How Do You Actually Write a Book?

And: Chapter 1 of The Boy Who Wasn't There (First Draft)

Happy Sunday.

Today at long last we enter the “actual writing” part of my journey to write a book about Sam Bankman-Fried. Below, I’ve written up some insights into the creative process of structuring a book; some useful tricks in the process of writing something so big; and then, behind the paywall, an actual draft-in-progress of the first chapter of the book. That chapter will also likely serve as the sample chapter when I start sending out proposals to agents.

You might object: If you’ve been subscribing for long you’ve gotten reams and reams of my writing about Sam Bankman-Fried already, about everything from the signs that he is a sociopath, to a survey of his mother’s fiction, to why Effective Altruism is unsubtly authoritarian.

But a normal writer, in pre-digital times, would consider those notes, or rough drafts. They’re all written very swiftly, and without a concern for drawing all of the connections between various topics, moments, and meanings, or for maximizing readability in book form. The reason I set out to document the writing process in this newsletter in the first place is that I knew the motivation of an audience would keep me churning, digging, and poking - but now, with SBF safely on his way to PRISON prison after his March sentencing hearing, the focus changes to assembling all of those pieces into a coherent, smooth whole.

A small glimpse of my background research materials. In a future post I’ll dive a bit further into the research aspect of the writing process.

How Do You Write a Book?

I’ve written several books, of various sorts – though this will be my first big grab for the brass ring of getting a major book published by a big publisher. Most significantly, I wrote a big dissertation (and turned down a contract to publish it, for Reasons); there’s also my book on Bitcoin; and scripting Crypto Crooks had a lot in common with writing a book. I’ve also completed a couple of book proposals prior to this one, though they never quite got over the line.

So I’m semi qualified to opine briefly about the process of book writing, and particuarly the problem of organizing a book. Sam Bankman-Fried is especially thorny on this front, because the entire underlying thrust of my work is to show that his story is really the story of the many, many people who surrounded and enabled him.

Below are a few general comments on the process, as well as specific tips and tools, such as the invaluable software Scrivener.

Especially since I’m trying to write a book about this mess that’s actually fun and easy to read, one of the key principles is to organize chapters around scenes. Scenes rooted in a physical place give readers an anchor, a place to stay grounded, a viewpoint. They also, for me, give an excuse to do a lot of physical description and chronicling of moment-to-moment subtleties, which do really matter for this book.

As you’ll see below, I’ve decided to organize my first chapter around Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing, during which Judge Lewis Kaplan condemned not just Sam Bankman-Fried, but the underlying principles and philosophies of the people who Sam had followed into ruin.