This is the eleventh and final installment in the “HOW I WRITE” series I’m participating in every Wednesday with several writers, where we all discuss how we approach writing a book. Every writer has a different process and this project gives us a chance to share and compare ours. Click on the “How I Write” image to find a list of the participating writers and links to their blogs.

Last week we talked about Resources to help hone the writing craft. It’s on open topic for this week, and I chose: Using the Document Map in Microsoft Word.

As I mentioned last month while discussing how I write the first draft , when drafting (and revising) a manuscript, I take the outline I created in my spreadsheet and transfer it into a Word document in the format of a book with chapter and scene titles.   But because I already generally have the entire story laid out, every once in a while I sometimes flesh out scenes out of order. I use Word’s Document Map feature to help me jump from scene to scene and chapter to chapter easily.

How to use the Document Map in MS Word

Step 1: Give your chapters titles that can help you identify what’s in it, instead of just numbers.  For example, instead of calling it “Chapter 5″, call it “Chapter 5: The First Kiss”. If you give your scene breaks titles too, like “***Dreaming About Eric” instead of just “***”, you will make it even easier to navigate your manuscript. You can always change the names of the chapters and scenes to get rid of the descriptive titles once you have finished the manuscript and no longer need them.

Step 2: Make all of your chapter and scene break titles style type Heading 1. (Highlight the title and select Heading 1 from the Styles menu)

Step 3: Turn on the Document Map feature. In Word 2007 or earlier, click View > Document Map. In Word 2010 or later, go to View > Navigation Pane and select the first tab underthe search box (it’ll say “Browse the headings in  your document” when you mouse over it).

Benefits of the Document Map 

• Provides you with a list of all of your headers a sidebar

• By making your chapter and scene titles headers, you’ll have a clickable outline of your manuscript

• Jump to a specific chapter or scene in your manuscript by clicking on the header in the document map

• It shows you where you are in the manuscript by highlighting the header in the document map of the corresponding section your cursor is in

I hope that helps you get started using the Document Map feature in Word! If you have any questions, feel free to leave it here in the comments.

Don’t forget to visit other participating blogs to see other writers’ open topic for today. Thanks for joining me in the How I Write series – it’s been fun!

This is the tenth installment in the “HOW I WRITE” series I’m participating in every Wednesday with several writers, where we all discuss how we approach writing a book. Every writer has a different process and this project gives us a chance to share and compare ours. Click on the “How I Write” image to find a list of the participating writers and links to their blogs.

Last week we talked about Knowing When You’re Done.  This week’s topic is Writing Resources.

Creative writing is a fascinating activity. Not only is it a craft, a hobby, an innate ability and an emotional outlet, it’s also a skill. And as with all skills there are different levels, and thus there’s always room for improvement -whether you’ve got ten published books under your belt or you’re  just beginning to try your hand at writing fiction. The absolute best way to improve the craft is to simply keep reading and writing, but there are tons of great books and courses which can help you hone specific techniques.

Here are some of my favorites so far:

Books (also available visually here):

• The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great, by Donald Maass
• Writing the Breakout Novel and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, also by Donald Maass
• Goal, Motivation & Conflict The Building Blocks of Good Fiction, by Debra Dixon
• Plot & Structure, by James Scott Bell
• The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White

Don’t forget to visit other participating blogs to see what resources other writers recommend. Next week’s topic is open, and I’m going talk a little about one of my favorite writing tools!

This is the ninth installment in the “HOW I WRITE” series I’m participating in every Wednesday with several writers, where we all discuss how we approach writing a book. Every writer has a different process and this project gives us a chance to share and compare ours. Click on the “How I Write” image to find a list of the participating writers and links to their blogs.

Last week we talked about Revision – First Pass, Resources and Critique Groups. This week’s topic is Knowing When You’re Done.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a magical formula that determines the exact number of revisions I need to do before my book is “done”, and ready to submit. I put “done” in parenthesis because there are so many different ways you can tell a story,  many different words you could have used, many additional scenes you could have added. You could easily never be done editing a book, to tell the truth. But working on the same book forever just isn’t a good position to put yourself in.

So how do you know when you’re done working on a book?

For myself, I have just one rule. One test that is simple to apply but challenging to pass. And it’s this:

When I can read every single sentence in my manuscript with confidence, it’s done.

I mean, really read every sentence. Without rolling my eyes. Without wanting to skip over it. Without stumbling over the words. Without being bored. I believe that if I’m rolling my eyes, skipping over sentences, stumbling  or feel bored with anything I wrote, then chances are high so will others who read it, and therefore it needs to be fixed.

Feedback from my critique partners and beta readers count quite a bit here too, but although they can tell me how well they think I’ve done, they can’t really tell me whether or not I’m actually DONE.  Only I can tell that.

**thinks for a moment** And my editor.

Check out other participating blogs to learn what they think of this topic. Come back next week for my recommended Books on the Craft.