What is Ghostwriting? Have you wondered?
Ghostwriting is all about writing for someone else.
It goes under their by-line, but you do the actual writing.
Though largely associated with books, a ghostwriter can be doing any of the following on behalf of an individual or organization:
- Blogs
- Social posts
- Speeches
- Scripts
- Interviews
But let’s assume you are a writer engaged to write a book for a famous personality. How do you go about it?
As against a blog or a post, the book has a fairly large amount of content. And it’s very easy to edit, rewrite, and shut shop.
Yes, the job is done.
But is it reflecting the soul of the writer? Is it in the tone and voice that is unique about the person? Or is it your style of writing that is slammed down.
The You vs Author is a tightrope walking.
You should know when to step in and when to step out. You are called upon to bring coherence, clarity, and creativity into the content. Not to replace the author.
Naturally, you want them to be excited when seeing the completed book right and say – wow, this is so me! And not feel removed from the book.
So how do you strike a balance between bringing in your writing abilities and reflecting the personality of the author?
Mood
Speak to the person, preferably in person or via video chat. Understand their mood, is it pensive, melancholic, excited, educative, informative, harsh, graceful.
Make sure you know why they are writing this book and what is the message they want to disseminate to the community.
You can watch them closely and observe their body language and words. Listen first. Don’t interrupt. Soak in as much as possible. Like a sponge. Don’t ask questions, except for a probing few to get them talking.
Allow the torrent of thoughts to fall. Gather them all up, I would say don’t distract yourself by jotting down parallelly. At least multi-tasking never works for me.
But go back and while its fresh in your mind jot down the key themes. The words they use capture the essence of the conversation. This will be your crux or core of the book.
Tone
Stick to many of the words they use often. That will give them the aura of having written it out themselves. Some signature phrases, (something like the Nation wants to know by Arnab Goswami) will even make the reader relate to the book.
If they are number driven try to get the same style by matching content with backed up data points. Or if they like to use many of quotes from leaders and often themselves, use them wisely.
At the end of the day they are your client after all. Maybe they like to intersperse the content with visuals, play along and get that organized.
So basically, the next step you are dressing up the core of their thought process with more layers again in alignment with their tone.
So, you have gotten the two main aspects right and in sync with the client. Does your role end here? No way. They would’nt need you if that is all they need to do.
What is your role?
Structure
This is what makes the book readable and page-turning. With all the meat in your hand now, you need to segregate them. Segregate them as chapters with equal number of words. One chapter can’t run into 900 words and the other 90 right?
Give appropriate titles for each chapter and go back and look at your TOC. Is it making sense? Are they in question format? Or are the statements? Fall into a pattern so that the reader knows what to expect.
Is one chapter leading the reader into the next logically?
Demystify
Remember you are dealing with a subject matter expert who is busy. He or she has a head full of thoughts and may not look at their ideas from a common person angle.
So, it’s your duty as a writer to break down complicated into simple readable yet elegant prose. You can wear the hat of the reader and bring down complex ideas into engaging phrases that anyone can understand.
And overall keep the book succinct and sharp with each chapter tight and engaging. And the whole book reflecting the authors’ personality in excellent verbiage.
As a writer, you should master the art of getting under the personality’s skin and bringing their ideation to life. Yet in the process without sacrificing editorial guidelines in impeccable English.
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And yes, you can read more of my blogs on Branding and Content Marketing right here. And would love to talk to you to discuss your content marketing goals for your organization – bhuvanarajaram9@gmail.com or + 91 98415 96366 (Whatsapp also).
