To keep readers engaged with the text, use strong nouns and verbs to construct active sentences. Which isn’t to say every sentence must be in the active voice. ☐ The passive voice is used only when appropriate. Writers are forever being told to avoid the passive voice. You see the …
Category: Editing
Write Brightly, but with Restraint
As writers, we want to create strong mental pictures and evoke powerful emotions. Even if your writing is prescriptive rather than narrative, you want to give readers a clear idea of your concepts. ☐ The writing is illuminating and vivid. The foundation of vivid writing is strong nouns and verbs. …
Keep Your Writing Voice Informal
The best journalism, business, and academic writing is as eloquent and enjoyable as the best writing in other genres. Unfortunately, most people do not produce the best writing. Most people produce adequate writing. Since you aspire to be a writer, I trust that regardless of the field in which you …
Use an Authentic Writing Voice
Write the way you speak, only with more polish. You may need to unlearn a lot that you learned in college about writing. Teachers teach academic writing, which tends to be dry, fact-focused, and concerned more with making a point than crafting elegant sentences. ☐ The narrative voice draws the …
Get Front and Back Matter in Order
Not every book will have front and back matter, but if yours does, understand that there is a customary order in which these things usually appear. This information isn’t on the checklist because it may not apply to your book. If it does, you can download the Front and Back …
Lists Are Not Just for Web Writing
Those of us writing for the web are forever being told to use lists. But they have their place in books, too. Web readers aren’t the only ones with a tendency to skim. Pretty much any time you have a bunch of concepts to discuss, a list is useful. ☐ …
How to Use Sidebars, Charts, and Images
Sidebars are a good way to include information that complements your text but that doesn’t aid the flow of your main text. Sidebars are not a good place to house information you discovered that was interesting, but unrelated to the main text. ☐ Images, charts, and sidebars are relevant and …
Use Sensory Details to Capture Imagination
Like a novelist, a nonfiction writer can engage the reader’s imagination through the use of the five senses. ☐ Vivid details enhance the reader’s understanding and highlight key points. We usually think of this kind of detail as being visual. The shape of someone’s eyeglasses, the colors of the flowers …
Limit Flashbacks in Narrative Nonfiction
The use of flashbacks in narrative nonfiction is similar to flashbacks in fiction. ☐ Flashbacks are used only when necessary and are engaging. A flashback is a dramatized scene that looks back to a time before the story started. Now here’s the thing — if your readers need to know …
Present Information in a Useful Order
The nonfiction equivalent to plot and structure is Presentation and Flow. The events of your story, or the information in prescriptive nonfiction, should be like links in a chain—connected and in the right order. If you haven’t already, get the Elements of Nonfiction Editing Checklist As much as possible, present …