You have got something to share and you plan to write a nonfiction book to share your experiences and thoughts with people around the world but you get stuck on how to write one? If that’s the case with you, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will be sharing 5 important tips and techniques which you can utilize to write your nonfiction book.
You have got a lot of ideas and a lot to tell to people. A person is populated with over 6200 thoughts a day on average. That’s a lot! If you are the one reading this, you must be wondering that probably you get this many thoughts in a time period of 24 hours, how many of these are the thoughts you would like to share with the people around you?
People consume a lot of information today via their surroundings and thanks to the digital world, we have got access to a plethora of facts and what’s happening around the world.
1. Build a memorable story around your facts
Who doesn’t like to read or listen to a story? We have all heard it since our birth from our grandparents and parents. Later on, we deep dive into adulthood and listen to stories in literature in school and college. Cutting it short, we all love stories.
The idea here is simple. We remember stories in a far better way than rules, concepts, or any formulas. Why? Because we can relate to them at some level.
A success or a failure story quite fascinates the readers as they can relate the incidents to what’s happening in their lives.
How can you build a story? You have your facts and figures in place, you have interviewed the experts and leaders in a particular industry, now it’s time to weave out a fascinating story.
For example, if you are writing a book that talks about how smoking can be dangerous to your health. Instead of stating the facts bluntly, you can tell a story of a person who s leading a wonderful life after quitting smoking. In that case, the readers would be more engaged and it will become a memorable one.
Summary: Humans are fascinated by stories. So weave out one and ell a memorable story which will help your readers to be engaged.
2. Come to the point quickly
Just like in fiction writing there is a hook that instantly grabs the readers’ attention. Similarly, nonfiction writing involves hooking the readers instantly to get them interested.
This is because there is a lot of information floating around. This overflow of information can leave some of the readers overwhelmed. To overcome the influx caused by information explosion or information overload, people have now started skimming the content or just read the headings and subheadings before deciding to read the full story.
You can simply do the same by starting with an instant hook-like telling a joke or asking some personal question. Some of the writers start off with a compelling personal or historical story that readers instantly relate to and engage with your content.
It’s always helpful while telling a compelling story is to keep the suspense element alive. The readers must be always wondering what’s next.
This way you will get engaged readers who are likely to share your work among their peers and friends as well.
Whatever method you choose, there should be elements of suspense or mystery to keep the readers guessing.
Summary: Hooking your readers at the beginning is important in this era of information overload. Make sure to ask a personal question, tell a joke or tell a compelling, memorable personal story to keep your readers engaged.
3. Connect with your readers at an emotional level
When we come to storytelling, it is essential to connect with your readers emotionally. Bad nonfiction pieces comprise only of mere facts. They often include complex sentence structures and a lot of technical or nontechnical jargon.
This can make your readers overwhelmed again. The solution is to use more imagery and put a personality In your writing. Metaphors are also an interesting way to add some spice. Instead of writing “double-digit percent fluctuations,” write, “a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs.”
As humans are visual creatures, it’s essential to include visual components in your writing. the best nonfiction writing techniques involve emotional descriptive terms that help readers begin to decode the complex facts which may be offered within the text.
So, it’s time to reconnect with the emotional side of your writing and stir up your readers’ feelings.
Summary: Establishing an emotional connection is essential while writing nonfiction as it will help your readers relate to your writing and like your work.
4. Follow the rule of simplicity
Yes, you read that right. No matter what industry you belong to or you are writing on a specific industry, it is surely going to have technical words or you can say jargon that is necessarily unknown to your readers or layman in general. If you are writing particularly for the people involved in that industry like medical journals, you can keep the jargon intact.
For the others, it’s always best to follow the rule of keeping it simple. It’s tempting as a writer to include complex wording but it’s better to impress with a story than its wording.
Your aim here is to get your idea across and it can be done by saying it simply.
Summary: Be as simple as possible. As Albert Einstein quote says: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Just make sure that you get your idea across
5. Make it unpredictable
Fiction comprises a lot of surprising twists and turns. Nonfiction on the other hand is read as a predictable piece of writing. That makes it dull!
You are going to change this with your nonfiction writing and surprise the reader. You want to give them an unexpected surprise to your reader. It will keep it interesting and fun for your readers. They will enjoy it more like they enjoy their daily dose of drama they watch.
You can also offer a fact that isn’t expected just like in some of the movies the ending is something that the audience didn’t expect.
Use your imagination and references from your own experiences to include an element of surprise and to put your point across in an exciting way.
Summary: Best nonfiction is written with a surprising element to keep your readers guessing and feel excited about it. Make sure to include unexpected facts or expected twists and turns to your nonfiction writing and make it unpredictable. We hope that these points will help you as a nonfiction writer to write your best piece and get more and more readers for your work.
Read More:
- The Irony in the Child’s Eye
- 8 Banned Books in India that you should(not) read
- Why the good things are not happening in your life?
- How hope can help you in your life and transform it for the better
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