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How to Write a Nonfiction Book: 6 Step Guide

Hannah Yang

Table of Contents

6 steps to writing a nonfiction book, conclusion on how to write a nonfiction book.

There are many reasons you might want to write a nonfiction book. Publishing a book can help you grow your business, to tell your personal story, or simply to share your knowledge.  

But it’s not easy to write an entire manuscript on your own. So, how exactly do you write a great nonfiction book?

The short answer is that it takes a lot of time and perseverance, but you can do it successfully if you know the right steps to follow.

In this article, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide for how to write a nonfiction book.

Writing nonfiction can be broken down into six steps:

Start by defining your goal

Do your research

Structure the book

Plan your writing schedule

Write the first draft

Revise and edit

Let’s take a closer look at how to complete each of these steps.

How to Start a Nonfiction Book

Before you put your pen to paper, you have to know what you’re writing about. You need to figure out the goal of your book—the reason why you’re writing it.

Start by asking yourself three important questions:

What’s the topic of your book?

Who’s your target audience?

Why do you need to write this book?

For example, maybe the topic of the book is the secret lives of plants, your target audience is amateur botanists, and you need to write it because you want to inspire people to respect the environment.

Or maybe you’re writing a memoir about your journey to becoming a successful CEO, your target audience is anyone who’s interested in business, and you need to write it because you want to share your life lessons with future generations.

You can get even more specific with these questions by asking more detailed questions about your answers to each one.

For the first question, you might ask: what questions do you hope to answer with your book? What makes your book stand out from the crowd?

For the second question, you might ask: does your target audience prefer serious books or humorous books? How much do they already know about this topic before reading your book?

For the third question, you might ask: what expertise or life experience can you bring to the table that no other authors would have? How do you hope readers will be impacted by reading your book?

Regardless of what type of book you’re writing, the answers to these questions will give you a clear goal that keeps you on track throughout the writing process.

How to Research a Nonfiction Book

When you write a book, you’re not building a knowledge base from scratch. Instead, you’re adding your voice to an existing field of expertise.

It’s important to understand what’s already out there before you add to it, so you don’t reinvent the wheel. So, do as much research as you can on the topic you’re writing about.

Go to your local library, tell them about your manuscript, and ask the librarians if they have books they’d recommend. Academic libraries can also be a great resource if you have access to them.

Another great option is to look up experts on your topic and ask if they’d be willing to schedule an interview. Sure, a few will say no, but many will be honored that you asked for their help.

Finally, don’t forget to read other nonfiction books that are similar to the one you’re planning to write. How do they tackle the questions you’re trying to address? What can you learn from them, both in terms of content and in terms of style?

Remember that doing your research can be an ongoing process. You can keep adding to your research throughout the outlining and editing stages, especially if new research topics arise after you get started.  

How to Structure a Nonfiction Book

If you want your book to make an impact, you need to make sure it has a clear, coherent structure that readers can easily understand.

There are many different ways to accomplish that goal. Different nonfiction writers choose different systems of dividing their books into parts, chapters, sections, and even subsections. 

If you’re writing narrative nonfiction, such as a memoir or a biography, you’ll need to figure out how to structure the story you’re telling.

Consider the following questions:

How can you organize your story into a clear beginning, middle, and end?

Is there an inciting incident that kicks off the story?

Is there a climactic moment when the story reaches its breaking point?

How can you ensure consistent pacing? Are there any sections that aren’t necessary for the story?

Do you want to tell your story in chronological order, or is it best told in a different order? 

Since writing narrative nonfiction is often similar to writing fiction, you can consider studying some of the plot structures used by fiction writers, such as the traditional three-act story structure or Freytag’s pyramid.

On the other hand, if you’re writing expository nonfiction, such as textbooks and self-help books, you won’t be telling a story. Instead, you’ll need to figure out how to organize your ideas.

What big-picture questions are you hoping to answer in your book?

How can those big-picture questions be broken down into smaller subtopics?

How much space does each subtopic need?

What’s a logical order for these subtopics to be arranged in?

Is there any overlap between subtopics that might become redundant?

Make an outline with your questions and subtopics. A simple bullet-point list is a good place to start. That way, you can get a bird’s-eye view of your book before you actually write it, which will save time in the long run.   

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

How to Plan Your Writing Schedule

Many people start writing a book, but few ever make it to the finish line. That’s because it takes a lot of time and dedication to complete an entire manuscript, and it’s easy to lose steam in the middle.

The best way to ensure you finish your book is by setting a realistic writing schedule.

You should choose a schedule that fits your personal writing preferences. Would you prefer to write for 30 minutes every day or for a few hours every weekend? Would you prefer to write at home or at a public space like a library or a coffeeshop?

If you know when you want to finish your first draft, you can even plan your daily word count based on that deadline.

For example, if you know you want to write a 60,000-word book in 100 days, that means you’ll need to write an average of 600 words every day. That’s not a trivial number, but it’s an achievable one if you carve out time for it.

Consider using a calendar to make sure you’re staying on schedule. Block out writing time on your calendar, the same way you would schedule a coffee date or a doctor’s appointment, so you know you’ll stick to it.

You can even mark the dates when you expect to hit certain milestones, like finishing the first chapter, reaching 10,000 words, or reaching the halfway point. That way, you can celebrate small milestones along the way to keep yourself motivated.

Finally, consider finding an accountability buddy to check in on you and make sure you’re sticking to your writing schedule. Writing doesn’t have to be a lonely task—it’s a lot more fun if you involve your friends or colleagues in the process!

How to Draft Your Nonfiction Book

Once you have your outline and your writing schedule planned out, it’s time to start drafting.

You can choose your favorite word processing software to draft in. Some popular options for nonfiction authors include Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Scrivener, and the Reedsy Book Editor.

Here are some tips you can follow while drafting:

Lean into your authentic voice. If you normally use a lot of sarcastic humor in daily conversation, for example, don’t be afraid to let that shine through in the book

Make sure to “show, don’t tell” by describing an immersive scene for your readers instead of simply telling them what happened

Create three-dimensional characters that your readers can relate to. Even if you’re writing expository nonfiction, you can use characters to illustrate your points

Use dialogue. Showing real conversations on the page is a great way to hook readers in and break up long passages of exposition

Cite reliable sources. It’s important to give yourself credibility by citing trustworthy sources, especially if you’re positioning yourself as an expert in a specific field

If your book strays from the outline, don’t stress out. You might be discovering a better direction for your book, so try steering into the skid

Finally, remember that the first draft doesn’t have to be perfect—you just have to keep writing. In fact, it can be helpful to aim for a messy draft on purpose so you don’t lose momentum.

How to Use ProWritingAid to Edit Your Book

Even if you’re an experienced writer, it’s unlikely you’ll churn out a flawless first draft on the first go. It’s critical to edit your work so you can create a book that’s ready for publication.  

Start by figuring out the best style guide to use. A style guide will give you clear guidelines for questions related to grammar, capitalization, abbreviations, punctuation, and more.

If you’re planning to get your book traditionally published, you should follow whichever style guide your publisher uses. If you’re self-publishing, you can choose one that makes sense for your topic. Some popular options include:

The Associated Press Stylebook (AP Style)

The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style)

The MLA Handbook (MLA style)

In addition to simply checking for errors, you should also make sure your prose is as strong as possible. Here are a few tips for editing your language:

Use active voice rather than passive voice

Keep your language simple and easily readable

Vary the lengths of your sentences to better engage the reader

Avoid using filler words like “really” and “just”

Remove redundant words and phrases to keep your writing concise

ProWritingAid can help identify areas in your manuscript where you’re not following these rules, and help you figure out how to improve them. You can use the grammar checker throughout the editing process to make sure your writing is as clear and effective as possible.

Another tip you can try is to read your work out loud. That way, you can see if your writing flows naturally, and identify any sentences that feel awkward or confusing.   

Finally, you should also consider sharing your manuscript with a trusted friend or family member or fellow writer. Asking for feedback is a great way to find errors you wouldn’t catch on your own.

There you have it—a complete guide for how to write a successful nonfiction book.

Here’s a quick recap of the six steps:

Start by defining your goals for the book and why you want to write it

Do your research by going to the library, interviewing experts, and more

Choose a clear and coherent structure for your book and create an outline in advance

Set a realistic writing schedule to make sure you can hit your writing goals

Write a messy first draft to keep up momentum, knowing that it doesn't have to be perfect

Edit your book to make sure it’s polished and ready to enter the publishing process

Whether you’re writing a memoir, a self-help book, or some other type of nonfiction, you can follow this step-by-step process to make it to the finish line.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hannah is a speculative fiction writer who loves all things strange and surreal. She holds a BA from Yale University and lives in Colorado. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her painting watercolors, playing her ukulele, or hiking in the Rockies. Follow her work on hannahyang.com or on Twitter at @hannahxyang.

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What is creative nonfiction? Despite its slightly enigmatic name, no literary genre has grown quite as quickly as creative nonfiction in recent decades. Literary nonfiction is now well-established as a powerful means of storytelling, and bookstores now reserve large amounts of space for nonfiction, when it often used to occupy a single bookshelf.

Like any literary genre, creative nonfiction has a long history; also like other genres, defining contemporary CNF for the modern writer can be nuanced. If you’re interested in writing true-to-life stories but you’re not sure where to begin, let’s start by dissecting the creative nonfiction genre and what it means to write a modern literary essay.

What Creative Nonfiction Is

Creative nonfiction employs the creative writing techniques of literature, such as poetry and fiction, to retell a true story.

How do we define creative nonfiction? What makes it “creative,” as opposed to just “factual writing”? These are great questions to ask when entering the genre, and they require answers which could become literary essays themselves.

In short, creative nonfiction (CNF) is a form of storytelling that employs the creative writing techniques of literature, such as poetry and fiction, to retell a true story. Creative nonfiction writers don’t just share pithy anecdotes, they use craft and technique to situate the reader into their own personal lives. Fictional elements, such as character development and narrative arcs, are employed to create a cohesive story, but so are poetic elements like conceit and juxtaposition.

The CNF genre is wildly experimental, and contemporary nonfiction writers are pushing the bounds of literature by finding new ways to tell their stories. While a CNF writer might retell a personal narrative, they might also focus their gaze on history, politics, or they might use creative writing elements to write an expository essay. There are very few limits to what creative nonfiction can be, which is what makes defining the genre so difficult—but writing it so exciting.

Different Forms of Creative Nonfiction

From the autobiographies of Mark Twain and Benvenuto Cellini, to the more experimental styles of modern writers like Karl Ove Knausgård, creative nonfiction has a long history and takes a wide variety of forms. Common iterations of the creative nonfiction genre include the following:

Also known as biography or autobiography, the memoir form is probably the most recognizable form of creative nonfiction. Memoirs are collections of memories, either surrounding a single narrative thread or multiple interrelated ideas. The memoir is usually published as a book or extended piece of fiction, and many memoirs take years to write and perfect. Memoirs often take on a similar writing style as the personal essay does, though it must be personable and interesting enough to encourage the reader through the entire book.

Personal Essay

Personal essays are stories about personal experiences told using literary techniques.

When someone hears the word “essay,” they instinctively think about those five paragraph book essays everyone wrote in high school. In creative nonfiction, the personal essay is much more vibrant and dynamic. Personal essays are stories about personal experiences, and while some personal essays can be standalone stories about a single event, many essays braid true stories with extended metaphors and other narratives.

Personal essays are often intimate, emotionally charged spaces. Consider the opening two paragraphs from Beth Ann Fennelly’s personal essay “ I Survived the Blizzard of ’79. ”

We didn’t question. Or complain. It wouldn’t have occurred to us, and it wouldn’t have helped. I was eight. Julie was ten.

We didn’t know yet that this blizzard would earn itself a moniker that would be silk-screened on T-shirts. We would own such a shirt, which extended its tenure in our house as a rag for polishing silver.

The word “essay” comes from the French “essayer,” which means “to try” or “attempt.” The personal essay is more than just an autobiographical narrative—it’s an attempt to tell your own history with literary techniques.

Lyric Essay

The lyric essay contains similar subject matter as the personal essay, but is much more experimental in form.

The lyric essay contains similar subject matter as the personal essay, with one key distinction: lyric essays are much more experimental in form. Poetry and creative nonfiction merge in the lyric essay, challenging the conventional prose format of paragraphs and linear sentences.

The lyric essay stands out for its unique writing style and sentence structure. Consider these lines from “ Life Code ” by J. A. Knight:

The dream goes like this: blue room of water. God light from above. Child’s fist, foot, curve, face, the arc of an eye, the symmetry of circles… and then an opening of this body—which surprised her—a movement so clean and assured and then the push towards the light like a frog or a fish.

What we get is language driven by emotion, choosing an internal logic rather than a universally accepted one.

Lyric essays are amazing spaces to break barriers in language. For example, the lyricist might write a few paragraphs about their story, then examine a key emotion in the form of a villanelle or a ghazal. They might decide to write their entire essay in a string of couplets or a series of sonnets, then interrupt those stanzas with moments of insight or analysis. In the lyric essay, language dictates form. The successful lyricist lets the words arrange themselves in whatever format best tells the story, allowing for experimental new forms of storytelling.

Literary Journalism

Much more ambiguously defined is the idea of literary journalism. The idea is simple: report on real life events using literary conventions and styles. But how do you do this effectively, in a way that the audience pays attention and takes the story seriously?

You can best find examples of literary journalism in more “prestigious” news journals, such as The New Yorker , The Atlantic , Salon , and occasionally The New York Times . Think pieces about real world events, as well as expository journalism, might use braiding and extended metaphors to make readers feel more connected to the story. Other forms of nonfiction, such as the academic essay or more technical writing, might also fall under literary journalism, provided those pieces still use the elements of creative nonfiction.

Consider this recently published article from The Atlantic : The Uncanny Tale of Shimmel Zohar by Lawrence Weschler. It employs a style that’s breezy yet personable—including its opening line.

So I first heard about Shimmel Zohar from Gravity Goldberg—yeah, I know, but she insists it’s her real name (explaining that her father was a physicist)—who is the director of public programs and visitor experience at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, in San Francisco.

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: Common Elements and Techniques

What separates a general news update from a well-written piece of literary journalism? What’s the difference between essay writing in high school and the personal essay? When nonfiction writers put out creative work, they are most successful when they utilize the following elements.

Just like fiction, nonfiction relies on effective narration. Telling the story with an effective plot, writing from a certain point of view, and using the narrative to flesh out the story’s big idea are all key craft elements. How you structure your story can have a huge impact on how the reader perceives the work, as well as the insights you draw from the story itself.

Consider the first lines of the story “ To the Miami University Payroll Lady ” by Frenci Nguyen:

You might not remember me, but I’m the dark-haired, Texas-born, Asian-American graduate student who visited the Payroll Office the other day to complete direct deposit and tax forms.

Because the story is written in second person, with the reader experiencing the story as the payroll lady, the story’s narration feels much more personal and important, forcing the reader to evaluate their own personal biases and beliefs.

Observation

Telling the story involves more than just simple plot elements, it also involves situating the reader in the key details. Setting the scene requires attention to all five senses, and interpersonal dialogue is much more effective when the narrator observes changes in vocal pitch, certain facial expressions, and movements in body language. Essentially, let the reader experience the tiny details – we access each other best through minutiae.

The story “ In Transit ” by Erica Plouffe Lazure is a perfect example of storytelling through observation. Every detail of this flash piece is carefully noted to tell a story without direct action, using observations about group behavior to find hope in a crisis. We get observation when the narrator notes the following:

Here at the St. Thomas airport in mid-March, we feel the urgency of the transition, the awareness of how we position our bodies, where we place our luggage, how we consider for the first time the numbers of people whose belongings are placed on the same steel table, the same conveyor belt, the same glowing radioactive scan, whose IDs are touched by the same gloved hand[.]

What’s especially powerful about this story is that it is written in a single sentence, allowing the reader to be just as overwhelmed by observation and context as the narrator is.

We’ve used this word a lot, but what is braiding? Braiding is a technique most often used in creative nonfiction where the writer intertwines multiple narratives, or “threads.” Not all essays use braiding, but the longer a story is, the more it benefits the writer to intertwine their story with an extended metaphor or another idea to draw insight from.

“ The Crush ” by Zsofia McMullin demonstrates braiding wonderfully. Some paragraphs are written in first person, while others are written in second person.

The following example from “The Crush” demonstrates braiding:

Your hair is still wet when you slip into the booth across from me and throw your wallet and glasses and phone on the table, and I marvel at how everything about you is streamlined, compact, organized. I am always overflowing — flesh and wants and a purse stuffed with snacks and toy soldiers and tissues.

The author threads these narratives together by having both people interact in a diner, yet the reader still perceives a distance between the two threads because of the separation of “I” and “you” pronouns. When these threads meet, briefly, we know they will never meet again.

Speaking of insight, creative nonfiction writers must draw novel conclusions from the stories they write. When the narrator pauses in the story to delve into their emotions, explain complex ideas, or draw strength and meaning from tough situations, they’re finding insight in the essay.

Often, creative writers experience insight as they write it, drawing conclusions they hadn’t yet considered as they tell their story, which makes creative nonfiction much more genuine and raw.

The story “ Me Llamo Theresa ” by Theresa Okokun does a fantastic job of finding insight. The story is about the history of our own names and the generations that stand before them, and as the writer explores her disconnect with her own name, she recognizes a similar disconnect in her mother, as well as the need to connect with her name because of her father.

The narrator offers insight when she remarks:

I began to experience a particular type of identity crisis that so many immigrants and children of immigrants go through — where we are called one name at school or at work, but another name at home, and in our hearts.

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: the 5 R’s

CNF pioneer Lee Gutkind developed a very system called the “5 R’s” of creative nonfiction writing. Together, the 5 R’s form a general framework for any creative writing project. They are:

• Write about r eal life: Creative nonfiction tackles real people, events, and places—things that actually happened or are happening.
• Conduct extensive r esearch: Learn as much as you can about your subject matter, to deepen and enrich your ability to relay the subject matter. (Are you writing about your tenth birthday? What were the newspaper headlines that day?)
• (W) r ite a narrative: Use storytelling elements originally from fiction, such as Freytag’s Pyramid , to structure your CNF piece’s narrative as a story with literary impact rather than just a recounting.
• Include personal r eflection: Share your unique voice and perspective on the narrative you are retelling.
• Learn by r eading: The best way to learn to write creative nonfiction well is to read it being written well. Read as much CNF as you can, and observe closely how the author’s choices impact you as a reader.

You can read more about the 5 R’s in this helpful summary article .

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: Give it a Try!

Whatever form you choose, whatever story you tell, and whatever techniques you write with, the more important aspect of creative nonfiction is this: be honest. That may seem redundant, but often, writers mistakenly create narratives that aren’t true, or they use details and symbols that didn’t exist in the story. Trust us – real life is best read when it’s honest, and readers can tell when details in the story feel fabricated or inflated. Write with honesty, and the right words will follow!

Ready to start writing your creative nonfiction piece? If you need extra guidance or want to write alongside our community, take a look at the upcoming nonfiction classes at Writers.com. Now, go and write the next bestselling memoir!

Sean Glatch

Thank you so much for including these samples from Hippocampus Magazine essays/contributors; it was so wonderful to see these pieces reflected on from the craft perspective! – Donna from Hippocampus

Absolutely, Donna! I’m a longtime fan of Hippocampus and am always astounded by the writing you publish. We’re always happy to showcase stunning work 🙂

[…] Source: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/a-complete-guide-to-writing-creative-nonfiction#5-creative-nonfiction-writing-promptshttps://writers.com/what-is-creative-nonfiction […]

So impressive

Thank you. I’ve been researching a number of figures from the 1800’s and have come across a large number of ‘biographies’ of figures. These include quoted conversations which I knew to be figments of the author and yet some works are lauded as ‘histories’.

excellent guidelines inspiring me to write CNF thank you

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• EXPLORE Random Article

How to Write Non Fiction

Last Updated: December 29, 2022 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 69,990 times.

Nonfiction writing includes many different types of creative work, including essays, memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies. But nonfiction also includes different types of instructive/informational writing, such as academic textbooks, self-help books, and travel/reference books. If you're interested in writing nonfiction, you'll want to decide on a type of nonfiction that you're most interested in and read as much as you can by popular authors in that field. Once you've gotten the hang of the genre, you'll be ready to write your own compelling work of nonfiction.

Crafting a Personal Essay

• Think about things that you care about or are passionate about. Make a list of 10 subjects, then decide which subject you will have the most to say about (and/or the subject with which you have the most personal experience).
• Don't resist a topic because it will be difficult or require research. If you're passionate about that subject and you think you have a lot to say about it, then go for it.
• Be flexible. You may decide to change your mind, or you may find that some items on your list relate to one another (and could potentially be woven together).

• Since you're writing a personal essay, it's important that the topic you choose has some direct, personal significance in your life.
• Be as specific as possible when choosing your topic. Narrow it down to a memory, an occasion, etc.
• For example, instead of writing about loss, you might choose to write about a specific kind of loss (like death), then choose one specific event (like the death of a parent or friend) as your starting point.
• The various elements of your essay should all be related somehow, and you'll need to make that relationship clear to the reader to avoid confusion.
• You can always expand your topic to include other related concepts/events, or to become a larger meditation on the larger subject that your event touches on, but it's best to begin with one single topic idea and go from there.

• One common form for writing personal essays is to begin with a very specific image, instant, or memory (zoomed in, to put it in film terms) and gradually expand outward to address the larger subject.
• Another common form employs the exact opposite: starting very broad, then zooming in on the specific memory, event, etc. This can be a bit tricky, though, as a broad topic can easily lose the interest of your readers early on in the essay.
• One form that's been gaining popularity over the last few years is the lyric or hybrid essay. This combines poetry and essay elements, essentially creating a long-form nonfiction poem.
• Try writing your essay in one form, and if it doesn't feel right you can experiment with a different form.

• Try to incorporate all five senses. You won't be able to make the reader see, hear, smell, taste, or touch the things you have, but if you craft your piece of writing skillfully, the reader should feel like he/she has experienced them first hand.
• Build your images in a linear, narrative way. In other words, don't fill every tangent with long-winded descriptive passages - save that for the main "story" thread of your book or essay.
• Make sure your details are relevant. If you're just throwing in details to make the essay or book "pretty," it's probably just a distraction.

• Don't worry about typos (unless they'll be impossible to decipher) while you write your first draft. You can fix these minor errors in the editing and revision stage.
• Make sure you're using visceral details - what many writing teachers refer to as showing, not telling. For example, instead of saying outright that you were frustrated, describe the way you narrowed your eyes and furrowed your brow at someone.
• Think about whether the form you're using is working for the essay at hand. If it's not working, try something different, as the overall form will be more difficult to work with during revision.
• Consider whether or not you adequately address every aspect of your subject. As you complete your first draft, you should also think about whether or not you've left anything unresolved and make any necessary corrections.

Writing a Creative Nonfiction Book

• Think about the things that you find most captivating.
• Unlike a personal essay, you do not have to be the main subject of a nonfiction book (though you can be!).
• As you consider your subject matter, remember that you'll need to be able to write a whole book about that subject. Think about whether you'd be able to say that much about a subject before you commit to it.

• A memoir (from the French word for "memory/reminiscence") is a detailed retelling of some part of your life. Unlike an autobiography, which can cover a whole life, a memoir is usually rooted in a specific theme, event, or time and place in your life. [6] X Research source
• A travelogue discusses a place and its people, culture, and/or food. It tends to be very heavily based upon the author's experience and therefore is a subjective personal account (unlike a travel guide, which seeks to objectively convey information without any personal experience). [7] X Research source
• Nature and environmental writing should revolve around a personal experience with nature. The writing should ultimately promote some degree of awareness of current environmental issues and should ideally foster a sense of wonder, adventure, and advocacy in readers.
• A biography is a retelling of someone else's life, and it may cover a specific time period (like a memoir of someone else's life) or that person's entire life. Biographies can be captivating narrative reenactments of a person's life or you can even create a historical fiction, and can really bring the subject's story to life.
• If you have a series of related personal essays, you can organize them into a book-length essay collection. Make sure to focus your story around a central theme, form, or idea.

• Think about where you could best begin your book, and what the logical conclusion of that story should be. If writing a biography, for example, the book might end with a retelling of the subject's death.
• If you're writing a memoir, the book should adequately frame the chosen time and place in your life. It's up to you to decide where the logical conclusion of that part of your life should be, and how to tell it best.
• If you're writing a travelogue, you'll need to include details about yourself, as well as where, when, why, and how you traveled. You should make yourself easy to relate to for readers and write in a way that brings your experience to life on the page. [9] X Research source
• When writing about nature or the environment, you'll need to show a genuine engagement with nature (ideally through some form of outdoor activity), balance nature facts with your subjective thoughts and feelings, and show a level of curiosity that makes everyday objects in nature seem new and exciting. [10] X Research source

• If you're writing a biography, you will most likely need a lot of factual information. This may require reading through textbooks and other biographies, or even visits to a museum or historical society.
• If you're writing a memoir, talk to other people who knew you during that time (ideally a close relative, friend, or someone who was with you as you experienced that part of your life). You'd be amazed at how many details you've forgotten, misremembered, or completely fabricated.
• A travelogue should draw heavily upon your notes and journals from the trip, but you'll also need to conduct research on the subjects you write about. For example, you'll want to learn as much as possible about the culture and people of that region, the food most frequently associated with that culture, etc.
• A nature or environmental project should involve researching the names and descriptions of the plants, animals, and geographic areas you describe. You may also want to research how ecosystems work together in complex and unique ways in the areas you write about.

• Create scenes within your essay or book, the same way a fiction writer would portray a scene in a short story or novel.
• Think of the people in your nonfiction essay/book as characters. Are they fully developed on the page, and do readers get a good sense of their overall personalities?
• Write strong dialogue. No one can remember the exact, word-for-word transcript of every conversation they've ever had, but your recollection of conversations should be as truthful as possible and written in a way that's easy to follow.

• Make sure you work in a quiet place where you won't be distracted or disturbed.
• You can measure your writing time temporally (by how many hours have passed), or by word or page count.
• Be consistent with your schedule. It doesn't necessarily have to be every day, but it should be the same days and the same times, week in and week out.

• Focus on larger issues as you hammer out your first draft. You can correct line-level issues during the revision/editing process.
• Make sure everything is tied up by the end of the book. Don't leave anything unresolved, and make sure the reader will have a sense of closure and completion by the end of your book.

Composing Other Types of Nonfiction

• If you're going to write an informational book, you'll need to know a lot about that subject. Most informational books are written by experts in that field.
• If you're not an expert, that's okay. You'll just need to make up for it with exceptional and extensive research.
• Informational writing should provide readers with clear definitions of terms, detailed descriptions of what something is and how it works, and information on how to engage with that object (using it, finding it, etc.).
• Make sure you'll be able to write a whole book on the subject you've chosen. Again, you don't need to know everything about that subject, but it should be something that can be written about at length if you want to fill a whole book.

• Think about the intended audience/readership for your book.
• Academic texts should be written formally, avoiding any slang or colloquialisms. Academic writing should also include complex language that is technical and specialized when necessary. [14] X Research source
• You'll need to make connections clear to the reader so that seemingly disparate concepts are explicitly related and clarified.
• An academic book will treat and comment on research done by other authors in the discipline associated with your book.

• Writing an instructive book will require a good deal of research as well, but it will be research that will help you relay steps in a project (rather than research that will create the definitive book of World History, for example).
• An instructive book should break down the basic concepts of a project, define any unique terms, and give readers a thorough, step-by-step guide on how to complete that project.
• Do your research, talk to experts, and take extensive notes. Then, when the time comes, you'll be able to break down those notes (informed by the research you've done) into a simple how-to guide.
• An example of an instructional book might be a hunting guide, written for someone who's never been hunting before. The book will need to explain the ins and outs of hunting, from its most basic concepts to the most complex ways of preparing the meat, for example.

Revising and Editing Your Work

• Give yourself anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after finishing the project before you attempt to revise/edit your work.
• If you try to edit/revise right away, you'll be less likely to notice issues within the writing (typos/errors, as well as things that aren't clear or don't make sense), and you'll have a harder time cutting things that aren't necessary.
• Keep in mind that revising and editing your work is an essential part of the writing process. Do not skip over this step or spend less time on it than the other steps.

• Read your draft slowly out loud to yourself.
• Take your time and circle, highlight, or otherwise mark anything that is incorrect or incomplete. Don't make revisions as you read, though, or you could lose your place many times.
• As you read, make sure you're only reading what you've written on the page, word for word.
• In addition to typos and incomplete thoughts, look for any sentences that trip you up or confuse you as you read aloud. These sentences should also be marked for revision.
• Once you've gotten through the whole thing (or a good chunk of it, like an entire chapter), go through and make the necessary changes.

• This is another aspect of why approaching the work after a short intermission will give you the best results. You may not realize that something hasn't been resolved because you've connected all the dots in your head (which a reader obviously can't do).

• If something hasn't been fully explained or resolved, you're less likely to notice it than an outside reader. Your mind will fill in the gaps precisely because you were the author and you know what you meant to say.
• Ask your friend to help you proofread your manuscript for typos, errors, and other line-level problems.
• Let your friend know that you want honest, critical assessment (not just praise).

• If anything was rushed through or not fully explored, revisit that section and think about ways to flesh out the subject so it's more comprehensive.
• Rearrange certain sections to see if they can complement one another. A sparsely-written section may end up being much fuller and more complete by being rearranged near another section.

• Use clear, concise language. Cut out any flowery prose that distracts from the rest of your book or essay.
• No matter how fond you are of the way a sentence sounds, if it is not necessary or relevant, it shouldn't make the final cut.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/753/1/
• ↑ https://www.uvm.edu/wid/writingcenter/tutortips/nonfiction.html
• ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/25-tips-to-make-you-a-better-nonfiction-writer
• ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/8-ways-to-prepare-to-write-your-nonfiction-book-in-a-month
• ↑ http://literarydevices.net/memoir/
• ↑ http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/breaking-into-travel-writing-the-5-elements-of-writing-travel-articles
• ↑ http://www.ecopsychology.org/journal/ezine/naturewriting.html
• ↑ http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/featfram.htm
• ↑ http://www.dailywritingtips.com/how-to-revise-edit-and-proofread-your-writing/
• ↑ http://www.gbcnv.edu/documents/ASC/docs/00000057.pdf
• ↑ http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/editing-essay-part-one

About this article

To write nonfiction, choose a topic that’s significant to you, then write a personal essay connecting it to one of your memories. For example, begin an essay about death by describing an experience of losing a loved one, then expand from there. A nonfiction book, unlike a personal essay, simply has to focus on a specific topic you’re interested in. Think of each chapter like a story, the people like “characters,” and the events like the “plot.” Even though you’re describing true events, the book will be more interesting if it’s written in an engaging style. To learn how to research and outline your nonfiction work, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Posted on Apr 22, 2021

Outlining a Nonfiction Book: 3 Steps to Success

Readership of nonfiction books has been growing strong in the last couple of years — so making sure your book is well-crafted enough to stand out is more important than ever. And while the plotter-vs-pantser debate is still lively for fiction titles, the case is less divisive for nonfiction. Knowing how to outline a nonfiction book is an essential part of creating a compelling and helpful title that readers will love.

With these three key steps, you’ll organize your knowledge and plan your research so that you’re ready to write an amazing book (or ebook )!

❗ Note that this post deals mostly with writing expository (informational) nonfiction rather than narrative nonfiction. If your book idea follows a clearer narrative arc, check out our post on how to outline a memoir . 

Step 1: Determine the key purpose of your book 

First and foremost, you should always keep in mind throughout this process that you’re writing a book for others to read. And readers will always expect a nonfiction book to help them with something, whether that’s gathering more knowledge or achieving something. As such, you need to determine a key question which your book answers, something that can address the target audience’s pain points or pique their interest.  

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Set the one big question that your book will answer

Having a key question will help you keep your book focused and coherent since you’ll always be trying to answer it. It’s also a great way to get readers interested, as the question ought to be something that they want the answer to.

For instance, let’s say “Hana” is an expert on the market of coffee beans — so the trading of beans from growers to coffee shops — and she wants to write a book about that. 

Hana knows that coffee-lovers have become more conscious about the source of their drinks and that most books in the market right now either cover recipes or history. She then decides that her book will fill the gap in the market and answer the question: Where does my coffee come from? This can be interpreted in several ways, as we’ll see in the next step.

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Identify your target audience

You can’t write a book without thinking about who your target audience is, because they’re ultimately the people who want to use your nonfiction book. Think about who they are, what they care about, and what they read. Your book should address their interests or concerns, otherwise, they wouldn’t be compelled to read it. 

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You can also check out the competition — books in the same genre or share the same Amazon keywords and categories — to see what kind of content and styles are well-loved. Again, understanding your potential readers will help you refine the key message of your book so that it can help them. This is an important exercise in understanding where your book will fit into the nonfiction market, an element you will need to be confident about if you ever approach a literary agent or traditional publisher with hopes of securing a book deal . 

💡 You need to write a book proposal if you want to submit to a publisher, and a nonfiction query letter if you want to query a literary agent. 

Store all your knowledge in one place

Start by looking at what you know. You have a topic in mind already, so begin by just dropping everything you know about it into one place (preferably somewhere that you can easily access and search later, like the Reedsy Book Editor or a Word document). You can organize everything in list form, as headings and subheadings, or as a mind map — whatever works best for you. 

Simply by putting down everything you know, you might realize that there are some things you want to focus on more than others. Highlight those to think about regarding your book’s key topic while keeping the rest handy — you’ll return to all of this as you outline your nonfiction book. 

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Step 2: Structure your book to best address the main problem

Now’s the time to organize all your thoughts and create a rough skeleton of your book. You’ll need to arrange your knowledge into a logical string of thoughts that will best help readers find the answer to your question.

It might help to borrow some principles from how a school syllabus is planned. Each seminar has a learning objective that contributes to the desired outcome of the whole series. You start with the fundamentals, assuming that most participants don’t know much about the topic (which is why they’re taking the course). The same thinking can help you structure each chapter in your nonfiction book! 

But what exactly is the best way to organize these “seminars”? Every book is a little different, but we’ve got several common structures here for you to consult. We’ll also examine how Hana’s hypothetical book idea can be applied to some of these, so you can see how your approach depends on your purpose and target audience. 

The step-by-step structure 

As the name indicates, this kind of structure best fits instructional nonfiction books, like your “how-to” guides. Each chapter or part should align with a step in a process to do or achieve something. For instance, in Reedsy co-founder Ricardo Fayet’s How to Market a Book , following the introduction, we follow a loose step-by-step structure: 

• You start with knowing your market and creating a book that has the potential to do well in it; 
• Then you optimize your book’s external appearance, like its cover and blurb; 
• Once that’s done, you go on to advertisements and promotional programs for your book; 
• And on the journey goes. 

There’s a logical sequence to this kind of book because some things you just can’t do effectively before others (i.e. you need to have a good book with a nice cover first before you can run advertisements about it). 

As such a structure is clear and actionable, it’s often used in personal finance and business books, like those about finding a way to improve your financial situation or start a business. 

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The essay structure 

If you’re not describing a process, then perhaps this structure is more suitable. Remember how you were taught to write essays in school? You start with an introduction that presents the question, and then each of your following paragraphs examines a part of the answer to that question. In the end, you summarize and evaluate your points to give a final answer. As you make your way to the end of the essay, you follow a clear and easy-to-follow narrative arc . This same structure can help you outline your nonfiction book.

Let’s look at how Hana, our coffee expert, might use the essay structure: 

Hana’s book can open with a nice, casual anecdote about getting coffee, which is then countered with her own less common point of view from behind the scenes. Her following chapters look at:

• Where coffee is grown, and by whom;
• How beans are exported;
• A review of the world economy and its exploits (including the coffee trade);
• How big chains like Starbucks get their beans;
• How small coffee shops get their beans;
• What this means for the reader, and what they should do in response. 

The list structure

The list structure is pretty straightforward — essentially, your nonfiction book is a list of things. You’ll encounter this more in children’s books , like Vashti Harrison’s Little Leaders , which talks about bold Black women in history and their achievements. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t create lists for an older audience. Aside from cookbooks , reference, coffee-table, and photography books, list books are a popular format for introductions to new subjects — take Michiko Kakutani’s Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread , for example.

You do want to prepare more information when writing for an adult audience — a variety of evidence, some visual content, or even some personal evaluation on some of the items of the list will make your book more interesting and insightful. 

If Hana chooses this route, she can create a master list of coffee bean producers or coffee bean varieties from across the world. This is a great chance to incorporate photographs into her book, present it more like a catalog for artisanal coffee shop owners and their loyal customers. Can you think of a more fabulous coffee-table book?

The chronological structure 

Like a memoir, your book can also be organized in chronological order. Naturally, this works best when you have a very compelling anecdote to follow, and if you think it’s best for your readers to learn through the journey. The story could be yours or that of someone you knew, interviewed, or researched.

[skip to 5:00 in the video below to learn more about nonfiction structure] 

Let's see how Hana's coffee book might benefit from the chronological structure:

Hana can consider sharing her personal career, to show how she’d come to appreciate coffee and its producers so much that she had to write a book . She can outline the nonfiction book so it follows her own transition from someone who drinks just about any kind of coffee to one who can notice the nuances in the taste of different types of beans. How has coffee changed her life? She now sees a fuller picture of the supply chain, which raises questions about international trade and conscious consumption that she hadn’t thought about before… 

Readers get to follow that journey with Hana. This book isn’t just about coffee. Consumers will feel connected to or curious about her journey as a person, especially if she’s a big name in the food and beverage industry. 

There are plenty of nonfiction books out there with other structures, it’s best to read ones on the same topic as yours to see how they approach it. Figuring out which structure suits you will guide you to creating your provisional table of contents (in other words, your chapter-by-chapter outline). It’s much easier to do this with a nonfiction book than it is for a fiction book, and it can give you the guidance you need when you write later. 

Step 3: Sketch out your chapters

Now you’ve nailed the key question and the main structure, it’s time to flesh things out a little. This is a good chance to review your strategy so far, see if any chapter is looking too short, needs more research, or needs to be relocated. By taking some of those ideas from the vault of knowledge you created in the first step and plucking them into the outline, you reassess the whole structure. 

Include a mix of facts and anecdotes

Having a couple of bullet points about the chapter’s main message, some evidence, and perhaps an interesting personal story or two usually bodes well. The latter acts as a hook to your chapter, keeping the reader interested, and is especially useful in less narrative-based nonfiction books. 

Say Hana decides to write an essay-structured nonfiction book — she now needs to outline her chapters. The chapter on how coffee beans are exported would naturally talk about how countries like Brazil export raw beans for cheap prices, but it can also open with one of Hana’s work stories, like when she went to Brazil on a business trip. 

Revise as needed

While this outline will ideally provide the guidance for your writing, it doesn’t have to be the exact structure of your final book. After all, the structure you end up with is just one way to think about this topic that you want to write about, and we know now how many approaches there can be. So throughout the writing or editing process , reassess your structure and adjust it if need be.

With the chapters briefly outlined, you’ll have finished the plan for your book. What comes next is incredibly important.

• If your goal is to self-publish, then head straight to our post on writing your nonfiction book.
• Should you wish to go the traditional route and sell your book to a publisher, read our post on publishing nonfiction before you start drafting — you'll see why soon enough!

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Crafting Authentic Narratives: A Guide to Writing Nonfiction

• Advice for Writers , Writing Your Book

So You Want to Write a Nonfiction Book…

Writing a nonfiction book is a fascinating journey. It’s an opportunity to share your knowledge, experiences, and insights with the world, all while leaving a lasting impact on your readers. Whether you’re a seasoned author or a first-time writer, the world of nonfiction offers a rich tapestry of genres and styles to explore, from memoirs and biographies to essays and creative nonfiction. In this article, we’ll share some valuable insights and tips on how to write a nonfiction book that captivates, informs, and inspires.

Once you’ve crafted your nonfiction work, submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press! We’re always looking for engaging nonfiction that sheds new light on topics, people, places, and more.

CHOOSING YOUR NONFICTION GENRE

Nonfiction is a diverse landscape with various genres, each offering its unique flavor. Before you begin, consider which genre aligns with your expertise and passions. Here are a few popular nonfiction genres:

Memoirs and Autobiographies: These focus on personal experiences and insights, offering readers a window into your life.

Biographies: Dive into the lives of real and fascinating individuals, providing an in-depth look at their achievements and struggles.

Essays and Opinion Pieces: Express your thoughts and analyze a particular subject based on research and personal experiences.

Self-Help and How-To Guides: Share your expertise and knowledge on a particular subject to help others improve their lives.

Creative Nonfiction: Blend the factual with the artistic, incorporating literary techniques like narrative and storytelling into real events.

Define Your Purpose

Every nonfiction book should have a clear purpose. Ask yourself what you aim to achieve with your book. Are you informing, inspiring, or simply sharing a personal story? Knowing your purpose will guide your writing process and ensure that your book remains focused and coherent.

Research and Plan

Before you start writing, immerse yourself in research. Gather data, collect anecdotes, and read extensively on your chosen subject. Make a detailed outline to organize your thoughts, chapters, and key points. This will serve as your roadmap throughout the writing process.

Find Your Unique Voice

Your voice is what makes your nonfiction book distinct. It should reflect your personality, beliefs, and style. Whether you choose a formal, academic tone or a conversational and friendly one, consistency is key.

Nonfiction readers are drawn to authenticity. Be honest and open about your experiences and viewpoints. Even if your book falls into the “creative nonfiction” category, it should be grounded in reality.

The Art of Nonfiction Storytelling

Even in genres like memoir and creative nonfiction, storytelling is vital. Craft engaging narratives that draw readers in. Show, don’t tell, and let your experiences speak for themselves.

Structure and Flow

A well-structured book is easy to read and navigate. Ensure that your chapters flow logically and that your book maintains a consistent pace. Break down complex ideas into digestible sections, and use transitions to guide readers smoothly from one topic to the next.

Editing and Proofreading

Never underestimate the importance of editing and proofreading . Mistakes, whether grammatical or factual, can detract from your book’s credibility. Consider hiring a professional editor to polish your work.

Seek Feedback

Beta readers and critique partners can provide valuable insights into your work. Constructive feedback can help you refine your book and address any blind spots.

Engage Your Readers

Interact with your readers by asking questions, sharing anecdotes, or presenting real-life scenarios. Engaged readers are more likely to retain the information you provide.

Make a conscious effort to connect with your readers on an emotional level. Share your vulnerabilities and challenges. This not only humanizes you but also creates a bond with your audience.

Continuous Learning

Writing a nonfiction book is a learning process. Stay open to evolving as a writer and remain curious. Read other nonfiction authors to discover new techniques and gain inspiration.

In conclusion, writing a nonfiction book is a rewarding endeavor. It allows you to share your knowledge, insights, and experiences with a global audience. Whether you choose to write a memoir, biography, essay, or creative nonfiction, remember that authenticity, purpose, and storytelling are essential elements that will make your book engaging and memorable. Embrace the journey of writing, and your nonfiction book will have the potential to impact lives and inspire true change!

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Introduction

Most of your familiarity with essays probably comes from your own coursework. When you are assigned an essay for a class, perhaps you’ve been assigned an expository essay or a persuasive essay. In other words, you may have been assigned an essay with a clear purpose.

Literary essays are an exciting departure from those essays that many of us have been assigned. Employing techniques akin to those used by novelists, poets, and short story writers, essayists work to explore an idea. In fact, the word “essay” is etymologically linked to the notion of experimenting, weighing, or testing out. Essayists rarely produce straightforward manifestos or polemics. Instead, they entice the reader to care or understand or learn by using elements and techniques common to and found in literature. The more adept you are at recognizing those elements, the better you’ll be able to appreciate a work of creative nonfiction.

In order to analyze creative nonfiction, you should be aware of the different rhetorical structures writers use. Most of these structures will be familiar to you. What is important to consider, though, is how creative nonfiction writers use literary structures and techniques to achieve a particular effect.

Analyzing Nonfiction

Analysis of Nonfiction

Like analysis of fiction, poetry, and drama, analysis of a nonfiction requires more than understanding the point or the content of a nonfiction text. It requires that we go beyond what the text says explicitly and look at such factors as implied meaning, intended purpose and audience, the context in which the text was written, and how the author presents his/her argument. Before you can analyze, however, you must first comprehend the text and be able to provide an objective summary.

When working with a complex text, it is best to start with short excerpts, go through several reads of the piece if possible, and focus on moving from basic comprehension on the first read, to deeper, more complex understandings with each subsequent reading. For an example of an effective strategy, use the “SOAPSTone” strategy, which consists of a series of questions that provide a basis for analysis. Remember that regardless of analysis strategy, you must always provide evidence taken directly from the text to prove their point.

Subject: What is the subject? This is the general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text. Try to state the subject in only a few words or a short phrase so as to concisely summarize the topic for your own comprehension purposes.

Occasion: What is the occasion? It is the time and place of the piece; the context that encouraged the writing to happen. This can be a large occasion (an environment of ideas and emotions that swirl around a broad issue) or an immediate occasion or specific event.

Audience: Who is the audience? The audience is the group of readers to whom the piece is directed. The audience may be an individual, a small group, or a large group of people. It may be specific or more general.

Purpose: What is the purpose? It is the reason behind the text. What does the author want the audience to think or do as a result of this text? Does the author call for some specific action or is the purpose to convince the reader to think, feel or believe in a certain way? Too often readers do not consider this question, yet understanding the purpose of a nonfiction text is crucial in order to critically analyze the text.

Speaker: Who is the speaker? This is the voice that tells the story. What is their background? Is there a bias? Does that impact how the text is written and the points being made? Typically in nonfiction, the speaker and the author are the same; however, when we approach fiction, we must realize that the speaker and the author are often NOT the same. In fiction the author may choose to tell the story from any number of different points of view. In fact, the method of narration and the character of the speaker may be a crucial piece in understanding the work, particularly in satire. However, in nonfiction, the speaker and the author of the text are most likely going to be the same, which allows us a different avenue for analysis, as we can critique a text alongside what we know about the author.

Tone: What is the tone? This is the attitude a writer takes towards the subject or character: It can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, or even objective. Examine the author’s choice of words, sentence structure, and imagery. Consider providing students with a list of tone words to help them find the exact word. Often in informational text, the tone is objective because the author is simply relaying information and is not trying to sway the audience; however, in literary nonfiction as with fiction, the author may want his/her audience to feel a certain way about the situation, characters, etc.

“Text-Dependent Analysis: Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMzHrroZGM

“Analyzing Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_k6RXWMHas

“How to Analyze Non-Fiction.” Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 http://www.rpdp.net/literacyFiles/literacy_101.pdf

The world of creative nonfiction is broad, but learning to analyze the techniques used by literary and personal essayists is a good way to understand how much crafting goes into making a true story, told well. And though the word “essay” may have once been associated with homework assignments and tests, rest assured, there’s much more to the form.

Like fiction, creative nonfiction relies on the careful choices made by a writer. What separates creative nonfiction from fiction, of course, is the writer’s tacit promise to be conveying a story or set of events that is purported to be true. In order to accentuate that truth or present it in its most compelling fashion, creative nonfiction writers use a variety of literary elements and techniques. Everything from the structure of an essay to its shape to its tone influences how a reader makes sense of the content.

ENG134 – Literary Genres Copyright © by The American Women's College and Jessica Egan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Write an Interesting Conclusion for Your Nonfiction Book

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Ah, the conclusion. Arguably one of the most difficult parts of a book to write! You’ve done all the hard work of organizing your thoughts into a cohesive and persuasive book that will keep your readers engaged throughout. You don’t want to fall at the final hurdle and write a lackluster conclusion.

In this blog post, I’ll cover some of the challenges of writing a conclusion to a nonfiction book and what to include in your conclusion to make it a more interesting read. 

Table of Contents

What Is the Conclusion of a Book?

The conclusion of a book is the final part of the narrative or content. The conclusion brings the book to a close in a satisfying manner, allowing the reader to feel that they’ve reached the end of a meaningful journey through the book’s content.

In fiction, the conclusion is where the story’s major plotlines come to a climax and where readers see the outcomes of the characters’ journeys. In nonfiction, the conclusion often recaps the main arguments or ideas, summarizes the book’s purpose, and underscores its significance.

The Challenges of Writing an Interesting Conclusion

Writing the conclusion of a nonfiction book can be challenging for several reasons:

Summarizing Complex Ideas: Nonfiction books often contain complex ideas, arguments, and a wealth of information. Summarizing and distilling this content into a clear and concise conclusion can be challenging.

Ensuring Clarity: The conclusion should make the main points of the book crystal clear for the reader. Achieving this clarity while avoiding repetition or redundancy can be a delicate balancing act.

Maintaining Reader Engagement: The conclusion should not feel like a dry or mechanical recap of the book’s content. Authors often struggle to maintain reader engagement and interest in this final section.

Finding the Right Tone: Authors must strike the right tone in the conclusion, whether it’s motivational, reflective, or contemplative. Choosing the appropriate tone to leave a strong impact on the reader can be challenging.

Crafting a Memorable Closing: The closing sentences of the conclusion are crucial for leaving a lasting impression. Crafting these sentences in a way that resonates with readers and encapsulates the book’s core message can be daunting.

Balancing Personal Reflection: If the author includes personal reflections in the conclusion, it can be challenging to balance these reflections with the book’s overarching theme and message without making the conclusion overly self-centered.

Avoiding New Material: Authors must resist the temptation to introduce new material in the conclusion. It’s important to focus on summarizing and reflecting on what’s already been presented in the book.

Consideration of the Target Audience: Authors often need to think about the expectations and needs of their target audience. A conclusion should resonate with the readers and address their interests and concerns.

Meeting Publisher or Genre Expectations: Different nonfiction genres or publishers may have specific expectations for how conclusions should be structured and what they should accomplish. Authors may need to navigate these expectations.

Fear of Inadequacy: The conclusion is the final opportunity to leave a strong impact, and authors may worry about falling short of their own or their readers’ expectations. This pressure can make writing the conclusion challenging.

To overcome these challenges, it’s important to plan and structure the conclusion carefully, revise it as needed, seek feedback from trusted readers or editors, and, most importantly, stay focused on the book’s central message and the reader’s experience. Writing a strong conclusion can be a rewarding process, as it allows the author to leave a lasting impression on the reader and reinforce the book’s significance.

What Makes a Good Conclusion for a Nonfiction Book?

A good conclusion for a nonfiction book serves as a vital component in delivering the book’s message effectively and leaving a lasting impact on the reader. A well-crafted conclusion for a nonfiction book should leave the reader with a clear understanding of the book’s main points, their significance, and a sense of closure or motivation to take action. It should be a thoughtful and engaging wrap-up to the book’s content. 

Here are some elements that can contribute to a strong conclusion for a nonfiction book:

Summarize the Key Points

The conclusion provides a concise summary of the key points, arguments, and information presented in the book. Here you can reinforce the main takeaways and help the reader recall the most important information.

Restate the Message

The conclusion is a good place to reiterate the central thesis, main idea, or message of the book, reinforcing what you, the author, wanted to convey. This reminder helps ensure that the reader clearly understands the book’s core concept.

Reflect on the Significance of the Book’s Premise

The conclusion reflects on the broader significance and relevance of the book’s subject matter. Help the reader see the relevance of the book’s content by explaining why the topic is important and how it connects to the reader’s life, society, or the world at large.

Reinforce Supporting Evidence

Remind the reader of the evidence, examples, and data used to support your arguments. This reaffirms the credibility and persuasiveness of your work.

Provide a Resolution

In nonfiction works that address problems, challenges, or questions, the conclusion often provides resolutions, solutions, recommendations, or outcomes based on the content of the book. It can help readers see a path forward or understand the implications of the information presented. In some cases, it’s essential to propose concrete actions for readers to take.

Connect Back to the Introduction

Consider connecting your conclusion to the introduction. Highlight how far the reader has come from the beginning of the book and how their understanding has evolved.

Connect with the Reader

The conclusion can establish a stronger connection between the author and the reader by sharing personal reflections, experiences, or insights related to the book’s content. This personal touch can make the material more relatable and engaging.

Address Counterarguments

If your book deals with controversial topics or opposing viewpoints, you might briefly address counterarguments and explain why your perspective is the most compelling.

Encourage Further Exploration

Nonfiction conclusions often suggest additional reading, research, or resources for readers who want to delve deeper into the subject. This can empower readers to continue their learning journey beyond the book. 

Leave a Lasting Impression

Craft a closing statement that leaves a lasting impression. This could be a powerful quote, a thought-provoking question, or a call to action that encourages the reader to think, reflect, or engage with the subject matter further.

Keep the conclusion concise and focused. Avoid introducing new material or going off on tangents. The conclusion should be a concise summary and reflection on the book’s content.

Use a Consistent Tone and Style

The tone and style of the conclusion should be consistent with the rest of the book. If the book is academic, maintain an academic tone; if it’s a self-help book, maintain an encouraging and motivational tone.

In essence, the purpose of the conclusion in a nonfiction book is to tie together the various elements of the book, offer a final perspective, and guide the reader toward a deeper understanding of the subject matter. It should leave the reader with a sense of clarity and the motivation to think critically, take action, or further explore the book’s ideas and themes.

If you’re looking for help with your book, check out my editorial services or read some of the kind words authors have said about working with me .

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5 Proven Steps for Starting a Nonfiction Book Project

March 6, 2019 By Nina Amir 1 Comment

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Relying on inspiration alone can cause your nonfiction book project to end up leading readers toward detours and unexpected destinations rather than on a straight path from point A to point B, which is what nonfiction readers expect. That’s why you want to use that light-bulb moment to illuminate a clear writing path for you and your book. You want to use it to create an inspired book plan. That plan ensures you produce a book that gives readers what they want and need.

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Increase Your Odds of Finishing Your Nonfiction Book Project

In 2008, The New York Times reported that 81% of the U.S. population—more than 200 million people at that time—wanted to write a book. Other statistics say 97% of people who start to write a book never finish it. That doesn’t have to be you.

Knowing how to start writing a nonfiction book can increase the odds that you finish your manuscript and produce work that readers find valuable. Use a proven step-by-step process to help you begin the process of writing a book on the right foot—and become part of the 3% who do, indeed, complete the manuscript.

February Nonfiction Writer’s Challenge

To complete this month’s challenge, use the following five steps to start your nonfiction book project. (For more information, watch the replay of “How to Start a Nonfiction Book Project,” the February 2019 Nonfiction Writers’ University educational event.)

1. Brainstorm your content.

2. Organize your content into chapters.

Once you’ve completed your brainstorming exercise, organize all the ideas and subjects into related groupings. These will become your chapters. You may need to brainstorm more ideas so each chapter has enough content. Also, you will need to organize the chapters into a logical sequence, which will become the table of contents for your nonfiction book project. If you use a mind map, the exercise initially will end up looking like this:

As you brainstorm content ideas for each chapter, your mind map will get fuller and more complete. When each topic area has enough information for a full chapter, you are ready to move on to the next step.

3. Write chapter summaries or create detailed chapter outlines.

Chapter summaries consist of one to five paragraphs that offer a brief description of the content in each chapter. You can create your summaries with bullets, outlines or a combination of paragraphs and bullets. The summaries give you clarity about what to write by forcing you to determine the content of your entire book before you write a word.

4. Craft a book pitch.

Your book pitch is a quick way to tell others about your nonfiction book and to remind yourself what your book is about. This 50 to 100 word “elevator speech” helps you get clear and remain focused on the topic and goal of your book. Here’s an easy formula for writing a pitch: [Title of book] is a [type of book (ex. prescriptive, memoir, tip, narrative nonfiction] that [verb] [audience] [benefit] [strategy]. For example, “ The Author Training Manual is a nonfiction how-to book that trains writers to craft books that sell by detailing nine steps they must take (the manual) and providing numerous exercises (the training) they can complete to achieve that goal.” Or read this post to discover more ways to write a pitch.

5. Hone your content and perfect your idea.

To ensure your nonfiction book project is marketable, you must know what your audience needs and wants and how to make your book stand out from the competition. That’s why you must identify your market(s) and evaluate other books written on the topic . Your market and competitive analyses help you improve your idea and ensure the content in your book is unique and necessary both for readers and in the category where it will be placed in a bookstore. Once you have completed these two analyses, review your pitch, table of contents, and chapter summaries to determine if you can do a better job of targeting your audience or improving on competing books. Retool your idea as necessary. (If you need more help on this step—or any of the steps mentioned in this challenge, read The Author Training Manual .

When and How to Begin Writing

You could work on the five steps outlined above for a long, long time and never get started writing your book. Don’t fall into that trap, which also can place you firmly in the 97% of writers who never complete their book projects.

Instead, give yourself a deadline for completing these steps. Then move on to writing!

Your table of content and chapter summaries provide a perfect and easy-to-use writing guide. Each sentence, online item, or bullet gives you clear direction about what to write first, second, third, and so on until the end of the chapter (and the end of the book).

Use your pitch as a constant reminder of what your book aims to accomplish. Read it often. Ask yourself if each section or chapter you complete aligns with your pitch and fulfills its promise.

Set Deadlines and Meet Quotas

Finally, set a reasonable deadline for completion of the first draft of your nonfiction book project. Determine how many words you can write per day or week. Approximate how many words the book will have or determine how long it will take to write a chapter.

Then work backward from the deadline you set to finish your first draft. If you want to finish in six months and you think the book will be 60,000 words long, you need to complete 10,000 words per month. Determine how many words you can write each day or week. Then meet those word-count quotas.

With this step-by-step guide, you are sure to be ready to start your nonfiction book project—and finish it. Not only that, by completing this challenge, you’ll stand a higher chance of producing a manuscript that can be turned into a book that sells, gets read and makes a positive and meaningful difference in readers’ lives.

And you’ll be inaugurated into the 3% club.

Take this challenge! Then, in a comment below, tell me know how this book-planning process worked for you. Or tell me about the strategy you used to begin writing your nonfiction book.

For more information related to this challenge, watch the replay of “How to Start a Nonfiction Book Project,” the February 2019 Nonfiction Writers’ University educational event.

Photo courtesy of Balint mohamed_hassan / Pixabay.com

March 6, 2019 at 1:13 pm

I like the idea of crafting a book elevator pitch early in the process. It’s very hard to do, but focuses your energy!

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Nonfiction Topics to Write About: 30+ Ideas to Get You Started

If you're an aspiring nonfiction author or blog writer (or both), you may feel that you don't have as much to write about as fiction authors. After all, fiction writers are only limited by their imaginations, whereas nonfiction writers can't just make stuff up. But if you think about it, that's not quite right. Some of the best nonfiction books take a look at old ideas through a new lens. And that lens is the author's imagination. 

So whether you're struggling to generate new ideas or just want to break away from your current work in progress, we've got a list of great nonfiction topics to write about. 

• Tips for writing great nonfiction.
• How best to pick from the list of nonfiction topics.
• Tips for vetting your nonfiction book idea.

Table of contents

• Use Creative Writing to Generate Emotions
• Keep Your Purpose in Mind
• Bring Something New to the Table
• Informational Writing Prompts
• Memoir Writing Prompts
• Personal Essay Writing Prompts
• How to Vet Your Nonfiction Book Idea

Writing Excellent Nonfiction

For some people, nonfiction writing comes easily, whereas fiction is a little trickier. For others, the opposite is true. The fact is, writing nonfiction is not all that different from writing fiction. With the tips below, you'll see what I mean. 

Whether you're writing a piece of narrative nonfiction or a handbook on becoming an entrepreneur, you'll want to tell a story . After all, anyone can put down words that tell someone how to do something, but this isn't how great writing works. We're story-centered creatures. It's how we relate to the world. 

So use a narrative to get your point across. If your readers feel something as they read your book, it's more likely to stick with them. And that's exactly what you want!

The writing prompts below are split into sub-sections based on the purpose they serve. While a lot of nonfiction is designed to help the reader solve a problem, this is not always the case. Some sub-genres of nonfiction are for readers who want to be entertained or informed. Luckily, it's pretty easy to tell the difference. 

So whichever writing prompt you choose, keep your purpose in mind the whole time. Always ask yourself, as you write, if each sentence is serving the purpose of the piece.  

While the prompts below are fairly broad, they require an ingredient that I can't provide in this article: you. It's your job to bring the prompt or prompts alive with your own experience, imagination, and outlook. There's no use in writing a book, essay, or article that a hundred other people have already written. 

But if you have a unique take on the subject, or can provide a compelling way to deliver the information to the reader, then you have a nonfiction piece worth writing.  

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Nonfiction Writing Prompts

Pick a prompt below that sounds intriguing to you. Take a moment to think about how you would provide a unique perspective on the subject. Or, simply use them as writing prompts to practice your craft!

First, we'll start with the informational nonfiction writing prompts. In other words, these are designed to solve a specific problem or explain something to the reader. These are often called expository nonfiction prompts.  

1. Write about your health and fitness journey. Have you overcome any obstacles, tried any fad diets, or had any close calls? What can you share about your experience that can help others?

2. Write about your career or industry. How did you get to be where you are? What can you share about your experience that can help others?

3. Write about a skill that you have. How much time did you put into developing it? What practices worked best? What would you tell someone who is just now trying to learn the skill?

4. Explore your spirituality or religious beliefs. Finding ways to maintain your beliefs or practices is hard these days, so share with the reader how you've managed to do it, and how they can do it, too.

5. Write about finances. Are you better off than your peers? Have you been successful, or have you had major ups and downs? What can you share about your experience that can help others?

6. Are you an organized person? If so, write about how you stay organized. Don't skimp on the details of any systems or tactics you've developed!

7. Do you know how to maintain a home or a vehicle? If so, write a guide on how best to stay on top of regular maintenance while still saving time and money. 

8. Have you overcome anxiety or stress? If so, share with readers how you stay on top of it while still functioning in society. 

9. Do you know how to knit or make homemade decorations? If so, share your skills in a book or blog post. 

10. Do you know all the best spots to eat, relax, or pass the time in your city? Write a guide of all the little-known gems to help people visiting for the first time. 

Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts

Unless you're a subject matter expert, you may be more interested in the writing prompts below. With the creative writing prompts in this section, you have a little more freedom when it comes to writing style. You can rely heavily on personal experience with the following prompts , as well, just make sure you're telling a true story! 

11. Write about the most impactful time in your life. What lessons did you learn that other people would be interested in?

12. What does it mean to be happy? Is it possible to be happy all the time? If so, how?

13. Have you done any traveling, whether foreign or domestic? If so, you could regale readers with travel-writing stories. 

14. Are you a fan of historical nonfiction? This nonfiction genre requires a lot of research, but if you have a unique angle on a moment in our history, it could be well worth the effort. 

15. Write about a person who has influenced you without ever having met you. See if you can find and interview others who've been similarly influenced.

The memoir is a creative nonfiction genre in which everyone can write. Although it's hard to sell these kinds of books unless you're a well-known figure, they're great for developing the writing skill it takes to craft other types of books and stories. 

16. Using a series of cultural or worldwide events, tell the story of your life. Whether it's a historic law that passed or the release of an impactful movie, see if you can weave important moments in your life into an entertaining narrative. 

17. What does truth mean to you? Present times from your own life where the truth was important. 

18. Write about what is important to you now. Has it always been a priority, or has the definition of importance changed over your life? 

19. Write about a trip that changed your life forever. This could be a vacation, a road trip, or a simple trip to the grocery store. 

20. Write about your life by describing the good times you've had with any and all the pets you've had over the years. 

If you want more memoir writing prompts, we have an entire article dedicated to this type of narrative nonfiction here . 

If a full nonfiction book sounds like a bit much for you, a nonfiction essay may just be the best alternative. This is a personal story told from the heart. It can be about almost anything, but most of these essays generally have to do with one specific topic or moment in the writer's life. 

21. Try your hand at literary journalism by writing a series of articles about your life and achievements from the point of view of an impartial journalist. 

22. Write a short story in which you are the protagonist and you're dealing with a real-life scary or difficult situation. What really happened, and what could you have done differently?

23. Everyone's afraid of something. What's the biggest fear you've worked to overcome? And how did you do it?

24. Write a personal essay about how music has impacted your life. What songs were playing at important events in your life? How has music defined who you are?

25. What makes you a unique person? What makes you the same as others? Write an essay on what it means to be an individual in a world full of individuals. 

26. Think about a person you deeply admire. Write about why you admire them, exploring things like their personality traits, goals, philosophies, and other positive qualities. 

27. Write about a location that holds a special meaning for you. This could be a home, a town, or even an entire state. Discuss how this place has impacted your life. 

28. Pick a piece of work that has resonated with you. This could be a book, a movie, or a piece of artwork. Explore the themes it explores and why it has resonated with you. 

29. The search for purpose is tricky for some. Whether you have found a purpose or are still searching for one, discuss what this means to you. 

30. Explore a belief or tradition that is meaningful to you. How has it influenced your life, and why is it important to you? What positive effects have come because of this belief or tradition?

There's a lot to like about being a creative nonfiction writer. In many ways, it requires the same skills as fiction writing, but with narrower parameters to keep you on track. No matter what kind of writing you like to do, the prompts above can help you hone your skills. But what about when you think you have an idea for a potential bestseller? Before you invest the time in writing the whole book (or the book proposal), it's worth vetting the idea. Luckily, this is easy to do with Publisher Rocket. 

You can think of the information you get from Publisher Rocket as the foundation for your nonfiction writing career. You get insights directly from Amazon on:

• Keywords – Metadata to position your nonfiction book on Amazon.
• Competition – Allowing you to see what other nonfiction books are selling well and how stiff the competition is.
• Categories – Allowing you to position your book in the right categories and subcategories to increase your chances of success.
• Amazon Ads – Helping you quickly configure a list of profitable keywords for running ads to your published nonfiction book. 

Check out Publisher Rocket here to learn more about using data to position your book for success on Amazon.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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How to Write the Perfect Introduction for Your Nonfiction Book

by Bennett R. Coles

Second only to the book cover, the introduction of a nonfiction book is the most important sales asset at your disposal. In fact, if your book cover is the “lead magnet” that catches the reader’s attention, your introduction is the “closer” that seals the deal.

If you don’t nail this part of your book content, you’ll have to fight an uphill battle trying to convince readers to buy your book.

But here’s the thing: most new authors get this section wrong. I suspect the reason that is back in the day they taught us in school that the introduction of an essay is supposed to “tell your reader what you’re going to tell them,” then you “tell them” in the body of the essay and finally you use the conclusion to “tell them what you told them.”

The problem is that what works for essays doesn’t often work in commercial nonfiction. If you provide a summary of your book in your introduction (“tell your reader what you’re going to tell them”), they simply won’t buy it because you just told them all they need to know.

Instead, your book introduction should really be a “marketing sales letter” where you pitch your book to the reader. In other words, a document carefully crafted with the intent to tease, but never reveal, to hook the reader into wanting to know more, to pique their interest to such an extent that they feel compelled to purchase your book.

So the question now is, how do you go about writing this letter? Is there a formula you can follow to ensure it gets the job done?

Well, you’re in luck, because in this article I’ll share with you the 7 steps you need to follow to nail your book introduction!

Step 1: Begin Your Introduction With a Good Hook

The first step in writing a good introduction is to hook your reader in the opening paragraph. The goal of a hook is to capture your reader’s attention at the very beginning and make them want to read the entire section.

There are many different types of hooks you can use, but the basic structure is the same: you need to highlight the main challenge that afflicts your reader and then show them the expected end result.

Here are three popular opening hook options you can use as inspiration for the first paragraph of your introduction:

• You could use a thought-provoking open-ended question, the answer to which contains the solution to the problem you’re addressing with your book (e.g. “Why do 90% of people who go on a diet end up gaining back more weight than what they lost within six months ?” )

• You could start your paragraph with a story that depicts the emotional journey of a fictitious character who suffers from the problem afflicting your reader. Or you could share an example from your personal life that shows your reader how you overcame this challenge yourself. Or you could share the journey of a client (fictionalizing, names, places, genders, etc.).

• You could start your first introduction paragraph with a statistic that illustrates a controversial piece of information that goes to the crux of your book and at the same time addresses the challenge you’ve set out to address (make sure to reference your sources).

Step 2: Introduce your Solution and Establish Your Credentials

Now that people are hooked, it’s time to tease your solution but doing so in a way that doesn’t disclose your “secret sauce.” As I mentioned before, if you reveal any type of details about your solution in your introduction then you’ll be removing the need for someone to purchase your book.

As an example, you could say something like: “ This book will show you the step-by-step approach required in order to permanently overcome _________ .”

Once you’ve teased your solution, you need to establish why you’re qualified to talk about the subject. For instance, you could talk about the journey that led to the discovery of your unique solution, conveying your passion for the subject and the reason why you made it your personal mission to help others afflicted by this problem.

Step 3: Reveal the Journey from Problem to Solution

Now it’s time reveal the specific road map that will take your readers from being afflicted by the problem to being freed by your solution.

For example, you could say something like: “In chapter 1 you’ll learn the best way to ___________. In Chapter 2 you’ll learn how to __________. In Chapter 3 you’ll learn how to ____________,” and so on…

The goal here is to “whet the reader’s appetite” with a high-level view of the kind of results they’ll achieve by reading your book, without revealing any of the specifics.

Next, you need to translate your solution into the clear and tangible benefits that your readers will get by reading the information in your book. These benefits are the various outcomes the reader will experience by putting your solution to work.

Ideally, you want to paint a vivid picture of the reader’s future situation using a rhetorical question — for example, you could say something like this: “Do you want to be stress free?,” “financially free?,” “healthier bones?,” “debt free?” .

Step 4: Provide Social Proof of Your Results

Once you’ve helped your reader “see” what their future will be like after reading your book, you need to earn their trust by showing them tangible proof from someone who’s benefited from your solution.

In other words, this is where you bring up your testimonials, either a statement from real people or a statement from organizations who managed to solve their problems by using your book or your services. Client testimonials are the most effective source of social proof to close a sale (note: make sure you have their written permission before publication).

As a word of caution, never make up testimonials. If these facts ever come out, especially in the age of the Internet where anything in the public domain can be virtually searched forever, it could seriously and perhaps permanently damage your credibility and reputation.

Step 5: Anticipate and Address Objections

Although this is an optional step, I highly recommend it. Many readers will likely feel jaded by similar solutions they must have tried before that didn’t work and will therefore have a built-in skepticism when they read your introduction.

So, research in advance what these specific objections are and counter them in your introduction by providing a logical framework that explains why they’re unwarranted in your case.

The best place to research objections is from your own prospects. Failing that, you can visit forums or online groups (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) in the problem area that your book covers and read people’s comments about similar products, approaches or solutions. They’re often a gold mine of information about objections and grievances.

Step 6: Issue a Call to Action

Now, you need to begin your closing arguments. You’ll do this by making it clear to readers that if they follow the secrets/formulas/steps/information revealed in the content of your book, they will overcome their problem (here’s a tip: always make sure to set expectations that express a clear impact — don’t use wishy-washy language that obscures the effect of your solution).

For example, you could say something like:

“If you follow the step-by-step process in this book, you’ll double your investment income in just 3 years….

… you’ll lose weight and never gain it back

… you’ll cut your credit-card debt in half

… etc.”

Step 7: Transition to First Chapter

Finally, you need to wrap up your introduction by inviting your reader to get started on their journey, wishing them well and seamlessly transitioning to your first chapter.

For example, you could write:

“Let’s now embark together on your journey to <desired goals>”

Congratulations! You now have all the elements and strategies required to craft a compelling book introduction that can really “seal the deal.” Now, it’s time to get started writing your first draft!

All the best,

If you enjoyed the information in this article and have started the writing process for your nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a NYT bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions about this article or a specific detail, skills or technique that I can help you with – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to self publish books.

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to write a compelling book in 12 steps: a must-read guide for nonfiction authors, write your own book and become an expert: 11 reasons why you should, how to grow your business writing a nonfiction book.

4 responses to “How to Write the Perfect Introduction for Your Nonfiction Book”

Dear Ben,  Talking about synchronicity! This is not the first time I got stuck and looking for solutions, and your post popped up in my Inbox as if you always knew what I needed and the time I needed them.  

This morning, when I was writing the Introduction for my memoir scheduled to be released this summer by my publisher, this article showed up! Yes, I have some of the elements you have mentioned in my writing, but confirming what I have done right is a huge deal for a first-time author. And other parts make me think to go for more both in depth and scale.  Thanks, and looking forward to more. Cheng

How many words are typically in an introduction? If a chapter is about 5,000, is it less or the same?

There’s no set standard length for an introduction. Your introduction can vary in length depending on the information you deem essential. Given that the introduction typically marks the beginning of your book, you might opt to treat it akin to a standard chapter, ensuring its length aligns with that of your other chapters.

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Same Cascadia, New Management!

by Harry Wallett

Unleashing Literary Flames: Award-Winning Author TK Riggins Keeps Readers Coming Back for More with 7-Book Series

Author Ray McGinnis Reaches an International Audience with 100+ Interviews in 2 Years

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Without Senators in Sight, Christine Blasey Ford Retells Her Story

Her lucid memoir, “One Way Back,” describes life before, during and after she testified that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school.

By Alexandra Jacobs

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ONE WAY BACK: A Memoir, by Christine Blasey Ford

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.”

It sounded like a piece of refrigerator poetry suddenly ringing out in the wood-paneled Hart Senate Office Building: Christine Blasey Ford’s distinctive phrase describing her memory of being assaulted at 15 by Brett Kavanaugh, two years older, while his friend watched. (Kavanaugh, seeking confirmation to the Supreme Court, less poetically but “ categorically and unequivocally ” denied he had done any such thing, brandishing old calendars as an alibi.)

Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one. A Big Book like this has become the final step in the dizzying if wearily familiar passage through the American media wringer: once called a “ spin cycle ,” now more like a clown car going through the wash tunnel.

Blasey Ford is a research psychologist, professor and devotee of surfing, who leans heavily on the sport as a metaphor for her ordeal. “You made me paddle out,” she tells her lawyers at one point, when they are advising her not to testify after weeks of preparation. “And you never, ever paddle back in once you’re out there. You catch the wave. You wipe out if you have to.”

She explains the difference between a beach break (“a quick, rough ride”) and a point break (“slow, unfurling”), and offers deep thoughts on kelp, the marine organism that can be both nuisance and nurturer to humans in the swells. (“The same thing that can move you back can also move you forward. I’d just have to hope for high tide.”) Coloring the underside of her hair blue to mark summer vacations from her teaching job, Blasey Ford even unwittingly presaged mermaidcore .

“One Way Back” — that is, to some sort of shore — is a story of swimming away from the Eastern power establishment and then being sucked inexorably anew into its undertow. Living in country-clubbish suburban Washington, D.C., but lacking college degrees, Blasey Ford’s parents vowed to give their three children premium educations.

Christine, the youngest, attended the all-girls Holton-Arms in Bethesda, in social circles concentric with Kavanaugh, a student at the all-boys Georgetown Prep. She enjoyed reading “The Great Gatsby” as commentary on her circumstances, but even more “Mutiny on the Bounty,” which vividly rendered escape from a clear social hierarchy.

It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’” and it was in such a boys-will-be-boys milieu that she tells of being attacked, with no apparent avenue for recourse.

The assailant’s suffocating hand over her mouth, attempting to mute her screams, is one terrible detail that lingers; along with the bathing suit under her clothes that impeded their forcible removal. “Perhaps it’s kind of like my armor,” she writes of continuing to layer like this in her adult summers.

Blasey Ford never wavers from her certainty that it was the young Kavanaugh looming over her in that room, but she doesn’t seem hellbent on bringing him down. As she mulled going public, “If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.’”

Reading this narrative crowded with “teams” — high-powered lawyers, politicians, public-relations people and, yes, journalists, including a couple from this news organization — one indeed longs for and is denied such a quiet, human, adult scene of confrontation and forgiveness. (One also longs for more about Mark Judge, the buddy of Kavanaugh’s who Blasey Ford said was in the room that fateful night; he remained elusive in the proceedings despite talk of a subpoena, publishing “The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi” in 2022.)

Instead, we got a noisy, sped-up sequel to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas saga , with a similar conclusion: a man on the Supreme Court changing the law of the land, a woman from his past consigned to historical footnote.

Blasey Ford suffered from her testimony, forced to sequester in hotel rooms with her family, guarded by expensive security. After it’s over, there’s prolonged PTSD: hunkering down under a fuzzy gray blanket, unable for a while to return to her regular professional life. (“Twenty-five years does a lot,” Hill tells her, about getting back to normal.)

“It felt like a sentencing,” Blasey Ford writes of her moment in the floodlights. “I suppose this book is my way of breaking free,” she muses — yet the publicity for it will, of course, invite more abuse.

There are some perks from being in the public eye. Blasey Ford is served bisque by Laurene Powell Jobs, sleeps over at Oprah Winfrey’s house, goes backstage at a Metallica concert. Her sons get the actual shirt off Steph Curry’s back at a Golden State Warriors game.

Vicious and violent hate mail is outweighed by letters from supporters and fellow survivors, and Blasey Ford expects to donate them, piling up on her dining room table, to an archive or museum. She used to dive at the pool; now she has a figurative platform, to use when she chooses. There are grants in her name at prestigious institutions.

Blasey Ford is incredibly forgiving of her old-school Republican father, who seems to value propriety — including, ouch, cordially emailing Kavanaugh’s dad after the confirmation — over defending his daughter’s experience. She slips in, double ouch, that her older brothers haven’t been much in touch since this all happened.

Though her signature phrase was mined for a McSweeney’s anthology of #MeToo writings , Blasey Ford is not a poet, after all, but a scientist, and the mess of fact and fiction about her case rankled on a cellular level. “I could see it, the riptide where the truth and narrative were mixing, creating a building current,” she writes, persisting with the ocean conceit. “Overnight, the small but noticeable divide between truth and news turned into a gulf.”

To her credit, you never really feel you’re drowning, reading “One Way Back.” But boy do you long for a nice hot shower afterward.

ONE WAY BACK : A Memoir | By Christine Blasey Ford | St. Martin’s | 298 pp. | $29

Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer. She joined The Times in 2010. More about Alexandra Jacobs

26 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2024

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Check out these Canadian biographies, essay collections, memoirs and other works coming out in spring 2024.

Let It Go by Chelene Knight

Based on lessons from several Black community leaders and Chelene Knight's personal experiences, Let It Go  offers important tools for cultivating and finding joy — including how to let go, rethink communications with loved ones and establish boundaries with care. Knight uses reflection and conversation to guide readers to create their own path to joy. 

Let It Go is out now.

Chelene Knight reimagines Vancouver's Black neighbourhood Hogan's Alley in debut novel

Knight is a Vancouver-based writer and poet who is the author of the Braided Skin and the memoir Dear Current Occupant , which won the 2018 Vancouver Book Award. Her 2022 novel Junie was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024 and won the 2023 Vancouver Book Award. Her work has appeared in literary magazines in Canada and the U.S. and she has been a judge for literary awards, including the B.C. Book Prizes.

Black Boys Like Me by Matthew R. Morris

Black Boys Like Me  is Matthew R. Morris' debut collection of eight essays that examines his experiences with race and identity throughout his childhood into his current work as an educator. The child of a Black immigrant father and a white mother, Morris was influenced by the prominent Black male figures he saw in sports, TV shows and music as he was growing up in Scarborough, Ont. While striving for academic success, he confronted Black stereotypes and explored hip hop culture in the 1990s.

Black Boys Like Me  is out now.

Matthew R. Morris writes about growing up Black and navigating race and identity in book Black Boys Like Me

Morris is a writer, advocate and educator based in Toronto. As a public speaker, he has travelled across North America to educate on anti-racism in the education system. Morris was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize .

My Fighting Family by Morgan Campbell

My Fighting Family is a detailed history of one family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a Black Canadian with strong American roots. Sports journalist and writer Morgan Campbell traces his family's roots in the rural American south to their eventual cross-border split and the grudges and squabbles along the way. From the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and Campbell's life dealing with the racial tensions in Canada — My Fighting Family is about journeying to find clarity in conflict.

My Fighting Family  is out now.

Morgan Campbell reflects on his family legacy in his memoir My Fighting Family – read an excerpt now 

Campbell is an Ontario-based journalist and a senior contributor at CBC Sports . He was a sports writer at the Toronto Star for over 18 years. His work highlights where sports intersect with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. His memoir My Fighting Family is his first book.

Blood by Dr. Jen Gunter

In Blood , Dr. Jen Gunter uses medical expertise and scientific facts from a feminist perspective to address the shame and misinformation about menstruation. She explores how the ovaries and uterus function, challenges patriarchal approaches and answers questions about reproductive anatomy. 

Blood  is out now.

Why we need to talk about periods, full stop

Gunter is an obstetrician, gynecologist and pain medicine physician from Winnipeg. She is an advocate for women's health and writes about the intersection of pop culture, science and sex for the New York Times. She is also the author of The Preemie Primer , The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto .

Big Mall by Kate Black

In Big Mall , Kate Black examines the history of shopping and its place in capitalist structure. As places of pleasure, memory and pain, she pays particular attention to West Edmonton Mall — North America's largest mall where she spent a lot of time growing up. 

Big Mall is out now.

Black is a Vancouver-based writer whose essays have been published in Maisonneuve, The Walrus and The Globe and Mail. She was named one of Canada's top emerging voices in nonfiction by the 2020 National Magazine Awards and RBC Taylor Prize. 

Never Better by Gonzalo Riedel

The memoir  Never Better  chronicles Riedel's life from meeting the woman who would become his wife, to her getting sick and then as a widower with two young children. It tackles difficult subjects like how to keep his wife's memory alive for his two boys when their mother died before their second son even turned one.

Never Better  is out now.

• Meet the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize readers

Gonzalo Riedel is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor.  Never Better  is his debut book. Riedel was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize .

The Heart of a Superfan by Nav Bhatia

Nav Bhatia is known as the Toronto Raptors's number one fan. In The Heart of a Superfan , he tells his story of hardship and determination as he faces challenges in India and Canada as an immigrant. The book explores how he came to connect with basketball more than with any other sport through inspiration and community, and the role it played in his life's personal success.

The Heart of a Superfan  is out now.

Raptors superfan Nav Bhatia's story is bigger than basketball – read and excerpt from his upcoming memoir now

Bhatia is a business owner and the founder of The Nav Bhatia Superfan foundation, which aims to unite people through basketball around the world. He is the first non-basketball player to receive a NBA championship ring and is honoured in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. 

Rogers v. Rogers  by Alexandra Posadzki

Rogers v. Rogers  is a detailed investigative account of the battle for control of Rogers, Canada's largest wireless carrier. Alexandra Posadzki's coverage of the telecom empire and its rules of corporate governance exposes the high-stakes disputes between the factions within the company's boardroom and the Rogers family. 

Rogers v. Rogers is out now.

• How Canada's telecom industry is being reshaped

Posadzki is a Toronto-based business reporter for the Globe and Mail. Her coverage of Roger Communications and Canada's telecommunications industry won Canada Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. 

Outspoken by Sima Samar, with Sally Armstrong

In her memoir Outspoken , Sima Samar recounts her journey from agreeing to an arranged marriage to be able to attend university to her revolutionary battle for human rights and career as a medical doctor. When her husband disappears under the country's Pro-Russian regime, she flees to the countryside with her son to treat people who had never had access to medical care. Samar's powerful stories bring attention to the corruption of religion and politics that she spent her life fighting against both at home and abroad.

Outspoken is out now.

Samar is a Hazara doctor, human rights defender and activist from Afghanistan who is dedicated to the empowerment of women and girls. She founded Shuhada Organization, a civil society collective that runs schools, hospitals and clinics to provide access to healthcare and education. She served as Minister of Women's Affairs, chaired the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in 2019.

• Dr. Sima Samar on fighting for women's rights in Afghanistan

Sally Armstrong is a Canadian author, journalist, human rights activist and documentary filmmaker who covers war and conflict.

Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging  is a collection of 14 essays that use the global world of flora to examine how the lives of plants and human beings intersect and connect with each other. Blending memoir, scientific research and history, Jessica J. Lee interrogates displacement, identity and belonging to explore the movement and evolution of individuals and plant species across borders.

Dispersals  is out now.

Jessica J. Lee wrote a memoir about her search for her family roots

Lee is a British Canadian Taiwanese author and environmental historian. She won the  2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction , the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award . She is the author of Turning and Two Trees Make a Forest . 

Apocalypse Child by Carly Butler

In Apocalypse Child , Carly Butler recounts growing up in 1990s Montana and moving to the Canadian wilderness at a young age due to her mother's belief in the Evangelical Christian end of the world. Isolated in the woods, her life shifts to learning survival techniques based on religious doctrine and conspiracy theories.

The book explores Butler's resilient journey dealing with the end of the world that never came, motherhood and the development of her queer, Mexican-Indigenous identity. 

Apocalypse Child is out now.

Butler is a B.C.-based author who has written for Loose Lips Magazine. She has been a babysitter, birth doula, barista and house cleaner and identifies as a bisexual Indigenous woman with roots in Mexico.

Motherlike by Katherine Leyton

In her feminist memoir Motherlike , Katherine Leyton blends her personal experiences as a new mother with cultural commentary and historical research. From the challenges of labour and the objectification of women's bodies to the history of the birth control pill, she looks at motherhood as an essential part of human life that is often dismissed in society.

When you can read it: March 19, 2024

Leyton is a nonfiction writer, poet and screenwriter from Toronto. Her first book of poetry All the Gold Hurts My Mouth  won the  2018 ReLit Award for poetry .

52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life  by Farzana Doctor

52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life for Caregivers, Activists and Helping Professionals is a practical guide that offers weekly advice to helpers and activists struggling with exhaustion and burnout. Farzana Doctor uses her own experience as a social worker, community organizer and activist to discuss the challenges and necessity of setting boundaries and preventing overwork in a spirit of self and community care. 

When you can read it: March 23, 2024

Farzana Doctor on why it's great to be a BIPOC writer in Canada

Doctor is an Ontario-based novelist, activist and psychotherapist of Indian ancestry. She is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Seven and the novels All Inclusive and Six Metres of Pavement , which won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for a 2012 Toronto Book Award. She was the recipient of the 2011 Dayne Ogilvie Prize from the Writer's Trust of Canada for an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer and the 2023 Freedom to Read Award .

Nowhere, Exactly by M.G. Vassanji

Nowhere, Exactly  examines the challenges around the idea of home, belonging and identity from an immigrant perspective when home is not always one specific place — not the country of origin nor the place of resettlement. M.G. Vassanji reflects on feelings of guilt, loss and gain that come with emigration and the ways that communities and their histories shape individuals.

When you can read it: March 26, 2024

M.G. Vassanji on the sentence that changed his life

Vassanji is a Toronto-based author of Indian descent born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. His original works include Everything There Is , A Delhi Obsession and The Book of Secrets . He was the recipient of the 1994 and 2003 Giller Prize for best work of fiction for his books The Books of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall .

A Darker Shade of Blue by Keith Merith

In A Darker Shade of Blue: A Police Officer's Memoir , Keith Merith chronicles his journey from a teenager disrespected by a white police officer to a York Regional Police superintendent, guided by his mission to create systemic reform from within. He shares his personal experiences as a Black man facing discrimination within law enforcement, but also a strong believer in the police's duty to serve and advocate for the fair and equal treatment of all citizens. 

Merith is a retired police officer who worked for 31 years with York Regional Police. He was the fourth president of the Association of Black Law Enforcers and also worked as a child care worker and correctional officer before entering the police force. 

Medicine Wheel for the Planet by Dr. Jennifer Grenz

In Medicine Wheel for the Planet , restoration ecologist Jennifer Grenz meditates on the disconnect between her training in Western colonial science and her Indigenous worldview to explore the preservation of flora and fauna. Her decades of experience in the Pacific Northwest expose ecology's failure to reach its goal of creating a pre-human, untouched natural world. Based on the knowledge of elders, field observations and sacred stories, Grenz explores land reconciliation and advocates for a diversity of world views to fight against climate change and protect the planet. 

Grenz is a NIaka'pamux ecologist based in British Columbia. She is the founder and leader of Greener This Side, a consulting company that conducts invasive species management and environmental restoration activities for the provincial government and Indigenous communities. She is also an assistant professor in the department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia. 

The Peace by Roméo Dallaire, with Jessica Dee Humphreys

In The Peace: A Warrior's Journey , Roméo Dallaire proposes the notion of peace as a humanitarian state that rallies people together around the world and challenges the emotional distance that people who are not in danger often feel. He uses his experience as a human rights advocate and peace warrior to offer a new world that prevents violence against all. 

When you can read it: April 2, 2024

Roméo Dallaire on how he'd like to be remembered

Dallaire is a humanitarian, former Lieutenant-General and Canadian senator. He was the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. 

Beneath the Surface of Things by Wade Davis

Beneath the Surface of Things is an essay collection that dives into the wisdom and opportunity of knowledge under the surface of everyday things. Wade Davis explores diverse topics and events — from the meaning of the sacred to the birth of modernity and the war in the Middle East — from an anthropological lens to bring a promise of hope and discovery. 

When you can read it: April 30, 2024

Saving the planet means listening to Indigenous peoples according to Wade Davis

Davis is a B.C-based professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He served as the explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013. He is the author of 23 books, including Into the Silence , which won the 2012 Samuel Johnson nonfiction prize.

Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes  by Adrienne Gruber

In  Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes , Adrienne Gruber explores the theme of motherhood through a collection of essays. It celebrates bodies, maternal bonds, beauty — but also the uglier side of parenthood, the chaos and even how close we are to death at any given moment.

When you can read it:  May 1, 2024

• Books by past CBC Nonfiction Prize finalists being published in 2024

Gruber is a poet and essayist originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently  Q & A , and five chapbooks. She placed third in Event's creative nonfiction contest in 2020 and was the runner up in SubTerrain's creative nonfiction contest in 2023.

Gruber was  longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize  for  Clocks . In 2020, she made the  CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist  for  Our Feedback Loop, Our Fractal, Our Never-Ending Pattern . Gruber was also on the  longlist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize  for  Better Birthing Through Chemistry . 

Small Acts of Courage by Ali Velshi

In Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy , Ali Velshi details 125 years of his family's history from India to Gandhi's ashram in South Africa, Kenya, Canada and the United States.

He recounts his relatives' strong belief in equality and public service as they experience discrimination, apartheid and emigration. He stresses the power of action, no matter how small, to fight for social justice and maintain a pluralistic democracy for all. 

When you can read it: May 7, 2024

Velshi is a New York-based Canadian American journalist, anchor and business correspondent with NBC news. He is the host of Velshi  at MSNBC. He won a National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for his coverage of the American auto industry and was nominated twice for the News and Documentary Emmy Award for his work on Chicago's red-light camera controversy and disabled workers. 

A Map of the New Normal by Jeff Rubin

In A Map of the New Normal: How Inflation, War, and Sanctions Will Change Your World Forever , Jeff Rubin analyzes the political and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizen life.

He explores the interconnected nature of war in Eurasia, the functioning of central banks, foreign markets and global supply chains to show how governments and corporations have an immense impact on the state of western everyday life. 

When you can read it: May 14, 2024

Rubin is a Canadian economist who specializes in trade and energy. He is the author of several books, including The Carbon Bubble and Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller , which was longlisted for the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and won the National Business Book Award. Rubin is also the former chief strategist and economist at CIBC World Markets. 

Wînipêk by Niigaan Sinclair

Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre is the story of Winnipeg, told in a series of essays through the lens of Indigenous resilience and reconciliation.

From the Indian Act and atrocities of colonialism to the creativity and ferocity of the Indigenous peoples preserving their heritage, Sinclair illustrates the way a place — how we love, lose, and fight for it — can help pave the way for the future of an entire country.

When you can read it: May 28, 2024

Niigaanwewidam Sinclair on why you should read Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island

Niigaan Sinclair is an Anishinaabe (St. Peter's/Little Peguis) thinker and assistant professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He has written for The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama , The Guardian and CBC Books and is a regular contributor on APTN, CTV and CBC News. Sinclair is also the editor of The Debwe Series and the author and co-editor of award-winning Manitowapow and Centreing Anishinaabeg Studies . 

Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan

While Danny Ramadan is known for his powerful fiction about queer Syrian-Canadian experiences, he's never written about it with such a personal lens — until now.

Crooked Teeth  is his latest project, a memoir, that refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver. Told with nuance and fearless intimacy,  Crooked Teeth  revisits parts of Ramadan's past he'd rather forget. 

Danny Ramadan gets raw and real in his new memoir Crooked Teeth

Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas by Gloria Blizzard

Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas is a collection of poetry and narrative essays on motion, memory and music. Gloria Blizzard examines the nuances of language, geography and culture from an international diasporic lens. 

When you can read it: June 4, 2024

Canada-born. Trinidad-raised. How music helped me harmonize my identities.

Blizzard is a Toronto-based nonfiction writer, poet and songwriter who explores the intersections of music, dance, spirit and culture. Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas is her first book. 

A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb

A Gentleman and a Thief : The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue looks at the criminal exploits of Arthur Barry, one of the most successful thieves in history who stole today's equivalent of $60 million in diamonds, precious gems and pearls over seven years.

Barry befriended aristocracy and stole from elite business magnates such as a Rockefeller and a General Motors executive. The book also chronicles his love for his wife Anna Blake, for whom he committed burglaries and staged a prison escape to spend time with her as her illness progressed. 

12 mystery and crime books to keep you on the edge of your seat this summer

Dean Jobb is a journalist and author who teaches nonfiction writing and journalism at University of King's College in Halifax. He writes for the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail and has a monthly crime column in the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He is also the author of   Empire of Deception that was named the Nonfiction Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association and The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream , which won the 2022 CrimeCon CLUE Award for true crime Book of the Year.

North of Nowhere by Marie Wilson

Part documentary and part memoir,  North of Nowhere  is an account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by one of the three commissioners. A mother, journalist and the spouse of a residential school survivor, Marie Wilson is a compassionate and skilled guide as she honours the voices of survivors and calls Canada to action. 

When you can read it: June 11, 2024

Wilson spent over three decades as a journalist in Canada's North, serving as CBC North's regional director and creating the first daily television news service in 1995. She served as one of the three commissioners on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to create a record of the abuses of the residential school systems and recommend ways to move forward. 

Corrections

• This post has been updated to reflect the correct release date for A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb. Mar 20, 2024 10:38 AM ET

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The Cowardice of Guernica

The literary magazine Guernica ’s decision to retract an essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveals much about how the war is hardening human sentiment.

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

In the days after October 7, the writer and translator Joanna Chen spoke with a neighbor in Israel whose children were frightened by the constant sound of warplanes. “I tell them these are good booms,” the neighbor said to Chen with a grimace. “I understood the subtext,” Chen wrote later in an essay published in Guernica magazine on March 4, titled “From the Edges of a Broken World.” The booms were, of course, the Israeli army bombing Gaza, part of a campaign that has left at least 30,000 civilians and combatants dead so far.

The moment is just one observation in a much longer meditative piece of writing in which Chen weighs her principles—for years she has volunteered at a charity providing transportation for Palestinian children needing medical care, and works on Arabic and Hebrew translations to bridge cultural divides—against the more turbulent feelings of fear, inadequacy, and split allegiances that have cropped up for her after October 7, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage in Hamas’s assault on Israel. But the conversation with the neighbor is a sharp, novelistic, and telling moment. The mother, aware of the perversity of recasting bombs killing children mere miles away as “good booms,” does so anyway because she is a mother, and her children are frightened. The act, at once callous and caring, will stay with me.

Not with the readers of Guernica , though. The magazine , once a prominent publication for fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction, with a focus on global art and politics, quickly found itself imploding as its all-volunteer staff revolted over the essay. One of the magazine’s nonfiction editors posted on social media that she was leaving over Chen’s publication. “Parts of the essay felt particularly harmful and disorienting to read, such as the line where a person is quoted saying ‘I tell them these are good booms.’” Soon a poetry editor resigned as well, calling Chen’s essay a “horrific settler normalization essay”— settler here seeming to refer to all Israelis, because Chen does not live in the occupied territories. More staff members followed, including the senior nonfiction editor and one of the co-publishers (who criticized the essay as “a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism”). Amid this flurry of cascading outrage, on March 10 Guernica pulled the essay from its website, with the note: “ Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it. A more fulsome explanation will follow.” As of today, this explanation is still pending, and my request for comment from the editor in chief, Jina Moore Ngarambe, has gone unanswered.

Read: Beware the language that erases reality

Blowups at literary journals are not the most pressing news of the day, but the incident at Guernica reveals the extent to which elite American literary outlets may now be beholden to the narrowest polemical and moralistic approaches to literature. After the publication of Chen’s essay, a parade of mutual incomprehension occurred across social media, with pro-Palestine writers announcing what they declared to be the self-evident awfulness of the essay (publishing the essay made Guernica “a pillar of eugenicist white colonialism masquerading as goodness,” wrote one of the now-former editors), while reader after reader who came to it because of the controversy—an archived version can still be accessed—commented that they didn’t understand what was objectionable. One reader seemed to have mistakenly assumed that Guernica had pulled the essay in response to pressure from pro-Israel critics. “Oh buddy you can’t have your civilian population empathizing with the people you’re ethnically cleansing,” he wrote, with obvious sarcasm. When another reader pointed out that he had it backwards, he responded, “This chain of events is bizarre.”

Some people saw anti-Semitism in the decision. James Palmer, a deputy editor of Foreign Policy , noted how absurd it was to suggest that the author approved of the “good bombs” sentiment, and wrote that the outcry was “one step toward trying to exclude Jews from discourse altogether.” And it is hard not to see some anti-Semitism at play. One of the resigning editors claimed that the essay “includes random untrue fantasies about Hamas and centers the suffering of oppressors” (Chen briefly mentions the well-documented atrocities of October 7; caring for an Israeli family that lost a daughter, son-in-law, and nephew; and her worries about the fate of Palestinians she knows who have links to Israel).

Madhuri Sastry, one of the co-publishers, notes in her resignation post that she’d earlier successfully insisted on barring a previous essay of Chen’s from the magazine’s Voices on Palestine compilation. In that same compilation, Guernica chose to include an interview with Alice Walker, the author of a poem that asks “Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews,” and who once recommended to readers of The New York Times a book that claims that “a small Jewish clique” helped plan the Russian Revolution, World Wars I and II, and “coldly calculated” the Holocaust. No one at Guernica publicly resigned over the magazine’s association with Walker.

However, to merely dismiss all of the critics out of hand as insane or intolerant or anti-Semitic would ironically run counter to the spirit of Chen’s essay itself. She writes of her desire to reach out to those on the other side of the conflict, people she’s worked with or known and who would be angered or horrified by some of the other experiences she relates in the essay, such as the conversation about the “good booms.” Given the realities of the conflict, she knows this attempt to connect is just a first step, and an often-frustrating one. Writing to a Palestinian she’d once worked with as a reporter, she laments her failure to come up with something meaningful to say: “I also felt stupid—this was war, and whether I liked it or not, Nuha and I were standing at opposite ends of the very bridge I hoped to cross. I had been naive … I was inadequate.” In another scene, she notes how even before October 7, when groups of Palestinians and Israelis joined together to share their stories, their goodwill failed “to straddle the chasm that divided us.”

Read: Why activism leads to so much bad writing

After the publication of Chen’s essay, one writer after another pulled their work from the magazine. One wrote, “I will not allow my work to be curated alongside settler angst,” while another, the Texas-based Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah, wrote that Chen’s essay “is humiliating to Palestinians in any time let alone during a genocide. An essay as if a dispatch from a colonial century ago. Oh how good you are to the natives.” I find it hard to read the essay that way, but it would be a mistake, as Chen herself suggests, to ignore such sentiments. For those who more naturally sympathize with the Israeli mother than the Gazan hiding from the bombs, these responses exist across that chasm Chen describes, one that empathy alone is incapable of bridging.

That doesn’t mean empathy isn’t a start, though. Which is why the retraction of the article is more than an act of cowardice and a betrayal of a writer whose work the magazine shepherded to publication. It’s a betrayal of the task of literature, which cannot end wars but can help us see why people wage them, oppose them, or become complicit in them.

Empathy here does not justify or condemn. Empathy is just a tool. The writer needs it to accurately depict their subject; the peacemaker needs it to be able to trace the possibilities for negotiation; even the soldier needs it to understand his adversary. Before we act, we must see war’s human terrain in all its complexity, no matter how disorienting and painful that might be. Which means seeing Israelis as well as Palestinians—and not simply the mother comforting her children as the bombs fall and the essayist reaching out across the divide, but far harsher and more unsettling perspectives. Peace is not made between angels and demons but between human beings, and the real hell of life, as Jean Renoir once noted, is that everybody has their reasons. If your journal can’t publish work that deals with such messy realities, then your editors might as well resign, because you’ve turned your back on literature.