What Is Dream Time Before Writing a Book?
Siddhartha Mukherjee calls the first part of writing a book dream time. Before the first word goes on the page, he spends a long time thinking about what the book will sound like. People can use different words for that stretch of thinking. He tells anyone who asks about the process that the answer will sound generic, and he says it is real.
He asks who is driving the narrative, because there has to be a who. He asks where the story is placed, where it goes, and where it sits geographically. He asks what time the story is in and what mood it conveys. He asks who the reader is and why he or she is being moved by the book. He works out the structure and the anatomy, including whether the book is compartmentalized and what the chapters seem like.
Mukherjee is writing a book on death, dying, and longevity. He says the book is not the usual treatment of death and longevity, and that it follows the kind of material already in the conversation. Peter Attia asked him how he is writing the book, and dream time is the step Mukherjee put first.
