If you’ve started a book manuscript and gotten to the point of feeling “lost in the forest,” you should try an exercise suggested by John Butman, who wrote Breaking Out: How to Build Influence in a World of Competing Ideas. John’s exercise is called “fascinations.”

Put aside the manuscript and outline you’ve written so far. Sit with an interviewer (a colleague) and ask him or her to interrogate you with the basic question: “What really fascinates you about this subject?”

Yes, that simple. And yet, oh so difficult. In my own experience, I have found I can’t pinpoint what fascinates me until I finish the whole book. It’s so easy to get trapped into writing about what interests you—things that intrigue you—but that don’t rise to the level of fascination. And that’s not a mistake you want to make, because you can waste so much time going off on “interesting” tangents.

So get someone to keep questioning you until you really cough up your fascinations. “Not what you think should fascinate you,” as John writes. “Not what you’ve been telling yourself for the past month or year or decade that fascinates you. Not what others have been telling you they think fascinates you.”

A great book is built around your genuine fascinations. And if you find them and articulate them, you will connect with other people and your book will resonate. It will resonate with your interviewer and resonate with readers. And it will help you succeed in making a mark—and a difference—as an author.

You might try reading John’s book. It’s an example itself of what he’s talking about. If you ask John, I’ll bet he’ll tell you that he had to bushwhack himself out of a forest of ideas into the light of his fascination. That’s simply what a great book takes.

[Revised January 2020. Originally published September 18, 2013]