When I edit an academic book manuscript, one of the key things I do is ask: “What does this [book, chapter, section] promise to do? And what does it ACTUALLY do?”
These questions take time to answer, but they generate incredibly helpful insights. In the book or chapter introduction, I look for the “I argue that” cue (or cues!), and I underline anything else that has the shape of an argument. I separate out the claims for significance from the argument about the primary sources. I refer back to my notes from my initial Zoom meeting with the author, and to the author’s “book questions and chapter answers” if they’ve used The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook.
Then I examine the body of the chapter(s). I spend significant time with the manuscript—reading it at least twice, marking it up on paper, jotting down questions and notes in a separate document. Who are its main actors, whether human or not? What are they doing? How are the chapters divided into sections, and what does that division tell me about what story the chapter is telling? What key points emerge from the evidence?
Finally, I type a bunch of notes to myself about the disjunctures. Are those key points in the evidence prefigured in the argument? Does the chapter say it’s about one set of actors, but then (when I look at the evidence that’s on the page) turn out to be mostly about a different set? Does the book ask a great question, but then go on to answer a related but different question? Does the chapter tell us to focus on one thing, but then highlight a different thing in its section headings? Does the book lay out a solid argument and then marshal its evidence in support of a different, as-yet-unarticulated argument?
These disjunctures are hard to find! They might seem obvious in retrospect, but they’re really not. And I can’t emphasize this enough: they aren’t failures. Instead, they’re a source of insight. When I write up my assessment letter to the author-client, I describe the possibilities: it looks as though your book is actually doing this cool thing; what if we framed it this way; the source that doesn’t fit would actually extend your argument if you analyzed it like this.
If you’re revising your own book, you can try this approach too. What is this book/chapter/section promising, and (be honest but gentle with yourself) what is it actually delivering? Where are the gaps between what’s promised and what’s on the page?
But don’t stop there. What if you saw the gaps or disjunctures not as failures, but as valuable information or even as creative prompts for thinking more deeply about your book?
- What does this gap say about what I really want to write about?
- How did my thinking change between when I started and when I finished analyzing my evidence?
- Why doesn’t this part fit into my original argument? Could the argument be stretched to accommodate it?
- Is there a better place to put this discussion that doesn’t fit? Maybe in a different section or chapter?
- Is there some aspect of my argument that I’m writing around, not through, because of anxiety? Is my anxiety is warning me about a real problem in my book that I need to deal with, or is it making me think there’s a problem when really there isn’t one?
- My argument says this source is an example of X, but really it’s an example of Y. Why did I start out thinking of it as X? Is there some creative, non-obvious sense in which it is, in fact, an instance of X?
- Why have I found myself writing so much about this thing that I don’t mention in my argument? Is it a distraction, or is it important in some way I haven’t articulated yet?
- I set out to write a book that makes an about X, but when I look closely, most of my evidence is about Y. Could it be that X is part of the claim for significance instead? “This book argues that [Y], which contributes to our understanding of X in this way.”
- Is the gap actually a matter of language choice or framing? If the argument seems to be making an unfulfilled promise, is the problem simply that I’m using different terms in the body of the chapter? How could I bring the language into alignment?
If you get in the habit of asking and answering questions like this, and then making changes in your manuscript that reflect what you learn, you’ll become a better editor of your own work. And, I hope, you’ll become less anxious about revision. The imperfections in your manuscript—even those that seem the most perplexing—are the entry points that will allow you to figure out what your book is really doing, and what it has the potential to become.
