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Nonfiction Writing Techniques – How to Make Your Articles or Chapters More Interesting

Janet was walking along and saw the edge of the cliff.  Then her right foot slipped!  She didn’t regain her balance, and she slipped over the edge  She began to slide down the slope. She grabbed a branch and was hanging on for dear life.

How does that relate to your article or chapter?  It may not relate at all.  But if it did, you would surely have everyone’s attention. Let’s talk about four nonfiction writing techniques. 

Narrative Items

First, you can use narrative items.  Tell a story.  The story can still be a true story, so you would still be writing non-fiction.  You can also invent a story.  In that case, you would be adding some fiction in with your non-fiction writing.  At any rate, you can use storytelling or narrative techniques. 

You can do that in the form of an illustration.  After all, who doesn’t love a good story? 

Another thing you can do is use the story arc to develop your material.  You would have to do a little more research on what the story arc is, but it’s something you can do.  Basically, you have a beginning, middle, and end.  You have a problem, then a conflict, then escalating problems, and then solving the conflict.  You can set up non-fiction writing in a similar manner. 

Another place you can use that technique is in the introduction.  You can use narratives in the introduction just like I did with the fictional story of Janet and the cliff.  Or you can use a personal or historical story as you go about doing that. 

A couple of other techniques that aren’t necessarily narrative in the introduction is asking a question or questions.  You may be trying to solve a problem anyway, so you may want to restate that problem in the form of a question.

Another technique you can use in the introduction is interesting, unique, or funny thoughts at the beginning of your writing

So use narrative techniques.

Details, Details, Details

Also, use details.  Sometimes, you need to have some details just to help with the clarity of your writing. You can also add sensory details.  Talk about the smell, or sound, or the sounds in the setting.  Use those sensory details.  Sometimes, those sensory details relate to emotions.  If you are involved in sales, many people tell you that people buy from emotions as well as from want.  So use sensory details.  Add emotional triggers where that’s appropriate to do so.

This is the second technique.

Keep it Simple

Third, use simplicity.  Abraham Lincoln said if you have the choice between a simple word and a complex word, and the simple word will convey the proper idea, use the simple word.  That was good advice coming from our 16th president.  Use short or clear words where you can.

Use short paragraphs.  One of the ways to use shorter paragraphs may be contrary to what you were once taught in school.  In the old way of writing books, you may have had 2-3 long paragraphs per page.  One of those paragraphs may have included five items within that paragraph.  And that is a proper way of doing that.  You would have a topic sentence, then you would enumerate the 5 items, and you may have a clincher sentence at the end.

The more modern way of doing that is to make that 5 paragraphs and have the topic sentence in the first paragraph with the first point, and the second item would be the second paragraph, third- third paragraph, fourth- fourth paragraph, and fifth – fifth paragraph.  Or, you may have six paragraphs, with the topic sentence being a paragraph on its own, introducing that topic.  You may even make it seven paragraphs, having a “clincher” paragraph/sentence at the end.

You’ll notice in a lot of online writing, a lot of blogs, and a lot of areas where you observe writing techniques, you’ll notice in modern-day copywriting, there is a lot of “white space,” or there is a line between the paragraphs, which gives more white space.  That is if you have black letters on white paper, which is how it’s usually done. 

So, use simplicity.  Use short paragraphs and short, clear words, and white space where possible.

Variety is the Spice of Life

The last technique is to use variety.  You can use variety in sentence lengths.  I know I said to use short sentences, but don’t use only short sentences.  If you do that, they will be like little bullets one right after the other.  So you want some variety in sentence length.  Many of them will be shorter because you made a conscious effort to do that, but some should be longer so you have variety. 

Also, use variety in the sentence types. You have simple sentences, you have compound sentences, and even compound-complex sentences.  You may want to use several short sentences, but for variety, you should throw in compound, and compound-complex sentences.  Use variety in sentence length and types.

Another thing you can do is use variety in points of view.  If you are using stories, either fiction or nonfiction, to illustrate your points, you can tell them from the first-person point of view.  You may have been talking about something that was a personal experience.  In that case, you would say, “I did this. I did that.”

Another story may relate to someone else and you may speak about that in the third person.  Sometimes, you can tell a story about someone else, and you can tell it as though you are that character.  You should make clear to your reader that you are not that character, but you can tell it in first-person.

If you’re writing conversationally, many of your sentences will be the second-person point of view where you’re addressing the reader as “you.”  Or you could do a third-person point of view.

Think of each story as a scene in a movie.  You just don’t want to change the point of view within the scene or illustration.  The first story may be from the first-person point of view, and the next may be a third-person point of view.  Just don’t mix the two within the same illustration.

In Summary

These are some nonfiction writing techniques that can make your chapters or articles more interesting.
1. Use narrative items.
2. Use details.
3. Use simplicity.
4. Use variety. 

For more writing tips, head to Randy’s Blogs. On the top of the page, you’ll find a heading labeled “writing”. There is a lot of helpful information there. This article relates to the idea of steps to writing success.

To get even more help and advice, check out my book, ” How to Write a Book in 28 Days Without Stressing Yourself to Death”. Just go to Amazon.com, type in the full title in the search bar, and you’ll be able to purchase either an eBook or a print book. ( Note, the book is officially launching in November, 2021. I encourage you to participate in the launch. There will be some perks during the launch.)

I hope this has been helpful for you. Happy writing!

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Nonfiction Topics to Write About

Today we’re talking about nonfiction topics to write about. You can do a search for non-fiction topics to write about and you can come up with a lot of prompts that will help you.

I have come up with a few ideas that you may want to use. I’m going to give you a sentence and put a blank in the sentence that you would fill in.

Some examples could be, “Something most people don’t know about is _______. “
“You could be more _______ by _______.”

Another thing you can do, instead of saying by _______. You can say a specified period of time. For instance, “How to Write a Book in 28 Days or Less” or “Have a New Husband by Friday.” Those are some ideas for that.

Here’s another one: You can say, “You Can Be More Confident!” or “You Can Be More Assertive!.” You fill in the blank.

Perhaps you can try “You Can Be Less _______” or “You Can Be Less _______ by _______” or “You Could Be Less _______ in ‘X’ days or months” Maybes something like, “You Need More _______ in Your Life” For example, “You Need More Pizzazz in Your Life”, “You Need More Confidence in Your Life” or “You Need More Money in Your Life.” What would you use to fill in the blank?

Other suggestions include, “You Could Change _______ by _______”, Then you could list a technique or a certain general category of techniques.

There are some more. “You Could Make More Money by _______”, “You Could Save Money by _______”, “You Could Speed Up the Process of _______ by _______”. As an example, “You Could Speed Up the Process of Writing by Using a Timer” or “You Could Improve Your Health by _______.” “How to _______ without _______” like “How to Write a Book in 28 Days or Less Without Stressing Yourself to Death”.

What could you put in those blanks?

My wife and I like to watch reruns of a television series that we saw when we were children. It was called Maverick and it starred James Garner, as Brett Maverick. He would often say, “Well, my old pappy used to say, and then fill in the blank.” What did your parents advise you? What did some respected person in your life tell you?

There are some popular genres on Amazon. A study was done in 2017 and they looked at both print and e-books and found a list of popular topics. The most popular ones were biographies and memoirs, religion and spirituality, health, fitness and dieting, and business and money.

Now I’ll give you a little caution about memoirs; unless you are already famous your memoir may not sell very well. You might need to go ahead and write it. It may turn out to be something that would be very valuable to your family. In fact, many authors say that that is the one thing you should write. But, it likely won’t sell very well for someone who doesn’t know you.

Now, here’s the trick for using your life story and how to use it: write a nonfiction book, and then just use parts of your life story that apply to the topics within your nonfiction book.

In my book “How to Write a Book in 28 Days or Less”, I gave several examples of problems that I had with writing. For example, there were problems I had with procrastination and problems I had with perfectionism. I told stories out of my own life to illustrate those topics and ideas.

Here are some more problems/questions: “How Can I Be a Better _______?” Then think about what interests you have, and you can write about your interests. You can write about the skills that you have that you can share. You can write about what quick and easy solution you can offer someone.

You could also specify a time for your desired result, as I previously mentioned. Kevin Leman wrote the book, “How to Have a New Husband by Friday.” I think he also wrote another one like “How to Have a New Child by Friday” and maybe was another one talking about a new wife. But he did that and specified a time frame in which to get those results.

I hope these ideas for nonfiction topics to write about have been helpful to you. To get more information on topics like these, go to www.randycarney.com and click the tab that says “writing.” There you will find many blog posts like these.

In addition, I have a new channel on Rumble. Just go to www.rumble.com, search the name Randy Carney, and you’ll find many videos like the one here. So I hope you have a great day. Until next time for walking with Randy, I wish you the best.

Exciting news! Be watching for the release of my newest book, “How to Write a Book in 28 Days or Less–Without Stressing Yourself to Death” coming the week of November 15, 2021.