The Step-by-Step Process to FINISH!

In this episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show, we break down the complete roadmap for finishing your book—because contrary to what movies show us, it's not just "type, spell check, publish." 

Finishing a book requires a systematic, step-by-step approach that prevents overwhelm and helps you track real progress.

Why You Need a Step-by-Step Process

Our culture perpetuates myths about book writing—think Jo March in Little Women or countless Christmas movies where characters magically go from manuscript to bestselling author tour. The reality? Finishing a book takes everything you've got and requires becoming the writer you need to be to complete your unique project.

Breaking the process into clear phases gives you momentum, prevents paralysis, and allows you to celebrate milestones along the way. Instead of facing an overwhelming 300-400 page project, you work through manageable steps, always knowing exactly where you are in the process.

The 11-Step Process to Finishing Your Book

Step 1: Prepare Your Project Plan Treat your book like any other major project in your life. Calculate how many words you need, determine your weekly writing capacity, and create a realistic timeline. For example: if you need 50,000 more words and typically write 3,000 words per week, you're looking at approximately 16 weeks to complete your draft.

Step 2: Complete the Essential Book Outline Create a basic outline that tracks your protagonist's journey from beginning to end, including their desires, obstacles, and transformation. This serves as your roadmap for brainstorming scenes.

Step 3: Fast Draft Using "Rules for the Draft" Focus on getting the story down without perfectionism. The goal is completion, not perfection.

Step 4: Optional Manuscript Evaluation Consider getting professional feedback on your messy first draft to understand what's working and what needs development before diving into revision.

Step 5: Story Clarity Revision Shape your draft by determining what story you really want to tell and ensuring that vision translates clearly onto the page.

Step 6: Submit to Beta Readers Send your revised manuscript to 3-4 genre readers who can provide supportive critique. Ask specific questions about pacing, character development, and any sections where they found themselves skimming.

Step 7: Integrate Beta Reader Feedback Carefully evaluate feedback and decide what serves your book's vision. This may require additional revision passes.

Step 8: Line Edit Perfect your language, sharpen verbs, and ensure every sentence serves your story. Only do this after incorporating beta feedback to avoid attachment to scenes that might need cutting.

Step 9: Copy Edit Focus on spelling, grammar, and catching typos—especially important if you use dictation software.

Step 10: Prepare to Publish Choose your publishing path (traditional or indie) and complete the specific requirements for that route.

Step 11: Build Your Author Platform Develop a minimalist marketing approach that builds your presence without taking over your life—whether for pitching agents or self-publishing success.

The Power of Process

This step-by-step approach transforms an intimidating project into manageable milestones. You can see your progress, celebrate achievements, and maintain momentum knowing exactly what comes next. Each completed step moves you closer to your goal and proves you're further along than ever before.

Mentioned in this Episode: 

Book Finishers Bootcamp, September 11-17

Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. This week it's still just you and me. We're just chatting here and I will go back to doing more interview format, but I wanted to kind of go through a few things that come up in the course of talking to writers, whether it's in my First Book Finish programme or in my book Finishers Bootcamp, or just over the last more than a decade of working as a writing mentor. 

So today, what I want to talk about is something I think of as the step-by-step process to finishing a book. Because I think it is really easy to get caught up in what our culture shows us about finishing books. What our culture shows us about finishing books is you type the book, maybe you run a spell check and grammar check, and then you publish it, right?

If you think about any of the movies that you've seen, I'm thinking the one that comes to mind right now is Joe from Little Women, and she's writing and that the pages climb and now she's got a book, and then the book is published. Is it real? Or there's that movie, I think it's a Christmas movie with Brooke Shields where she's working on a book and then the book is published and she goes on a bestselling author tour and then she buys a castle in Scotland. Is that real? I don't know. 

I feel like our culture, so our culture is so much focused on quick and easy, and in case you need reminding, which you probably don't, finishing a book isn't quick or easy. It's going to take everything you've got. It's going to take becoming the writer that you need to become in order to finish the book that only you can write. It's going to take time, focus, commitment.

What makes it easier for me, and the reason I have structured First Book Finish the way I have is understanding that books happen in phases. So I talk about the six phases of a book and also that it's a step-by-step process. The reason that helps me and the reason it helps the finishers in First Book Finish is that it gives you a sense of progress and momentum. 

We do this step, then we do this step, then we do this step, and by the time you get to revision and first book finish, I have a whole 12 step process, and I'm always, always, and finishers will know this, calling people back to what step are you on? Stay on the step that you're on because otherwise the process gets overwhelming. So today I just want to walk you through what I think the steps that I think it takes to finish a book. Okay? So there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 steps that I want to go through. 

And the first one is preparing your project plan. So you have an idea for your book, maybe you've done some character sketches, you've thought about your setting, you've done a bit of an outline, at least for the first little bit. You kind of know roughly where you're going, and the temptation is to dive in, but I want you to treat your book like a project. So for every other thing in your life that you have achieved, you have treated it as a project. 

Getting a college degree is a project. It has a start date and an end date and a bunch of stuff you have to do in the middle. I want you to treat your book in the same way. This helps it not feel like finishing the book is going to be forever because in fact, it's going to be these number of months for the draft, these number of months for the revision, some feedback, editing, and so on. Okay? 

So the first thing we do is to create a project plan. And a project plan for me consists of an understanding of how many words I need. So if I'm writing a novel, let's say I'm writing a cosy mystery. Maybe I need 85,000 words for my cosy mystery, and maybe I already have 35,000 words, so I need another 50,000 words. Normally I write, I can do 3000 words a week. 

So if I take the 50,000 words that I need and divide that I'm literally doing math as we speak by 3000, then it's going to take me 16 weeks or four months to finish a draft. That's great. Now I have something to work with, and when I have weeks where it's less than 3000, I know I need to catch up. Maybe I'll do a writing retreat weekend, but I've got something to work with as what I need to achieve and how long it's going to take, and I can track that how I'm doing. So that's the first part of the project plan. 

The other part of the project plan is how are you fitting this into your life? Because for the vast majority of people, unless your last name is Medici and you have all the money in the world or you have a patron and someone is just gifting you endless amounts of time to write, most of us are fitting the finishing of our first books or second or third books in and among the rest of our lives. 

And so once when you're thinking about finishing your book as a project, you say, okay, in order to finish this project, I need to find four hours a week, four hours a week, or three hours a week or whatever your timing is according to how you've set up when you want to finish. And so how are you getting that time in? When will you be doing the writing and those things together, make a project plan. 

Then I have folks complete what I call the Essential Book Outline, which if you've ever done a bootcamp with me, the Book Finishes Bootcamp, you'll know The Essential Book Outline. It's an outline that basically walks your protagonist from who they are at the start of the story, what they desire, the obstacles and the way of what they desire and who they are at the end of the story in different ways. And it is a tool for brainstorming the scenes that reflect these things in your book. And so it's a basic outline that allows us to move ahead to fast draught, and then that's what we do. 

We use something I call the Rules of the Draft. And again, if you've done my Book Finishers Bootcamp, I have another one coming up in September. It's going to be September 11th to the 17th, and one of the trainings is on the Rules of the Draft for fast drafting. And so this allows us to finish a first draft more quickly than we otherwise would.

Now there's an option at that point of getting a manuscript evaluation. So sometimes we always need feedback. We always need a reader on the other side to tell us of the grand vision we have for the book, what has made it onto the page and what still needs some work, where are things still confusing and where are they not? 

So I'm of the opinion that a manuscript evaluation is helpful once you've got a messy draft. And most folks who do manuscript evaluations, including myself, are familiar with the idea that you are giving them a messy draft in order to understand what is working in the draft so you don't mess it up and don't try to change what's already working and what still needs work. And so there's an option to get a manuscript evaluation at the end of the draft. 

However, you could always dive straight into revision. And in the First Book Finish, I have a whole 12 step revision process. And the first revision that we complete is what I call The Story Clarity Revision. And this is where we are coming to terms with the structure of our story and what the story is that we really want to tell because we have a draft, but it needs shaping. All drafts need shaping to some extent. So understanding what the story is that we really want to tell and making sure that that's made it onto the page is what I call The Story Clarity Revision. 

And after you finish that story clarity revision, then you send the book off to beta readers, right? So this is now step 1, 2, 3, 4, step five, sending the book off to beta readers. This is where you're sending it off to people who read in your genre and who like to read in your genre. They understand the conventions of the genre and they like to read in that genre, and they know how to give what I would call supportive critique. 

And you ask them a set of questions based on the draft that you've got and the revision that you've done, things that you still kind of are a little what's working, but also what do you think about this and what do you think about that, right?And in order to elicit their opinions and get some feedback. So usually I recommend you want at least three, you want three people to give you feedback. And so you might have to ask four to six people because not everybody that says, yes, I'll read for you is actually going to read for you. It's just they say yes, but then things in their life get in the way. 

So we submit it to beta readers, then all that feedback comes in. Then we have to go through the feedback and make decisions. Is this a piece of feedback that I want to integrate into this book or would it make the book a different book? And if you're happy to integrate the feedback, then you go ahead and you integrate all of that feedback and only then you do a line edit. 

Now, why would you not line edit before you send it to beta readers? Because when you get your feedback from your beta readers, part of that feedback might be one of the questions that I suggest people ask their beta readers is were there any parts of the book where you found yourself skimming or skipping any parts of the book you found yourself skimming or skipping? That could be a sign that either you need to invest those scenes with more emotional tension or it could be a sign that those things are not needed.

I had a certain amount of backstory in my original early draft that wasn't needed, and so it was deleted. If I had line edited that I would have felt so resistant to deleting it because I had made it sing. I had made the scene perfect, and who wants to delete a scene that they feel is perfect, but sometimes you have to kill your darlings in order for the book overall to be better. So we don't line edit until we get beta reader feedback and have integrated that and done another revision. 

Now, how many revision passes the book needs is different from book to book and writer to writer. Some folks like to do a dialogue pass and some like to do a setting pass. I'm going to do a historical accuracy pass, for example. So that's fine, and you can do that and then do the line edit.

Line editing is where we make the language exactly the way we want it. We make our verbs nice and sharp. We make sure that all of the language is exactly the way we want it. After that, we can do a copy edit. Now, a copy edit is, it's spelling, it's grammar, but it's also ensuring that no weird typos, right? You meant to say WERE, and instead it came out WEAR, particularly for those of us who dictate and then use transcripts. 

Some of these things can slip in, but they can also just slip in typing, right? Auto-correct, all of that. It's not always your friend. And so what you want is to do a complete copy edit. At that point, we're then preparing to publish, and that looks different depending on whether or not you are going to go the traditional publishing route, pitch an agent, pitch independent presses, or if you're going to self-publish and join the indie publishing game, it looks different.

The steps are different, the requirements are different. And so this is where we get into what do I need to do to follow the publishing path that I've chosen? And in First Book Finish, I do a lot of coaching on what is the publishing path that's right for you in your book, because everyone is different. 

And only then do I recommend working on building your author platform. And I do a lot of support in First Book Finish to understand what that is. I use something called minimalist. It's an approach I call minimalist marketing for authors that allows you to do the work of building an author platform without having it completely take over your life, right? 

And now you're a marketer. Nobody wants to be a marketer. We all want to be writers, but we understand that whether we are self-publishing and therefore our own publisher and need to also become the marketing department, or whether we are going to be pitching agents and publishers and need to be seen as a going concern on the internet, there are things we need to do to build up our author platform. Everything from an email list or social media newsletters, all of that websites. What do we need to do? What's the minimum that we can do and still be effective? And that's the step-by-step, right? 

It's preparing your project plan, completing the essential book outline, finishing the first draft, possibly getting a manuscript evaluation then, but that's optional. Completing a story clarity revision, submitting to beta readers, integrating the feedback you get from your beta readers. So that's probably a couple of more revision passes, completing a line edit, completing a copy edit, preparing to publish, and building your author platform. These are the steps to finishing a book. 

The reason I break it down into steps is to avoid the overwhelm. When you think about writing a 300 to 400 page work, everything that is required in that can feel intimidating, can feel daunting. It can feel like maybe it's not even possible because there's so much to do.

But if you break it down and work step by step through it, then you can see your progress through the process. As you achieve each milestone, you can celebrate you're further along than you ever were before. And you can see, oh, I've only got four steps left. I've only got five steps left. Here I am on the second to last step. Now I've published, now I'm building my author platform, and we can see ourselves making progress. 

So I hope this has been helpful for me, thinking about books and breaking it down into steps, just ticks all of the overwhelm out of it. It takes the paralysis out of it that comes from that overwhelm, and it helps me see where I'm going and the progress that I'm making. So I hope this has been helpful to you, and it's been great talking to you today, and I'll talk to you soon.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that yes, this is a great show, definitely recommend it to other writers. And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it. And I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.