No.7 in an occasional series on writing non fiction
You’ve established the scope of your non-fiction book, you’ve spent months or years amassing research and now all you have left to do is write it. With your head full of your subject and a heap of reference material at your fingertips, the book could simply flow from your pen (or more likely your keyboard).
But don’t forget that you are a writer. It is not simply a case of bashing out 80,000 words containing everything you have learned about Irish emigration to Australia. All the rules of writing apply, starting with good grammar and spelling but moving on to pace, consistency and style. You need to be just as ruthless with your prose as you would be in a novel. It is easy to become boring if your writing is flat.
Pay attention to your vocabulary and avoid repetitive use of phrases. As a lot of what you are writing will be descriptive, take especial care with T – words; The, That, Then, They, These. Over-use makes your text start to read like a shopping list, so you should avoid having several sentences in a row starting with T- words, or indeed any other repeating pattern. Where you should be repetitive is in precise technical descriptions, when for the sake of clarity one description must repeat the style of the one before; “take one heaped tablespoon”; “begin the exercise with your feet a shoulder’s width apart”.
Pace is not just for novels. The very best narrative history books, such as those by Anthony Beevoir, read as if they were novels. Just because you are writing non-fiction does not mean you don’t want to grip your reader and make your book a genuine page-turner. We’ll come to editing later but when writing your first drafts cut out all the unnecessary asides and get to the point. As with fiction, start as close to the action as possible.
Viewpoint is not just for novels either. Most non-fiction is written in a remote godly voice, but biographies are essentially third-person stories, and an autobiography is of course written in the first person. Away from autobiographies, if you include personal points of view you need to establish consistency. Your book on walking the Pennine Way may read better if it is clearly based on your walk, not a drier description of the route. The entire book can be written from this personal standpoint but beware of ‘I strain’; the reader may get a little tired of observations that you found this view disappointing or the beer in the Dog & Duck was just to your taste. Judge when to present pure information and when to blend in personal experience. You’ll need to pay attention to tense as you switch to the more impersonal information.
Tense can be a complication. You are describing a field trip to study the geology of the Grand Canyon in which you examined layers in the Hermit Formation (past tense), but the rocks are still there so should you describe them in the present tense? You describe how you are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (present tense) the horrific incident that caused it (past tense) and what you will do after recovery (future tense). You are writing about a living artist who is still creating work, yet you are also discussing their back catalogue, thoughts and ideas from previous decades. Be aware of the problems, and be critical as you write and when you perform the initial edit. Remember when using the present tense that your book may become a standard reference work and still be on the library shelves in twenty years’ time.
Strive to make your writing interesting, so that even a non-specialist can enjoy the read. One good tool is to vary your vocabulary and your sentence length; use ‘dig’ as well as ‘excavation’ unless you want to be very pedantic. This said, I’m not advocating swallowing a thesaurus, so take care in using obscure words that have your reader reaching for their thesaurus. All the rules about avoiding clichés apply, and to complicate matters certain professions have their own selection of clichés; some have grown to be used ironically rather than with their original intent.
Retain your own voice if you are writing a personal piece, particularly in autobiographical works. If you are a retired Leeds United striker, don’t be afraid to use language that would be understood on the terraces. Carry your local accent into the story by choice use of words, but don’t clog the text and obscure the meaning by over-use of regional slang.
If you are naturally funny, be funny because people will expect it. If you are forthright, be forthright—but watch out for those libel lawyers. Even in a serious work you can employ humour to vary the tone or introduce irony where appropriate, and it can be especially effective if it’s understated. However, it is a mistake to try to be something you are not.
You’ll need to decide how chatty and colloquial you intend to be. Choose an approach and stick with it. It will affect how people view your book, so the right tone is needed; not too pompous, not too flippant. Dry and academic if it needs to be, fun and fluffy if that’s what your audience would want. Read a few non-fiction reviews in the Sunday newspapers to appreciate how important this is. Only books by leading authors and thinkers will even get a review in mainstream papers, but it is instructive to note how many are criticised by the reviewer on the grounds of their writing style rather than the content.
Your intended audience will also determine your choice of vocabulary and use of grammar. Specialist readers can take what you throw at them, but non-specialist readers and children demand more use of plain English. Beware of complex sentences with multiple pieces of punctuation and subordinate clauses as readers can become lost in the argument. Once you get beyond 15 words and the first comma you can start to lose people. When you get to 25 and the first subordinate clause consider whether breaking it into two sentences would be more effective. Avoid brackets wherever possible (they break up the flow of what you are saying), particularly if they are in the middle of a sentence. Keep exclamation marks to a minimum as over-use looks childish!
Never, ever, be boring. Have I said that already?
There’s a balance to be struck between going over the heads of readers and patronising them. It is the author’s challenge to make a book accessible to as much of the reader base as possible without ‘dumbing down’ and insulting the intelligence. Popular science books such as the late Professor Hawkins’ A Brief History of Time, or works by the likes of Professor Brian Cox or Professor Alice Roberts show how even incredibly complex subjects can be presented for members of the public who are not physicists, mathematicians, or anthropologists.
Non-fiction is primarily about conveying information, so the keyword is clarity. There is no need to show off how clever you are by obfuscation; nobody will be impressed. Perhaps once you were just an antiques dealer but your book on Islamic daggers means you are now an author.
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