Write Your First Book for PhD

Simulation author - Joseph Schmidt, PhD student in Physics at University of Texas Austin. Author of Potentia (book 1 of The Genetica Saga)

Simulation vetted by Bryanna Bond author of Imani and Aaliyah’s Fashion Bible and The Queen of Thieves YA book series.

Simulation Objective:

Create an Outline for a Novel

Associated Simulation Library:

Background

Writing your research as a fiction or non-fiction book is a creative way to share your work. The book itself is often an entryway to tours or new opportunities in a field, because it shows you’re an expert in the field.

In creating an outline for a book, think about who you want to be more informed about a subject. Writing a book on a topic of interest is an opportunity to build awareness and share nuance for a subject in an entertaining way. Your perspective may prompt readers to think about the topic differently. Your audience can also be the experts in the field to build credibility.

Three ways to publish a book include – 1) the traditional route – find and pitch to an established publisher who will publish for you if they choose to partner. 2) self-publish – do it all yourself and put it online (ex: Amazon). 3) hybrid approach – find an established team or program to guide you through the process with the assurance of traditional publishing. Considerations for the hybrid approach include who covers costs, who takes different roles in the publishing process, and who gets rights and royalties. Each approach must be carefully considered for cost, ownership, and time to complete.

In this job simulation we’ll only cover the first part of the book writing process, creating a well polished outline. If you choose to continue the process, read on for a timeline of what you can expect. Depending on the length of the book, your ability to write consistently, and how much content/ideas a writer already has to work with a book typically takes three months to a year for completion. Even with the understanding of how you best work, consider that the process will be difficult but there are ways to make it easier. For example, join a writing group. It’s easier when you’re not writing alone. Schedule time to write and make it a habit. Record how many words you wrote or what tasks you accomplished to keep yourself motivated.

The Process

    • Define a central theme

    • Character creation

    • Crafting a plot

  • Determine the amount you’re willing to spend, or fundraise, for publishing costs, editing, etc.

  • Reach out to a book publisher. Hybrid models have options to sign up for a program (e.g., poetry, nonfiction, fiction, memoirs)

  • Help with structure, direction, and compelling characters that feel real; make cliffhangers; work through different scenes

  • Write the first draft and get feedback. Rewrite and get more feedback. Rinse and repeat until you are satisfied with the manuscript

  • Fundraise to cover publication costs (ex: through Indiegogo)

  • Work with a book cover artist – fleshing out the book cover, description and getting praise to make reading your book more compelling

  • Discuss who covers the publication cost, royalty rights, ISBN registration, book uploading, and distribution (could be the book publisher, you, or a mix)

  • Release the book (congrats!)

Resources

For feedback on your draft, try these writing groups:

  • Scribophile

  • Discord writing groups

  • Local writing groups

  • Genre specific writing groups:

    • Romance Writers of America (RWA)

    • Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)

    • Mystery Writers of America

The Exercise

You are an aspiring author who is writing a science fiction novel. This job sim can help you create an outline or draft to pitch to a publisher. You have decided on the hybrid publishing path and signed up for a program to work with an established team. Your goal for this job sim is to complete an outline of the characters, plot and setting.

You would submit the outline to 3-5 family and friends and ask for specific critique or comments. If your friends and family share that it’s fun and unique, submit to an editor at an independent publisher for feedback.

Task 1 - Define a Central Theme

The central theme is the skeleton that your entire story will be built upon. You want to make sure it’s something that is solid, leads to exploration of diverse ideas, and ideally can be easily stated in a sentence. Because it is such a large part of the book you want to make sure you spend time thinking about it and fleshing it out.

Ideas to help with this:

  • What do you believe is something not being talked about currently?

  • Is there a side to an issue that is underrepresented?

  • What concept fascinates you personally and can be thought of in many different ways

In the case of my book the main issue I had was:
“How open should genetic engineering be? Should everyone be able to manipulate their own genes or should government/corporations be the ones you have this power?”

There can be a spectrum of views, consequences for each side, and characters that can hold these views allowing for a palpable tension to exist in the story. The more open the central theme is the easier it will be to build different ideas from it, but be wary of going too big or you may end up spreading yourself out too thin fleshing out all these different views.

Task 2 - Character Development

INTERNAL DRIVERS

If the central idea is an unfamiliar terrain, then the characters are the explorers mapping out this new environment. Each of the characters can explore, and get stuck in, a certain part of the map that they explored. Said differently, these characters can be embodiments of a specific viewpoint on the central theme. This will make it easy to determine what drives them and put them in tension with other characters.

In writing characters, try to write characters that you are familiar with. Start with what you know. Take inspiration from acquaintances, friends, and family so you write characters who are true and make sense to life. If your story has few characters, the more nuanced and flesh-out they need to be. If there’s 5 characters, writing a backstory, habits, and ticks for each can help tremendously. For 10+ characters, each person needs a specific characteristic that defines them to help the reader keep track of them.

For this task, create 2-3 characters.

Answer:

  • What drives them? (i.e. money, power, helping someone, righting a wrong, etc.)

  • What would be their motto or quote that best defines them?

  • What do they like and dislike? Or hate and love?

  • How do they communicate their emotions via body language?

  • How do they relate to the central theme of the plot?

These notes can be as deep or as shallow as you want but you want to ensure the characters feel real and have a sense of agency. For this job sim, write down characteristics for 2-3 unique characters.

BRING THEM TO LIFE

A major challenge that faces writers is creating characters that feel hollow and serve a singular purpose to advance the plot. This can be a sign that the writer has not connected with the characters and fleshed them out giving them their own autonomy. Creating unique characters requires that they behave in the way they want and not what you want. Let the character decide. To bring your characters to life, imagine and understand how they behave, both realistically and personally, with different characters in group settings and 1-1.

To help with this, imagine having coffee with a favorite character that you just wrote about in the last section and write down particular things you notice. These key characteristics may be what other characters notice about them as well.

These questions can serve as a quick test:

  • Do they show up late or on time?

  • How do they greet you?

  • What do you talk about first?

  • Are they comfortable sitting down and paying attention to you?

  • What are they doing when they leave?

Task 3 - Crafting a Plot

With a central theme and characters nailed down you have the tools to create an interesting plot. Ideally, your story should address the heart of the central theme as directly as possible without outright stating it. Introduce the characters, their story arcs, and how they interact with other characters (draw from your work in step 2). Craft the climactic moment of maximum tension where the central theme shows itself, and then the resolution when the tension is released. It can help to think of the central theme as its own character interacting with all the other real characters and showing a bit more of itself every time.

In order to use your plot to maximize how many times your central theme interacts with the characters, ask these questions:

  • Where, and when, does my story take place to maximize how many views people have of the central theme?

  • What insight do I want to leave the reader with by the end of the story?

  • Do I want the several viewpoints to merge into one final viewpoint, merge into several different viewpoints, diverge into more, or to remain fairly the same?

The plot offers guide rails of what is possible and how deeply you want to go in exploring your central theme.

Deliverables

Create an outline that is 1- 2 pages that includes a central theme, summarized in 1-2 sentences, 2-3 characters and what drives them and particular characteristics, a plot and setting.

example outline > of published book Potentia.

Additional Tasks

Skills Used to Perform this Task

  • Creative writing

  • Shifting perspectives

  • Management of events (how characters interact and events)

  • Self-motivation

  • Receiving critique and feedback

Skills Used in the Field

  • Working with an editing team

  • Interacting with publishing team and book artist

  • Repetition in improving writing

  • Time management

  • Entrepreneurship

  • Fund-raising