My mentor (and all-around awesome human being), Stuart Horwitz, has finished his third and final (he swears!) writing book: Finish Your Book in Three Drafts: How to Write a Book, Revise a Book, and Complete a Book While You Still Love It.

I am so excited about this one—the title pretty much nails all of my writer hang-ups and hopes. As Stuart says in the intro:

Have you ever asked yourself while writing, ‘How many drafts is this going to take?’ That may seem like a question that can’t have an answer, but I would like to propose that it does. And that answer is three. Three drafts, provided that each draft is approached in the right spirit and we take the time we need between drafts.

(And because Stuart’s awesome, Finish Your Book in Three Drafts has nine supplementary videos and PDFs, which you can find online. I’m in PDFs #3 & #7!)

Draft #1: The Messy Draft

“Keep writing the first draft, and keep being okay when it feels like a mess.” Tweet This

This is the draft that’s difficult for outliners (hand raised). We plan, plan, plan but never actually write. Outliners tend to be perfectionists—we over-plan because we cannot face the “shitty first draft.”

I once read an interview where the author said she was terrified of dying in the middle of her first draft because everyone would see how bad of a writer she was. The solution, Stuart says, is to reframe what “perfect” means when we’re in the first draft:

A perfect first draft covers the ground. A perfect first draft tries material out. A perfect first draft makes a start in a lot of places. A perfect first draft familiarizes you with your material.

Stuart then offers six great tips on how to generate enough pages in your messy draft to move on to the second draft.

Draft #2: The Method Draft

“Intelligent planning is not the enemy of creative genius.” Tweet This

Once you’ve completed your first draft, it’s easy to get intimidated by your mountainous, semi-coherent, half-formed story. Where to start? It’s tempting to go page by page, correcting a little here and a little there, but as Stuart says, “What you are trying to do is tackle your book, not tinker with it.”

The method draft is where you step back and shape your story’s big picture; this draft can be difficult for pantsers. “If the messy draft was about getting it down,” Stuart says, “the method draft is about making sense.”

In this draft you:

1. cut up your scenes (not figuratively—literally),

2. create a series grid,

3. and draw a target theme (“because your book can only be about one thing”).

And here’s the awesome part: now that you’ve finished the second draft, you only have ONE MORE DRAFT TO GO.

Draft #3: The Polished Draft

“Finishing requires tenacity.” Tweet This

I love Stuart’s chapters on the polished draft because he talks about a crucial topic that has gotten zero in-depth attention in all of the writing books I’ve read: THE ROLE OF THE BETA READER.

Beta reading can push your book over the edge to greatness, but too many writers, either out of ignorance or pride, don’t properly use it. Getting feedback can be scary, but Stuart lays out exactly what you need to have a positive, successful experience:

• How many beta readers should you have?
• Where do you find your beta readers?
• What questions do you ask your beta readers?
• What do you do once you have their responses? (Put together a punch list!)

Okay, you’ve finished all three drafts, you’ve recruited beta readers, and you’ve finished your punch list, now what?

Know When to Let Go

“The point is not to go through life writing the same book the whole time.” Tweet This

I feel as if Stuart wrote the last chapter, “The Crack in Everything,” specifically for me (and maybe he did). I’ve realized over the years that, while it’s difficult to start writing a book, often times it’s more difficult to stop writing it. 

“You don’t want to get to where you’re holding on to your manuscript too long,” Stuart says. “One of my mentors in Prague, Jim Freeman, used to praise: That fresh feeling, of not having been too well-worked.”

Are you working on a book right now? Have you been working on it for so long that you can’t remember when you started it and can’t see how you’ll finish it? Check out Finish Your Book in Three Drafts (and if you have any questions for Stuart, leave them in the comments!).

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PS: And if you want to complete the trilogy, here are Stuart’s other two books, Book Architecture (I’m in this one!) and Blueprint Your Bestseller.