Nonfiction: Write the Way You Talk

Have you ever given a talk or presentation of any kind to a group of people? If you know your subject well, you probably present your topic in a conversational way, as though you were telling it to your family. A bit of enthusiasm, a bit of humor if appropriate, maybe a truncated sentence or two, or maybe one beginning with “And now … “ or “Okay, folks …”

If you’re a fiction writer, the people in your story might talk that way. If you’re a nonfiction writer, why not present your information that way, too?

You’re not writing a dissertation, are you? You don’t have to drone on with “nothing but the facts.”

Make it easy to read

Haven’t you ever read an article in a magazine about something that you didn’t think would interest you, but you found the writing so entertaining that you read it all the way through anyway?

That’s the way you want to write, too. Whatever your subject matter.

Incorporate that easy way you talk into your article.

I tried to do that in one of my books. But I think the editor the publisher assigned was primarily a copyeditor for theses and dissertations. She didn’t like my conversational style and rewrote so much of my text that I complained to my primary editor. I was glad that the publisher liked my version.

One reviewer wrote, after it was published, “…easy to read and hard to put down,” and “homespun anecdotes…”

That’s what you want readers to think, even if your subject matter could be dry as dust.

Writers of books for children always try to clothe their facts in friendly terms, enticing the young readers to learn about a subject, even if they thought they didn’t want to.

What’s wrong with writing that way for adults, too?

If you’re from the south and commonly say “you-all” or even “y’all”, what’s so awful about writing that in your nonfiction piece? If you use colloquialisms in your everyday conversation, or when you’re giving a presentation, why not use them in your article? Do you add humor to your presentation? Incorporate that smiling thought into your written piece, too.

Make everything you offer an editor “easy to read and hard to put down,” no matter what the subject is. Maybe the editor will like your material well enough to offer it to the magazine’s readers or your book to the bookstores.