If you aspire to write a book, something I call “agile editing” can help you succeed.
And no, it doesn’t involve doing cartwheels while wielding a red pen.
It’s a process I devised with consultant and author Marc Strohlein when editing his book, The Energized Enterprise: How to Tap Your Organization’s Hidden Potential, available in print and e-book versions. (Here’s my blog post about the book. And another insightful review.)
Agile editing is a partnership between writer and editor in which the editor also acts as a coach to encourage the writer and help shape the book’s direction.
This makes the writing less solitary and more motivating, and helps the writer get to the finish line. To riff on that famous saying about money: a page here, a page there, and pretty soon you’re talking about a real book.
If your plans to write a book are stuck somewhere between “I don’t know where to start” and “What if I get stuck?” agile editing might work for you, too.
Agile means never having to say “scrap this and start over”
In software development or business, “agile” means making a process flexible enough that it won’t break down if goals change mid-stream. An agile strategy breaks big projects into smaller, self-contained chunks and relies on ongoing feedback to move forward.
Marc is an expert on agile, among his other specialties. So we decided to experiment and apply the process to book editing.
Agile editing allowed me to offer feedback throughout the writing process so Marc could refine and hone the content during its creation rather than fixing problems after the fact.
Agile does not mean disorganized
With agile, you start with a plan, even if it is one that could change. So our first step was to scope out the project by creating an outline and a short blurb to describe the book’s purpose.
Both were important for two reasons: to focus Marc’s thoughts and ensure that the book had a coherent thread, and to give me a reference point while editing so I could keep the content on track.
For the first phase of editing – the developmental edit – Marc gave me the chapters as he wrote them rather than waiting to hand over the complete manuscript. I reviewed each chapter and provided high-level feedback: Did the text stick to the overall purpose statement? Were sources and examples included, and were arguments logical? Were there any other red flags?
Agile = a better book
I’ll admit that I had concerns at first about doing it this way. Typically, I have the entire manuscript in hand when I start editing. But in the end, our agile editing process resulted in a better book.
According to Marc, “the book would have turned out differently (not in a good way) if we had used a traditional approach.”
Here’s how agile editing helped us both:
- Our discussions and my feedback on each chapter helped Marc hone content for successive chapters.
- The “instant gratification” of receiving feedback on each chapter helped Marc to stay motivated.
- I was free to suggest changes without worrying about heaping a lot of rewriting on Marc at the end of the process.
- When the manuscript was complete and I started the copyedit phase (focused on grammar, spelling, and punctuation), I was confident that the content was solid.
Agile in action: avoiding a derailment
Here’s an example of how agile editing helped us handle a potential hiccup.
In the middle of writing the first draft, Marc hit a bit of a wall and decided that the book would flow better with several chapters renamed and reordered. He also decided to scrap a story line he had planned to thread through each chapter. It just wasn’t working.
We discussed solutions, then Marc updated the earlier chapters and sent them to me to review before he continued with new chapters.
This way, he only had to rework some of the pages he’d written and not the entire manuscript (which could have been a motivation killer). And because I validated his decisions, he wasn’t writing in a vacuum of second-guessing. He could move forward confidently.
Success!
In our assessment, the agile editing experiment was a success. The book moved from idea to reality in about nine months, including several breaks where work and life took precedence over writing.
What’s more, the agile process actually helped to refine and shape the book’s content in a positive way.
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Do you dream of writing a book? Does agile editing sound like it would work for you? Contact me and let’s talk about how we can work together.
At the earlier part of this year I rowed across the Atlantic and kept a journal for the intrepid 105 day voyage…
I have always wanted to write fiction and have written pages and pages, books full of notes and scribblings, dictaphone records half edited bits of prose, mad rumblings and poetry… My problem is discipline and ordering the things I have – I’m a project manager by day so understand the ideas behind agile. However in practice motivation and having some kind of positive reinforcement are lacking.
I have a degree in philosophy and literature and feel sometimes as if I am destined to spend my life trying but never succeeding to the complete book.
Thanks for your comments, Christian. It sounds like you have material for more than one book! Have you considered writing a non-fiction account of your transatlantic voyage? That might “break the ice” for you, so to speak, and could be easier to organize than fiction. I haven’t tried agile editing with fiction yet but I think it could work and possibly enrich the story as well. Of course, as you note, motivation is really the key for any book. And once you decide you are absolutely going to do it, it helps to have a partner to push you through the inevitable rough patches. Best of luck. I believe that you can make it happen if you decide to.