Nonfiction can take many forms, and forming nonfiction needs the right guide.
If writing and finishing fiction is difficult, then writing nonfiction seems to be an even steeper uphill battle: the right topic that will engage readers, the necessary research and verifying sources, the fitting together of information, and so much more. A plan is necessary for both types of writing, as is a driven and engaged mindset and a wealth of useful information to support both. Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry team up to provide the latter in Hungry Authors: The Indispensable Guide to Planning, Writing, and Publishing a Nonfiction Book.
“I’m going there, and you can come with me”; “I’m open to feedback and willing to change my plans”; “This is just my first/second/third book, and I will write more books”. These are just some of the phrases that a truly driven author should internalize. And drive is a major part of the actual work that lies ahead, the necessary key to going places (wherever those places might be) and taking readers along for the ride.
A book is an author’s pact with readers—readers pick up books based on what a seemingly “worthy” book apparently promises them. Finding the right genre is a part of finding out how to best make a promise to readers, partially by setting expectations and positioning their works effectively. Two major overall genres of nonfiction are prescriptive nonfiction and creative nonfiction. Prescriptive nonfiction can be guidebooks, textbooks, reference manuals, and more, providing exposition and organization; they are generally meant to inform or instruct readers and can be on a variety of topics. Creative nonfiction is a narrower category, using a central true narrative to help tell a story of transformation, with the “creative” element arising from the narrative style and structure; because life has so many stories to tell, narratives can span so many subjects, and memoirs are the most well-known example of creative nonfiction.
A book not written for anyone in particular is a book for nobody, and if books want to speak to their readers, the writer must have a target audience in mind. The biggest question that will help with that here is: who would this book serve best? Books also need “positioning”— comparable titles with which they can be compared, so as to market and sell. With a similar book already out there, writers can also get an idea of how to model the mapping and writing of their own book.
And then, there is the Big Idea—an author having a unique angle and argument based around a forever-relevant topic. Topics must remain relevant to sell consistently after publication, and this is part of why books that relate to social media tend to be categorized as marketing or sales reads, to give a greater sense of timelessness. Creative nonfiction isn’t “just” a story, but rather a story with a point (or even moral) that gives it a unique angle. Big Ideas can be found in an author’s preexisting expertise and their own unique experiences, in their areas of interest, in their willingness to be bold in their opinions, and so much more.
Thankfully for hungry authors, Hungry Authors provides a few diagrams to help visualize their way through writing. Book maps for both prescriptive nonfiction and creative nonfiction, on creating and piecing together tales of transformation for creative nonfiction, and on outlining book structures. Sometimes, though, the best place to start—just get things flowing, with organization and analysis applied later—is a “brain dump”, a judgment-free zone where the goal is to get things onto the page. For a book with a larger narrative, thinking in scenes or stories is a good way to get started. When the book is hoping to impart a lesson, it’s good to think through the main ideas and principles that need to be included. Then, later in the process, logic can organize the dumped content; the book provides suggestions including converting abstract concepts into possible practical applications, using a personal journey as a template for addressing larger societal problems, or uniting separate ideas through a preexisting overall theme.
Inspiration for content can come from anywhere for a writer who’s looking, but knowing where and how to look can help find the best ideas. This is another area where having similar titles is helpful—a pool of similar works lends credibility and context to a new work in the area, not to mention ideas for content. (Reputable) Online databases such as (but not limited to) PubMed, Scopus, and Directory of Open Access Journals are reliable places to look for citations and facts to back up a book’s claim. And, again, content is everywhere—from magazines to interviews to the questions people have in everyday life, waiting to be answered.
When the first draft of the written work is done, the author should be their own first editor. An initial edit can save time on any later work with editors and an author who turns in clean drafts of their own work becomes a more appealing partner to editors and publishers. Editing is hard work, though, and shouldn’t be done all at once or immediately after the first draft is complete. The work should first be “straightened out”, edited as a whole to become a better larger narrative—this doesn’t even have to be the same narrative that was initially mapped out, just a clearer and more naturally flowing narrative. The next phase of editing should center around refining how the message is being communicated to better engage with the reader. Then it’s time for the nitty-gritty in the basic issues like spelling, grammar, and minor rephrasing.
Morrow and Curry’s know-how is comprehensive, too comprehensive to fit even within their own pages, and they begin the book with a URL directing readers to take a deeper dive into resources on the nonfiction writing process and find a community waiting. Hungry Authors is a meal worth savoring in order to give readers the course they didn’t know they’d been looking for.
By Grace Dietz
