very important step to undertake: the copyedit. This means going over of your text with a fine-toothed comb to correct ‘typos’ – like spelling mistakes and grammatical errors – and to ensure consistency of presentation.

Without exception I recommend that this task is given to a professional editor who has the skills, knowledge and experience, including an incredible eye for detail, needed for the job. Don’t give it to a well-meaning friend (unless they have that qualification) and never, ever try to copyedit your own work.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Perhaps the best kept secret of the book-writing fraternity is that – contrary to the belief of many non-writers – the vast majority of finished books are not written in just one draft. Few authors, including the best of them, have a ‘gift of the gab’ that allows them to churn out golden words like the mint churns out golden coins. It doesn’t work like that.

What makes a ‘good start’ into a ‘good book’ is the re-writing. This is where you take your draft – your rough piece of clay – and shape it into something beautiful.

The task of re-writing is easier than you might think. It is so much simpler to work with a draft than it was to work with a blank page.

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What's your style? (Don't tell me you don't have one!)

Recently our family has been watching the new TV dramatisation of the 1979 novel Puberty Blues. The girls watch the girls and notice how little has changed; my wife and I watch the fashions and are very pleased that some things, namely shorts and hairstyles, have changed. The show reminds me of one of the nice ironies of school uniforms: that no matter how ‘uniform’ a school wants its pupils to look, the kids will always find a way to add a touch of their own style to their ‘look’.

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