Why Writing a Book is Like Making an Egg

In honor of Easter, I'm going to post something egg-related.

Writing a book is like building an egg from the inside out. No matter what kind of book you're writing, or what kind of challenges you face while writing it, you will always follow the same basic three-step process -- in other words, the yolk, the white, and the shell.

The Yolk

The yolk is the first bit of the egg that you have to build. It's the core of your story, the basic idea, the rough plan that you start off with. It's your first draft!

The White

The white goes on top of the yolk. It builds upon it and surrounds the core until, sometimes, you can barely even see that golden yolk peeking through. This is your second, third, fourth, fiftieth drafts -- the drafts which flesh out the bare bones of the first draft, and make the book into something which people would actually want to read.

The Shell

And finally, we have the shell. The shell is what the reader sees on the surface, the moment they look into your book. It's the final polish; the spelling and grammar check, the sentence flow, the micro issues. It's the last thing you work on after your white is in place.

Hey, look, it's a pile of books ... I mean, eggs

So there you have it. Writing a book is like building an egg. The only differences are that a) writing a book is a lot easier than building an egg and b) you can't eat it when you've finished.