Ten Tips for Non-Fiction Writing

My post last week was on the topic of writing non-fiction and the joys of research, which reminded me of a lecture I attended at a children’s writing conference many years ago. Brenda Murray, who at the time was a senior editor at Scholastic and focused on non-fiction books, offered the following ten tips. She geared her talk to writing books for children, but most of the principles apply to any non-fiction writing, be it books, magazine articles, or blogs.

Photo by Rachel Rosen

1. Know your audience. Understand their reading level and what they enjoy reading. Then speak their language. Include a glossary if appropriate.

2. Research the competition. How is your book different? Is there space in the market for another book on that subject? If there aren’t other books out there on that subject, is there a reason why?

3. Make it interactive. Include quizzes, puzzles, experiments, games, and activities. (More applicable to children’s writing.)

4. Keep it brief. Say what you need to say in as few words as possible. Follow word count guidelines.

5. Focus your subject. Can you narrow a broad general topic to create a more interesting subject?

6. Consider narrative in your non-fiction writing. Rather than merely stating facts, tell your reader a story, with a beginning, middle, and end.

7. Introduce a new concept. Tell your readers something they don’t already know. Or add a new twist to a familiar subject.

8. Use exciting language, strong verbs, and interesting word choices to grab your readers’ attention.

9. Don’t assume your reader has prior knowledge of a subject. Add clarification or explanation in your story where necessary.

10. Include bonus material with your non-fiction work, such as maps, photos, illustrations, websites, etc.

I’ve never penned a non-fiction book, but I’ve written countless non-fiction articles for magazines over the past 25+ years. If you consider yourself a fiction writer, don’t dismiss non-fiction writing, as I naively did when I first started writing. The reality is this – non-fiction sells way easier than fiction. I once heard this remarkable statistic at a writers conference:

There are four fiction writers for every one non-fiction writer. And there are four works of non-fiction accepted by a publisher for every one fiction piece accepted.

The odds of publication definitely seem to be in favor of non-fiction writers!

Or consider this. In an average brick-and-mortar bookstore, non-fiction books typically make up 60% to 70% of the total inventory, while fiction books account for the remaining 30% to 40%. The same is likely true for a library. That said, given the total consumer book market, approximately 53% of books sold are fiction, while non-fiction accounts for roughly 47%.

What has been your experience with either fiction writing, non-fiction writing, or both? Can you add any tips to the list?