Before I talk to an author about writing a book for Lost Art Press, I ask them to perform a short exercise beforehand. The exercise helps me understand the real thrust of their book idea.
This is important because we have received book proposals from authors that read “I’d like to write something about doors.”
Here is the exercise we send to potential authors:
- Come up with a book title and (if necessary) a secondary title. Book titles should be short – usually no more than five words. And they must relate to the entire book. They should use simple and strong words – no -ing or -ly forms. We will help you with the final title, but it will help you think about your book if you can develop a working title. It helps set the tone for your work. A secondary title can help explain the main title. For example, the secondary title for “Cut & Dried” is “A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology.” You might need a secondary title. You might not.
- Write a “high concept.” The “high concept” is a 35-word (or so) pitch that explains the content of the book to someone who is not a woodworker and who has never heard of your work. I imagine it’s how I would explain a book at a dinner party to the person next to me. The “high concept” for “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was: “You can build almost anything with about 45 tools. This book shows you how to choose good tools, helps you build a chest to protect them and contends that furniture making is a radical act in today’s society.”
- Create a table of contents (TOC). A good TOC is an outline for your book. It is the skeleton, and it charts your narrative arc (all good books tell a story). The more detail and thought you put into your TOC, the easier the writing will be. Also good to note: You might rip up a few TOCs before it’s over.
When I start in on a book, I also perform this exercise. But with the vernacular chair book, I wasn’t ready to answer these questions. I had to first figure out if I had an idea that was worth working on for two years.
So for the first half of 2020 I worked on other people’s books and “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” and I didn’t think much about chairs at all.
I did sign up a few new authors for future books, such as getting Megan Fitzpatrick to write a book on Dutch tool chests for a 2021 release. One day we talked about her upcoming book, and I asked how she planned to deal with the different possible construction strategies for the chest’s lid, back and interior.
She replied that she was going to use a “Choose Your Own Adventure” approach, where she would show all of the typical methods and let the reader pick.
And that was when my book on vernacular chairs snapped into focus.
Of all the books I’ve written, my favorites are the ones that I wish I’d had when I was 11 years old. If I’d had “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” or “The Anarchist’s Design Book” when I was a kid, I would have been thrilled.
When I first contracted the chair-building disease in the 1990s – after encountering John Brown’s writing – I bought every book I could find on chairs, even the crappy ones. I read them all once, and most of them twice.
They all left me disheartened. Here’s why: Each author explained how he built his chairs. But they were (mostly) from the tradition that involved green wood, a froe, a shavehorse, a drawknife, a steambox and a bunch of specialty tapering and reaming tools.
Plus the geometry hurt my head.
I didn’t own any of those tools or easy access to green wood. After years of building furniture with dovetails, mortises and tenons, it seemed like few of my skills or tools carried over to chairmaking. That’s when I decided to take a class with David Fleming in Cobden, Ontario, to see if there was any hope for me as a chairmaker.
With Dave’s help I got through the construction of my first chair. Then I came home and – within days – began to build another chair so I wouldn’t forget what I’d learned. I decided that I would just use whatever wood and tools I had on hand and make it work. The chair would probably suck, fall apart or break. But that would be OK. It was just a flammable vessel to help me retain the geometry lessons and the hand skills.
The chair I made was damn ugly, but it didn’t fall apart.
After 20 years of studying vernacular chairs, I have concluded that “use what you have” is a valid way to make a good chair. It’s the strategy that’s been employed all over the world for centuries. You don’t need special tools or skills to make a chair. You just have to really want to build a dang chair.
Megan’s simple phrase, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” is the crux of my next book.
The working title: “The Stick Chair Book.”
The high concept: “Build chairs with the wood and tools around you. Learn to make all the components of a chair – legs, stretchers, arms, sticks, crest – with a wide variety of materials, tools and methods. Then combine these parts however you like into a pleasing, comfortable and sturdy chair.”
That’s 46 words and a little long. Oh well.
Then I vomited out the book’s TOC in less than an hour.
There are a dozen ways to make each chair component, from using a band saw down to a block plane. You don’t need riven wood. Straight grain is straight grain, no matter how you find it. You don’t need any special equipment to make a good chair. These disparate components can be combined in 1,000 ways to make 1,000 different chairs. And the geometry is easy once you realize that it’s the numbers and math that are holding you back.
I knew in a second that this book is something I’d gladly devote two years (or more) to. It’s the chair book I wish I’d owned in 1998.
— Christopher Schwarz
Read other posts from the “Making Book” series here.
There are some things I like here, a lot. I especially like the “whatever materials” approach. If you want people to actually build chairs, i think that approach is vital.
People love the idea of riving parts from a log. But the vast majority aren’t going to do it, and not more than once. It just adds layers of difficulty that short circuit the whole enterprise.
In a way, your guide to building chairs is connected to “make a dang work bench out of whatever wood you have.”
It’s also very different from “The Anarchists Tool Chest,” where you didn’t think many people would actually build the thing.
Sadly, I feel confident that Lost Art Press will never publish the books that occupied my thoughts when I was 11.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t recommend it but this pandemic seems to have opened up a whole new range in your writing. I was going to say a healthy change but that would be pushing it.
This sounds perfect! Also, fitting with all of your previous writing, which seems to have the humility of “this is how i do it, y’all do whatever you like” sprinkled generously throughout.
I can’t wait to see this book come to life!
I, for one, am looking forward to Megan’s book (nice drop on that one) on Dutch tool chests. I’m also looking forward to your chair book. I’ve wanted to try chairmaking for a while but I just haven’t been able to find the confidence to start.
She already posted about her new book here https://blog.lostartpress.com/2020/05/31/lets-go-dutch/
And is looking for unique DTC ideas to include.
Chairs have always intimidated me. I’m declaring 2021 the year of the chair.
Hmm, then I declare 2020 to be the year of the arse. Now 2020 can go comfortably into 2021. 🙂
I built my first and so far only chair in my ninth year of school. A rocking chair Christmas gift for my mother.
It’s an ugly rocker but it still in one piece these forty seven years later.
It sits on my front porch and I rock on it from time to time when I want to feel close to her.
It has more design mistakes than I can count and even more in the making of it.
I can’t think of a better way to say, I like the concept of this book.
J A Garcia
Can’t wait for Megan’s book!!
i know a guy with a pitch about a coffee table book about coffee tables.
Fitz PLEASE make your book an actual choose your own adventure…. to outfit your DTC for storing hand power tools as well turn to page 56, for only traditional tools 43
I miss these books, they were my favorite growing up.
I took schwarz’ idea of a bottom, stackable cabinet and built one out of plywood sized to fit my hand power tools. Works great. I used a different latching idea, lips on bottom and top of the door panel. Top is longer than the bottom. Same idea that many old HVAC front panels use– pull up then out from the bottom. That way you can always open the cabinet and it still maintains the feel of my proper hand tool dtc sitting on top. Been toying with the idea of building several more all with matching rot strips to create a modular storage system I can roll around the shop and expand as needed. One box with drawers for machinist tools, one for hardware, one for glue and non flammable shop supplies, etc.
A logistical (and editing) headache…but maybe! (Page # refers are snakebites in wait)
What about the “Clue” ending: “that’s how it could have happened. But how about this?”
This is not an ugly chair. Please hurry, I need this book.
It’s not a ‘beautiful’ chair but it is nowhere near ugly. Being depicted in a black and white photo makes me a little cautious about commenting on the surface finish but I can envisage using oils/stains and hard wax to create a finish that would enhance its appearance. As for the design, if I bought the chair I would leave it alone but, if I was making it, I think I would make the back a little shorter. Functionally, this would not affect the chair; aesthetically, it could improve the appearance.
You might suggest to potential authors to start with the high concept or TOC. See what kind of story develops when that sits in front of you. For some, it can be difficult to think of a title due to overthinking, lack of experience, etc., and that can be a huge block. But if there’s a good story to be told, it usually comes out in the TOC. Then you can bungle your way back up to the title (and back down again, and so on).
This is mostly speaking from experience. I didn’t come up with the titles to any of my books, though I did write the secondary titles. I just knew the kind of content would be of interest, wrote them down, then worked that into a TOC that could tell a story that a reader could actually follow. When it came time to choose a title, my publisher, having far more experience with titles than I, made suggestions that worked really well.
Chris, I had no idea you developed your books the same way you’d develop a script for a film. Makes perfect sense.
Good luck with it. Have fun.
In order to save yourself from answering 5,000+ questions later, be sure to address this one: Is this wood ok for chair? I’m envisioning a pullout poster or some columns – Good wood for legs, Good wood for seats, Fair wood for seats, Fair wood for legs, woods to avoid. According to Google there are 60,000 different types of trees and some species may have to be in two or three columns. So, maybe it’s more like a companion index.
On second thought, it might be faster to just answer the individual questions later?
I’d settle for a poster or t shirt that said “Got Wood?” Or “Question #52”
Well the answer is the same as in my recent book on workbenches: Almost any wood can be used to make a chair. It just depends on how you use it. But I will definitely discuss my preferred species. But basically it’s anything that is ring-porous.
Speaking of “flammability” and of vomiting out your book’s TOC reminded me of Edgar Guest (newspaper poet) telling my uncle years ago that it was easy for him to be a newspaper poet, all he had to do was “let a poem every afternoon.”