Let’s talk about non-fiction writing.

This is the first in what I hope will become a regular series of posts to reinvigorate this blog. I recently had a none-too-pleasant experience with malware attacking my site. This resulted in my hosting provider taking the site down until I got it cleaned up, plus the outlay of a few hundred dollars to prevent future attacks. It’s hard to justify that kind of expense in time and money if I don’t actually publish. So here I am.

I want future success as a fiction writer. However, I actually spend a larger share of my time writing non-fiction. I write blog posts and news releases at my day job, and I write a variety of articles – descriptions of legal disputes, discussions of specific business topics, and other news releases – for freelance clients.

Over the years, I have developed rules for myself that govern how I approach and write non-fiction pieces. Some of them came from comments I have received from clients when they’ve asked me to make changes. Others are my own biases. Still others are from my observations of the things I hate about many articles I read online.

Too many pieces are a chore to get through. They struggle to hold the reader’s interest, and that’s a shame. The author has knowledge to share and that the reader could use, but the message gets lost in a mud pit of prose. However, we can avoid this unfortunate fate by following these rules. I will confess up front to not always following them perfectly, but they are my guide posts.

Readers of non-fiction writing need a reason to care about what comes next, whether they’re reading The Fellowship of the Ring or an explanation of how to play slide guitar (a skill I’m trying to learn this summer.) Note how Steve James progresses through this article: “First, your slide should be about as long as the pinky of your fretting hand, slipping comfortably on your finger … Slide into each note from below … alter the major scale by adding the ‘blue’ notes in Ex. 2 …” He’s telling you how to play slide, but he’s also saying, “and here’s what happens next.” It’s story as much as instruction. By the end of the article, the reader has some hope (however dim) that he will eventually play slide guitar like Derek Trucks.

This can be a tough one. We all have our areas of expertise. Anyone who has spent a large part of her career in a single industry or occupation uses the common words and phrases of that field without a second thought. That is a good thing in the workplace; everyone has a commonly understood language, so it’s unnecessary to constantly define terms. It can be a bad thing in a piece of writing aimed at an audience outside the industry.

I’ve worked in the insurance industry for all but three of the past 34 years. If I tell you that you should be worried about a limitation built into a definition referenced in an insuring agreement in a Homeowners insurance policy, I’ll probably lose you halfway through the sentence. On the other hand, if I tell you that your Homeowners policy probably says that you won’t get paid if your house burns down because you don’t live there anymore (relocated, retired to South Carolina, whatever,) that might just get your intention. Your next thought will either be WTF? or “Why?” Either way, you may well be tempted to keep reading.

I’ll put my cards on the table: I despise business jargon. If you work in an office, you are doubtless familiar with the words and phrases that people believe make them sound sophisticated, such as:

Have I ever used any of these? Of course. However, their overuse has made me hyper-aware of them. My work colleagues have pretty much guaranteed that I will rarely, if ever, “reach out” to anyone ever again. These and other words and phrases have ceased to be meaningful and instead made the transition into being annoying. Writers: Avoid annoying your readers.

We use acronyms because they’re easier and faster to say than the names and terms they stand for. NFL is faster to say than National Football League; NYSDFS rolls off the tongue and fingers more easily than New York State Department of Financial Services. I say, acronym to your heart’s content (I just turned it into a verb,) but the first time you use the acronym in a piece of writing provide the full name of what it stands for. Don’t assume that all of your readers know; I promise you, not all of them do.

I don’t have a problem consuming foods that contain gluten, but I have a dear friend who has suffered for a long time with Celiac disease. Because I care about her, I might read about the invention of gluten-free beers that don’t suck. If I’m writing about a court decision, I want people to know how that decision will impact their lives and businesses. People read our work because they want to either learn something or experience something. Failure to deliver leaves the reader feeling cheated and wondering why she wasted her time on it. Don’t cheat the reader. Give her a reason to care,

Those are my top five rules for non-fiction writing. I imagine you may disagree with some of these or have others that you think rank a bit higher. That’s great, and I would love to hear about them in the comments. Until then, here’s to good, clear writing that will leave the reader wanting more!

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