Oh, no! With all the flattery you’ve bestowed on your writer friend in the past several months, they have decided that you are the perfect candidate to write the foreward of their new book.
How will you go about it?
Will the words you write do justice to the content of the book as well as to the trust which your writer friend has placed in you?
On the other hand, were you just being polite all those times when you were heaping lavish praise on what you secretly thought was garbage in order not to hurt your friend’s feelings?
See how easy it is to be painted profoundly into the corner of rewrites and writer’s block and broken pencils?
In the final scheme of things, how will you sit down to actually write the foreward of a book?
How to Write the Foreward of a Book: Finding Sincerity
By the time you have begun writing the foreward of a book, it is clear that you have already overcome certain hesitations. After all, even if you are sitting in front of a blank page, at least you have agreed to give it a try.
What comes next? How do you find the sincerity to pour your real estimate of the book’s quality into your writing?
Do you read it first, and then try to offer genuine insight? Do you simply write the foreward of a book on the merits of friendship, or of the author’s past merits as a writer?
In any how-to article, questions are aligned with answers.
I would suggest that, in writing the foreward of a book, you must certainly read it first. Anything less would be an insult to the writer who has so graciously made you the responsible party in promoting it.
If you do not feel qualified to offer genuine insight in writing your foreward to this book, please recommend someone else who can.
How to Write the Foreward of a Book: Determining the General Theme
As you write the foreward of a book, you have to bear in mind that a foreward is really meant to be only a very brief summary of the author’s intentions.
You are not required to offer a detailed synopsis, a chapter by chapter outline of places, people, and events.
As such, writing the foreward of a book requires a degree of intuition. The questions become: what motivated the main character? How does this book differ from similar ones in its pursuit of matters of right and wrong?
Maybe a certain poetic license is also necessary in writing the foreward of a book because some readers might just be drawn to some brand of intellectual mumbo-jumbo instead of what makes the book’s content really worthwhile.
Writing the foreward of a book, therefore, is not so much about the book’s true quality as it is about the audience for which the book is intended.
It’s all a matter of opinion.
In sum, do feel put on the spot in writing the foreward of a book. Remember that all books contain something useful. It all depends on who is reading them.
