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10 Three Ways to Write Exciting Nonfiction PROLIFIC WRITER BONNIE REMSBERG, WHO WON AWARDS for her magazine articles and Emmys for her TV scripts, was once asked, “What’s the best thing about writing?” Her immediate answer: “Having written.” Many of us share Bonnie’s feelings. To go even further, many of us agree that the worst thing about writing is getting started on that first draft. We procrastinate by researching and researching until we’re drowning in enough knowledge to write seven books. Or we put off the writing by making involved schedules detailing our projected turnout. Or we copy our notes onto other note cards, in what we like to think is more logical order. Or we find a million priority items that need attention. There are as many wrinkles on the fabric of procrastination as there are talented writers to think them up. Nevertheless, there comes a time when you have to face the first sentence of your book. Once you’ve done several books, you recognize that time as an urge to get to work—to sit at the computer and start clacking out words or, if you’re a longhand first-drafter, to get out your pad and pen. If this is your first or second book, you’d better not wait for the urge to prod you or terror may take over and you may never begin. The best way for you to get writing is to collect your outline and notes and plunge in. Start at what seems the most logical point and keep writing at a steady pace, in the same location and for the same length of time each day. When you get to the end of chapter 1, take a break for pleasure —an evening or a day or so—and then do the same with chapter 2. Try to avoid lengthy interruptions; the momentum of chapter after chapter gives half the energy authors need to finish their books. Don’t go back and rewrite anything until you’re done. By then you’ll have the perspective to do it well. Until then, many of the piecemeal changes you make may only have to be made again—and if you’re using a word processor, you won’t have any record of your first, freshest thoughts. There are two opposing traps for the beginning nonfiction author who is attacking a first draft. The first trap is overwriting—filling the page with so many facts, figures, and examples that points get buried. The second is writing too 126 thinly—presenting generalized statements without enough explanation or support . Overwriting can best be corrected during the editing phase, so if you overwrite don’t worry about it for now. But if your writing tends to be thin, you must deal with that in your first draft. The very best way is to make full use of the nonfiction writer’s three basic techniques. The Three Basic Nonfiction Techniques To put flesh on the skeleton of a chapter outline, the nonfiction author can choose from only three basic techniques: exposition, quotation and narration. These techniques are also used in writing articles, reports and even fiction. Let’s define them from the author’s point of view: When an author believes something and reports his belief to readers along with the unattributed facts and figures to prove it, that’s exposition. When an author hears (or reads in print) something worth repeating and repeats it for his own readers, attributing it with or without quotation marks, that’s quotation. When an author sees something happen and reports it just as it happened, or reports what someone else has seen, also in story fashion, that’s narration. (In nonfiction, narratives are generally called anecdotes.) You must also understand each technique from the reader’s point of view. When readers encounter exposition—the sentences and paragraphs that tie together your own observations and conclusions, based on your own knowledge —they may be skeptical unless you’re a currently renowned expert in the field you’re writing about or unless you’re such a fine writer you spellbind them into forgetting their skepticism. It’s a good idea to limit exposition to information that readers have no trouble believing, or to use it to unify and reinforce passages that rely on the other two techniques. When readers see exposition coming, they also expect to be bored. That’s largely because so much exposition is written in a boring...

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