I want to write a book (Spoilers, I did)

Nov 22, 2025 19:45:42

Mostly I write on forums like this one, and have published one book, How to be a School Bus Driver as an Amazon Kindle book.

The last 20 years of working were driving a school bus as one of the many pieces of income. More on that here: https://davebross.com/resume.html

It was an awesome part time job, at least for someone of my temperament.

As far as actually writing,

I do best with writing for a few lines or a paragraph then going back to edit, then editing the whole at the end.

Something as long as a book I'll make an outline first.

The edits are usually stripping out any unnecessary or unclear wording...which there are a lot of for me.
Stuff like every "and" or "but" are usually places you should have ended one sentence and began another.
Naming specifics instead of using a pronoun.
Minimal if any adjectives.

I had to write a lot of the course material when I taught in Job Corps and they wanted no more than five words per sentence and five letters per word. That's a very effective format considering how badly the education system has damaged reading skills for so many. I think current US average reading level is 4th grade equivalent. It also makes for quicker, easier writing for you.

As far as what's going on in self publishing currently ...an ever moving target...here's a good resource:

https://kk.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Everything-I-Know-About-Self-Publishing.pdf

Nov 22, 2025 20:38:19

And some more exact editing advice...some from Rudolph Flesch, who is an excellent source for writing advice.

Your web browser or text editor has a "find" command that can pick these out for you to work on.

Cut or rewrite these:

just
actually
usually
really
very
toward
might
quite
that
which

am
are
be
been
is
have
has
had
was
were

Rudolph Flesch

"Next, let me give you two important tips.

First, if you want to rewrite a passage to get a higher score, you'll have to cut the average sentence length. This means you'll have to break up long, complex sentences and change them to two, three or four shorter ones. In other words, sprinkle periods over your piece of writing. When you're turning subordinate clauses into independent sentences, you'll find that a lot of them will start with And, But or Or. Don't let that bother you. It's perfectly good English and has been good usage for many centuries. The Old Testament says, "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." The New Testament says, "But Jesus gave him no answer." And Mark Twain wrote, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." So never mind that old superstition. And don't-please don't-put unnecessary commas after your And's, But's and Or's.

Second tip: When it comes to replacing complex words with simple ones, take first aim at words with prefixes and suffixes, like establishment, available or required. Often the best Plain English replacement is a two-word combination like setting up, in stock or called for. If you can't think of a good substitute, use any good thesaurus or book of synonyms. You'll find that there's s no complex, legalistic word that can't be translated into Plain English."

-----------------------------

Don't remember where I got this from....

Simplified English is the original name of a controlled language historically developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals.

Restrict the length of noun clusters to no more than 3 words
Restrict sentence length to no more than 20 words (procedural sentences) or 25 words (descriptive sentences)
Restrict paragraphs to no more than 6 sentences (in descriptive text)
Avoid slang and jargon while allowing for specific terminology
Make instructions as specific as possible
Use articles such as "a/an" and "the" wherever possible
Use simple verb tenses (past, present, and future)
Use active voice
Not use present participles or gerunds (unless part of a technical name)
Write sequential steps as separate sentences
Put conditions first in warnings and cautions

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