The Ghostwriting Process – Part 1

This month’s posts are from guest blogger Kristin Noland.

With over 80 manuscripts to her name—including two bestsellers, one a military thriller—Kristin has spent her career helping authors bring their stories to life and position their work for success. From intricate world-building to sharp pacing, intricate plots, and characters who stay with readers long after the last page, she has her clients’ backs.

As a ghostwriter and editor specializing in speculative and crime fiction, she works with authors to strengthen narrative structure, ensuring every plot point builds toward a compelling conclusion; refine style and voice, polishing language to capture her client’s unique storytelling voice; and prepare their books for the marketplace by aligning the manuscript with what agents, publishers, and readers are looking for.

The Ghostwriting Process Part 1

For those of you who want to get into ghostwriting fiction or don’t know much about the ghostwriting process, this article is for you!

I know there are some of you who think writing someone else’s novel is cheating yourself or the reader, but it’s not. Some authors need this service due to lack of writing chops or time. Most of my clients state that the lack of time is what’s holding them back. And from the ghostwriter’s perspective, we want to help authors achieve their dreams and be secure in our supporting roles.

Hint: We do get credit, but in a subtle way.

I’m going to break down my process for you. Hopefully, by the end, you will have a solid idea about how ghostwriting works and how to make it work for you.

The Facts

First and foremost, a ghostwritten book is the author’s book. It was their creativity, thoughts, and inspiration that sparked the book to be written. No matter how much creative control they give you, it’s still theirs.

Authors seek ghostwriters when they don’t quite have the writing skills necessary for penning a book or when they’ve finished a draft, they realize they don’t want to put in the effort to revise or rewrite the manuscript based on the feedback they received. Basically, they are just done with it and want someone else to incorporate the feedback from beta readers and editors.

I completely understand these authors. It takes a lot to write a novel. There are a lot of aspects of storytelling that are difficult—from plot to pacing to characters to language and genre expectations, and much more.

An author may have an outstanding plot, but their characters are weak. Maybe they’ve written the whole book in telling-mode rather than a mix of showing and telling. Or maybe they have great characters, an awesome setting, but the plot is confusing.
In any case, the author usually excels at something but lacks one or two other important aspects. That’s where ghostwriters come in.

We fill in the blanks, remove confusion, create scenes, add setting. Whatever the story needs, that’s what we help the author with.

If the author is completely stuck with just character profiles and a basic idea for the plot, we work together to find solutions. We brainstorm, chat, email, and decide on a path forward that works for them and their story.

The ultimate goal is for the author to have a book they are proud of and can market to their audience.
Ghostwriting takes practice and skill like any other artistic endeavor. I started editing years ago and honed my writing skills through developmental and line editing.

Honestly, ghostwriters don’t need much copyediting experience, though it is helpful as you don’t want the author thinking you don’t know what you’re doing or to have them spend a lot on a heavy copyedit.

Before Offering Ghostwriting Services

Like any other service, you want to be sure you can do the work before you offer it to paying clients. There’s not much worse, business-wise, than an unhappy client.

You will need excellent writing skills, an in-depth knowledge of storytelling and the genre you choose to focus on, great listening skills, and the ability to pull from many documents and conversations and create a cohesive story with compelling characters and an exciting plot.

To get your writing skills to where they need to be for ghostwriting, you need to put yourself in the author’s role.

Read, read, read. – Mostly in your chosen genre, but also in all other genres. Even poetry!

Write – Set aside time to write your own stories. Most of you probably have a job already and are looking for a career change or expanding your services, so writing your stories will help you get ready to write someone else’s.

Outlines – Outline your stories first. You will need one for all your ghostwriting projects, so get used to it.

Style sheets – Create style sheets for your stories. You will need them for your ghostwriting projects, so it’s good that you start with yours and get practice. Include a timeline.

Character profiles – Create character profiles for every character that appears in your stories. Protagonist(s), secondary, and tertiary characters. Make sure you put the basic details on your style sheet!

Join authors’ groups/writing groups – Not only are they great for helping you increase your writing skills; they open up the door for potential client work!

Get feedback – Hire someone to give you feedback on your writing. If you are already in the editing biz, use the connections and colleagues you trust. Beta readers are less expensive, but IMO, you get more targeted and in-depth feedback from editors. Just like authors, make sure who you hire has a lot of experience in your genre. This will also set you up building relationships and the potential for client referrals.

Now let’s get into the actual ghostwriting process.

Requirements

For my ghostwriting service, I require my clients to have:

• A solid understanding of storytelling, character arcs, conflict, and character motivations.
• A plot outline.
• Detailed character profiles.
• Samples of their writing.
• Research for any real-life details included in the novel and the ability to research and return information I request within three days. (I do not research or fact-check.)
• The ability to meet for up to one hour a month to discuss the progress or brainstorm to stay on the right path.

They may also have:

• A complete or almost complete draft so I can pull from what they’ve written and modify it as needed.
• Pictures of similar settings, pictures of their characters or people who look like their characters, and period clothing (if necessary), to help me write these as they picture them in their head.

It’s important for the author to have a solid understanding of basic storytelling. I want my clients to have this base knowledge, so they understand why I’m suggesting something without explaining how it fits into storytelling.

For example:

An author received feedback that their story is boring.
The author hears: Your story is crap.
I hear: The story could use more conflict.
I read through the documents they’ve sent me, including the feedback they received. We meet and I make some suggestions for how conflict can be added. The author and I brainstorm solutions and come up with a plan for how to increase the conflict in their novel.

So, what does the process look like?

We’ll look at that next time.