How To Build A Book Notes From An Editorial Bricoleuse

2017 | Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (3): 363–372
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How to build a book

Notes from an editorial bricoleuse
Priya Nelson, The University of Chicago Press
This piece offers an editor’s reflections on the ethos and craft of writing. General suggestions,
words of encouragement, and detailed tips emerge through a discussion of unexpected
affinities between writing and building. An annotated list of further readings accompanies
the text.
Keywords: craft of writing, editing tips, revision process, academic publishing
Every year, all over the United States, I give talks about “how to get published.” I
love these talks for many reasons. They give me time to address early-career ac-
ademics and to assure them that there are people behind the imprints—people,
moreover, who want to understand what they are up to and share their work with
a broad audience. Today it seems bad ideas have created the world in their own
dismal image, and the more we can work together to carve out space for good ones,
the better. These workshops are also chances for me to hear prospective authors’
anxieties about meeting the ever-higher expectations of the publish-or-perish aca-
demic model and answer their questions as best I can.
Over the past few years, however, I’ve become a little frustrated with the prem-
ises of the “publishing workshop,” for the simple reason that every editor is differ-
ent, every author is different, and every book is different. There is no universal key
to the kingdom of publishing. Sometimes an editor learns about a manuscript-in-
progress from another author; at others, she reads a journal article or blog post and
contacts the author to strike up a conversation; or she might stumble across a first
book and seek out the second; a few times each year she will receive a promising
manuscript “over the transom.”1
1. I find the origins of this phrase somewhat mysterious, as anyone who has lived in a
home with a transom would rightly wonder how anything, let alone a manuscript,
his work is licensed under the Creative Commons | © Priya Nelson.

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Priya Nelson 364
On occasion, participants in these workshops are keen to understand more

about how editors curate content than they are about the process of finding an edi-
tor. They ask me what “hot” themes are likely to be of interest to publishers in the
future. While I, like every editor, am particularly drawn to certain subjects, I don’t
think editors should be in the business of forecasting—or setting—those trends. In
any case, what I really seek is to be surprised by something I didn’t know existed
or by an interpretation of a common problem that I didn’t already intuit. And so I
always urge authors to follow their own interests, even if a trend is embraced by a
particular editor or publishing house, because, frankly, if it is namable, it’s already
on its way out.
All of this raises the question: If there is little assurance of predictability in pub-
lishing, what can any author do to increase his chances of being published? Is this
system an extraordinarily elaborate roulette wheel?
Well, serendipity is an undeniable part of publishing, as it is of any meaningful
venture. It would be silly to deny the element of chance in it all. But quality matters
too. Outstanding books still, thank heavens, will be published by a top press.
I hope this brief adumbration of all the complexities involved in “getting pub-
lished” suggests why here I want to talk instead about writing and editing. Those
are the things that authors have most firmly under their control. Scholars must
think of themselves as writers and hold themselves to that standard. Taking that
first step—to commit to constructing outstanding books—will inevitably lead in
the long run to good ideas finding the circulation they deserve.
Constructing a book
Ask any editor how she chose her vocation, and you will hear stories of her lifelong
passion for reading, her interest in substantive intellectual debate, or her commit-
ment to publishing reliable ideas in an uncertain world. For my part, I can whole-
heartedly affirm all of those motivations, but I think I developed a specifically edi-
torial, rather than academic, sensibility because of a taste for construction.
By construction, I mean, literally, construction: ripping up floors, reposition-
ing walls, putting up sheet rock, laying tile. This fascination with handwork began
in my girlhood, when I lived in a home typical of those built in Chicago around
the turn of the twentieth century. The framing of the house was wood; its exterior
stucco. There were a few beautiful details that were no longer functional: hand-
forged stained-glass windows with irreparable but stable cracks, pocket doors
that no longer closed, and, indeed, transoms too. The interior had been shabbily
patched over by successive generations of homeowners who covered the original
wood floors with layers of linoleum and carpet, wallpapered over the plaster, and
then painted the wallpaper. One au currant homeowner in the seventies put up
could arrive “over” one. Alternate theories mention the transom of a ship, over which a
fish might jump unbidden. I’m no expert in fish psychology, but the sailing metaphor
seems at least to accord with the gentlemanly backgrounds of most twentieth-century
editors. But, in any case, this phrase refers to a manuscript sent unsolicited to a pub-
lisher through any means of hard copy or digital delivery.

365 How to build a book
vinyl “wood” paneling everywhere. Year after year, my father and I took on one
room and then the next, stripping away the midcentury accretions until there was
nothing left but polished wood and plaster as level as the plains that once covered
the land we lived on.
This merciless attention to the inessential—the years-long effort to pare back, to
peel and scrub away, and to rebuild with simplicity and elegance—prepared me for
editing as much as the countless hours I spent as an avid reader. Editing is, more
than anything, a disciplined attunement to structure and rhetorical mechanism.
With that practiced attention comes the courage to tear down what isn’t working
and rebuild until a book becomes what it is.
The plan
It would never occur to anyone to wake up one morning and start building a house
with a hammer in one hand, a nail in the other, and no plan in sight. Why is it, then,
that people start revisions to their dissertation or a completely new book without
an outline?
A well-planned house has a clear entry point and an easeful way of navigating
the rooms. There are no stairways to nowhere or doorways leading to nonexistent
balconies. Each room enjoys the right size and location for its essential function.
This is basic—so basic that some readers might find it embarrassing to admit
that they need to take a moment to think about it: a book needs shape. Chapters
should be in their only logical order and should be balanced in length.
You would be surprised by the number of despairing people I have talked to
who are in the middle of fine-grained revisions to every chapter who don’t yet
know the basic plan for their book, what its animating question is, who their imag-
ined reader is, why it might interest that reader, or how the whole should be or-
ganized to answer its central question. This is the equivalent of spending a small
fortune on finishing carpentry without taking a moment to consider whether the
foundations are sound.
It goes without saying that you might not be working from a clean slate. Very
few people have the luxury of building from nothing. Incidentally, the Nelson fam-
ily house had both a dead-end stairway (there to frighten snoopers who wanted to
investigate the “closet” in the half bathroom on the first floor) and a second-floor
door—with a screen and all—that opened to a nonexistent balcony.
So it goes, sometimes. You have to work with what you have.2 Today you may
have inherited from You of Yesterday a manuscript with myriad dead-end digres-
sions or other vestigial growths. Don’t worry about it. Nothing is perfect. Just cut
or reposition the out-of-place material, and move on. Outlining retrospectively is
fine too.3
2. Eventually we did take a sledgehammer to these dead spaces, repositioning the walls
adjacent to the stairway and closing the door to the sky.
3. The limits of this analogy should be clear. No one is going to die from your poorly
constructed book, though I am sure sometimes it feels as if you might. There is nothing
wrong with doing any of this thought-work after you have a complete draft. Indeed,

Priya Nelson 366
Locating the center

Once you start noticing how DIY-ers or unscrupulous contractors have screwed
up in homes and businesses all over the world, it’s hard to stop. Very often I look
down in an otherwise perfectly nice house to see unmistakable signs that someone
broke the cardinal rule of tiling by starting with a full piece in one corner and then
working outward from there. The problem with this approach is that you’re trust-
ing that the room is perfectly square. Very few rooms are. You’re also neglecting to
measure the room against the tile size. All this means that, frankly, you are risking
having a damn mess when you come to the end: diagonal lines of grout and tiny
slivers of (easily breakable) tile. The proper way to lay tile is to find the center of
the room with a marvelous little device called a chalk reel and then work outward,
quadrant by quadrant.
Proper writing usually doesn’t come from starting at random Point A and me-
andering your way to Point B either. You may get lucky at the end and find that it
all mysteriously worked out. But more often you’ll find you misjudged, and now
you have to live with the consequences. Find the center of your book and, just as
important, the center of each chapter, and work your way out.
Finding the central concept of each section helps you focus on the essentials.
I have read many suggestive proposals that suffer from concept overload. These
proposals lack a sense of proportion, and the reader can’t separate the original from
the derivative, the essential from the subsidiary.
There is no handy tool like the chalk reel for finding the center of a book or of
a chapter. The best I can offer is that you take an accurate measure of your work.
Make a list of the themes your book addresses and make sure you know which
one rises to the level of thesis. Test each one to see if it can be cut without com-
promising the logic of the section. When you find the one that cannot be cut or
encompassed by another, you have found the center. Then organize the supporting
material around it, cutting insights that, however interesting, don’t fit within the
overarching narrative. Do that for each chapter, and you (and your editor) will be
happier with the results than if you simply started writing from page one and me-
andered along to the end.
Counterbalance
Among the most charming architectural features of Victorian buildings are the
windows. Usually constructed in the double-hung style, each window pane is sus-
pended from pulleys placed at the top corners of the frame. At the top corners are,
in turn, small holes that swallow the cords and lead down to weighted iron columns
in the hidden sash boxes. By a simple mechanism, then, to open a Victorian win-
dow, you have to let drop the counterweights beside the jambs. Without counter-
balance, the window will not work.
everyone revising a dissertation has to. Don’t be afraid to take things apart if you are
sure that you know how they might fit together better, but try to resist fine-grained
changes until you have a plan in place.

Counterbalance is an essential and yet unappreciated movement in academic

thinking. Too often I hear people sheepishly admit that they “have friends” who
sometimes dress up their ideas in academic language to sound more sophisticated.
I understand the temptation: more abstraction, more apparent sophistication . . .
more intellectual credibility? Not in my judgment.
I know that editors have an irritating habit of droning on about simplicity
in language. Many people mistake this for a request for simplicity in thought.
Theodor Adorno in Minima moralia ([1951] 2005) went so far as to disparage edi-
tors and others who value clarity as “advocates of communicability” as if we repre-
sent some sort of public health threat.4 But, for me, the commitment to simplicity
stems from a belief that clarifying language, untangling grammar, and embracing
a classic style clears the path toward greater intellectual sophistication, not less. If
you can hardly describe the first premise of an argument in a language you or your
reader understand, what hope is there of constructing the rest? Ascent requires
countervailing descent. The intellectual-linguistic mechanism is as reliable as the
physical one.
Victorian windows were built to last. If you have the pleasure of seeing one,
check out the carpentry. And, as you open the window, take a moment to appreci-
ate that you could never let the fresh air in without counterbalance.
Revision—a progressively fine approach

Before drywall came to market just in time for the postwar housing boom, walls
were built with lath and plaster. On the studs were hung quarter-inch slats of wood
nailed in place with a sliver of space between them. Plaster was layered atop the lath
and then sanded with paper of progressively fine grit. The early stages of demoli-
tion and remodeling have the advantage of drama. In the life of the homeowner,
there is little that produces more adrenaline than taking a sledgehammer to a wall
or laying a new floor. At the other end, when you are painting, you have the antici-
patory pleasure of knowing that you’re almost done. It’s the middle part—the end-
less preparation of a smooth surface—that wears down the soul. This is yeoman’s
work, plain and simple.
The seemingly interminable process of editing prose has always reminded me of
this kind of repetitive labor.5 To be sure, the fine-grained work of setting the struc-
ture for every chapter, every section, and even every paragraph (the supporting
beams, studs, and lath) is onerous too. But after the structural pieces are nailed into
place, you still have to make several rounds of progressively fine cuts and tweaks.
Sanding down the prose of your manuscript requires finer and finer attention.
Frustratingly, it becomes more difficult to focus on the details the longer you
stare at them. Just as the eyes turn glassy after staring for hours at a white wall,
so they do with words on a screen. Relying not on your own wits alone but rather
reaching for time-tested editorial tools mitigates this problem.
4. Quoted in James Miller’s “Is bad writing necessary?” (2000). In this delightful essay,
Miller discusses George Orwell, whose essay “Politics in the English language” is a
passionate plea for clarity as a political responsibility, and his main detractor on this
point—his contemporary Theodor Adorno.
5. To avoid it actually becoming interminable, set a realistic deadline and stick to it.

Priya Nelson 368
First, try relieving your eyes by using different senses. Read your work aloud,
for example. You may discover that your sentences are too long or tangled. That’s
because you have likely trained yourself to hear the tapping of your fingers sepa-
rately from the rhythm of your breath. Language is intimately tied to breath. It
needed breath to develop. Now it should not show ingratitude by antagonizing
it. Read aloud, and cut.
Second, seek the company of nonacademic writers. If you take seriously my
recommendation to consider yourself a writer, then you would do well to read what
others have said about the subject. Of course, there are ethical and methodological
issues specific to each discipline. However, that doesn’t mean that others haven’t
thought about similar challenges. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that if you’re
struggling with a problem, chances are that someone has already addressed it.
The poet Alan Shapiro, for example, has written a most instructive meditation
on “free indirect style” that I wish would be read by all social scientists who fear the
omniscient disciplinary voice (see further readings below). Or, to take but one of
innumerable examples, fiction writers have time-tested ways of handling dialogue
that can help any ethnographic writer recount conversations from the field.6 So,
don’t proudly assert unique status by being “experimental” (understood strictly to
mean: experimental compared to a control group of your own subdiscipline). Recog-
nize the vast writerly inheritance we all have, and show appreciation by using it to
good effect.
Third, ask for feedback from trusted first readers. Perhaps you are fortunate
enough to have a partner or a family member who will read your work and give
you unvarnished advice. Or maybe you can start a writing group at your university.
The lucky few might even have research money to hire a developmental editor (or
a language editor if your first language is not English). All of these tools should be
wielded if they are ready to hand. No editor will turn his nose up at an author who
has used them to the project’s advantage.
Finally, perhaps I can offer a few tools to accompany the more important list of
resources at the end of this piece. Here, in no particular order, are tics that trouble
me because of their ubiquity:
• Neologismania (just kidding): There are honest origins for most neologisms;
they stem, I believe, from a desire to jolt readers out of their everyday, insipid
understanding of the subject to make them see something new. The problem is
that, when everyone is creating a neologism, nothing jolts. It is much better to
use everyday language in a surprising way. Doing so takes more nuance, more
writerly ability, but could also make the difference between a reader trusting
you enough to follow your argument or dismissing you as just another neolo-
gism hawker.
• Concept pairs: Are you studying a phenomenon that creates and shapes X, Y, or
Z? Or perhaps it makes possible and yet troubles it. Maybe you have found the
key to understanding how certain assumptions and processes nourish behaviors
6. Many books about editing and publishing are available, and I’ve listed at the end of this
piece those I find particularly helpful. A couple of them address the professional issues
I’ve purposely set aside (including, for example, preparing a proposal).

and patterns that result in the economic and political marginalization of already
victimized and persecuted groups? The concept pair is the security blanket of
academic language. Not only does it clutter prose, but, in the case of nonsyn-
onymic pairs, it can also obscure smarter lines of argumentation. If you find a
pair, break it up!
• (Nominalized and other) abstractions: This subject is perhaps one of the most
important for the academic writer, and it has been covered with far greater
intelligence and depth than I can offer here. At issue is how to discuss complex
abstract phenomena in as everyday a language as possible: favor -ing over -tion;
choose direct construction over passive; eschew “levels,” “aspects,” and so on.
See Steven Pinker’s The sense of style (in further readings) for a forensic look at
how abstractions work against clarity.
• Signposting: Beware of phrases like “chapter X takes up the question of,” “I will
argue,” and so on. There are ways of calling to mind future or past issues that
aren’t quite so dull. Rhetorical questions are helpful in a pinch. So is harken-
ing back to an example you used to illustrate a particular theoretical point
(as opposed to recalling the theoretical argument itself in more stilted lan-
guage). Structure the questions you bring up in your book rather than high-
lighting the structure itself.
• Uneasy transitions between vignette and theory: There are many genres of “open-
ing vignette.” There are old ones (naïve anthropologist finds himself alone in a
new land, staring down the natives). There are new, more subtle ones (the au-
thor is caught off-guard by something obvious to others in the field and then
sets out to explore the puzzle). The generic constraints of the opening vignette
can either enable creativity or kill it, depending on how they are navigated. Re-
gardless, not all chapters should start with the same formula. Different styles of
narration are likely going to be effective at different moments. As you transition
from the opening to the meaty part of your chapter, don’t be tempted by the
phrase “I retold this story because it highlights X, Y, and Z about my argument.”
Pointing out the mechanics won’t charm your reader. Just get on with it. Finally,
it is important to maintain a consistent tone when you move from story to
analysis. Overly folksy vignettes coupled with high-level analysis will disorient
even the most grounded reader.
• Citational excess: I have always been quite charmed by the generous habit of
inflation that our species seems to have. As soon as one distinction (e.g., citing
another author in-text) becomes universally valued, then, well, we all want it.
Naturally, a kind-hearted author will endeavor to mete out that distinction to as
many people as possible. This I understand. However, I think it’s worth keeping
in mind that readers deserve to know why other scholars and texts are being
cited aside from boosting their “impact factors.” I mentioned before the impor-
tance of finding the conceptual center of each section. Finding the citational
center is equally important. A simple rule: bring texts into the conversation
if they are useful for what you want to accomplish in your argument; don’t if
they’re merely relevant.
As I said: yeoman’s work, plain and simple.
* * *

Priya Nelson 370
The inevitable risk in writing a document like this one is that authors will inter-
pret my advice as an example of editorial fascism that is appeased only when others
subsume their ambition to conformity. I would hate for that to be the lesson of this
meditation (which is, in itself, something of an oddity).
Times change, architectural styles go through inevitable change and recombina-
tion, and books change too. No intelligent person would demand that every room
conform perfectly to a single model or that every book do the same. Variation is
one cornerstone of beauty. So, please, surprise me. But do so from a position of in-
timate understanding. Mastery of tradition, in writing as in other crafts, is the first
condition for innovation.
References
Adorno, Theodor. (1951) 2005. Minima moralia: Reflections on a damaged life. Translated
by E. F. N. Jephcott. London: Verso.
Miller, James. 2000. “Is bad writing necessary? George Orwell, Theodor Adorno, and the
politics of literature.” Lingua Franca 9 (2). http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9912/
writing.html.
Further readings
On editing:
On writing well by William Zinsser (thirtieth anniversary edition; New York: Harp-
er Collins, 2006).
This is a breezy general guide to the basics of classic prose.
The sense of style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century by Steven
Pinker (New York: Penguin, 2014), especially chapters 1–3.
Pinker explores the mechanics of why exploring complex subjects can
result in bad writing. He gets beyond scolding pretty quickly and moves
to subjects that are of particular use to academics, including “the curse of
knowledge,” using concrete, visualizable language even when discussing
abstract subjects, and creative ways of “signposting.”
They say, I say: The moves that matter in academic writing by Gerald Graff and
Cathy Birkenstein (third edition; New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).
Useful for scholars who have difficulty incorporating the secondary
literature without losing their voices or mystifying readers. See in
particular chapters 2 and 3, on summarizing and quoting.
Thinking like your editor: How to write great serious nonfiction—and get it pub-
lished by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).

This book is geared toward trade nonfiction writers, but the substantive
editorial advice is applicable to everyone who aspires to write a cogently
structured book in fluent, accessible prose.
Self-editing for fiction writers by Renni Browne and Dave King (second edition;
New York: William Morrow, 2004).
Don’t be put off by the title of this book; it is terrific for people who write
ethnographic vignettes or long-form reportage. Specific advice about
crafting effective dialogue, for example, can help elevate your writing
from a dry I-was-here-and-this-happened account to something that
people actually enjoy reading.
“Technique of empathy: Free indirect style” from That self-forgetful perfectly use-
less concentration by Alan Shapiro (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016:
103–20).
For many years, a movement has been gathering within the social sciences
to develop a new “experimental” style of writing that is more suited to
the multiperspectival nature of our world. For writers contemplating
a more supple style of prose that eschews the dry analytical voice of
traditional social science, don’t go it alone. Read what other writers have
to say, starting with the poet Alan Shapiro, who has written perhaps the
most succinct exploration of what it means to escape our usual generic
constraints and adopt a revelatory style of writing.
On publishing:
Getting it published: A guide for scholars and anyone else serious about serious
books by William Germano (third edition; Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2016).
This is a practical guide for an aspiring author on how to get published
at an academic press with step-by-step advice about everything from the
proposal stage to signing a contract and beyond.
From dissertation to book by William Germano (second edition; Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 2013).
A great resource for first-time authors, full of clear, widely applicable
examples.
The Chicago Manual of Style (seventeenth edition; Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2017).
Definitive guidance on citation styles and all practical aspects of
authorship (also available online at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.
org/home.html).
The Association of American University Presses Directory 2017 (New York: Associa-
tion of American University Press, 2017).

Priya Nelson 372
A handy reference of all members of the Association of American

University Presses. For an online directory of links to individual
university presses, see: http://aaupnet.org/-membership/directory.html.
Most university press websites offer submission guidelines and a list of
editors by field.
Comment construire un livre: Réflexions d’une bricoleuse de l’édition

Ce texte offre les réflexions d’une éditrice sur l’ethos et l’art de l’écriture. Des sugges-
tions générales, des encouragements, et quelques conseils précis se dégagent d’une
discussion sur les affinités inattendues entre l’écriture et la construction. Une liste
annotée de lectures complémentaires accompagne ce texte.
Priya Nelson is Editor for Anthropology and History at the University of Chicago
Press.
Priya Nelson
Editor
The University of Chicago Press
1427 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
USA
pnelson@uchicago.edu


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2017 | Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (3): 363–372