C. Explain everything completely If you were lecturing simply to make your point, you could do it very quickly. But that’s not the point of you speaking. You are teaching so the eventual reader will learn. Your goal is to get a full, complete explanation out—far more than you probably need—so when you sit down to write out the book from your audio transcription, everything is there. The book needs to contain enough information to explain the concepts to unin- formed, as well as informed, readers. More is almost always better than less, so please say everything that comes to mind on the current point, especially anything you think is relevant. Don’t worry about phrasing things eloquently, explaining everything perfectly on your first try, or not rambling. Substance matters more than style; you only need to worry about getting the substance right. It’s much easier to cut words than to add words in places where you don’t explain enough. If you feel like you’re being too obvious, always remember this quote by Nina Paley: “Don’t be original; be obvious. When you state the obvious, you actu- ally seem original.” CREATING YOUR ROUGH DRAFT FROM THE TRANSCRIPT Once you get the transcript of your audio recording from the tran- scription service, you will start the process of “translating” that audio transcript into book prose, which will be your first draft. Here’s how to take the raw transcript and turn it into a rough draft: STEP 1: ORGANIZE YOUR CHAPTERS If you recorded each chapter as its own audio file, then you will get them back from the transcriptionist in their own separate Word files. 156 · ThE SCriBE METhOD