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January Nonfiction Know-how Round-up
Rowan and I were on fire this month, if I do say so myself, giving you nonfiction knowhow lessons at the front and back end of every week’s challenge grid in January. Our goal: To help you write to connect with your reader, thereby avoiding the blogging pitfall of writing like your blog is a personal diary, the virtual equivalent of the journal you’d tuck underneath your mattress and hope your nosy older sibling wouldn’t find.
It’s worth revisiting these lessons in this final week, so I’ve taken the liberty of rounding them up for you here in one spot. Bookmark this page and, before you write this week, take a half hour to re-read the posts in series form and apply their lessons to this week’s challenge outing:
- Rowan’s kickass nonfiction know-how opener “Reach Out and Touch Someone” gave you concrete examples of how to connect with your readers – and how not to. It’s an essential read.
- My Week 1 opener defined the problem a little further, reminding you that when writing for an audience, “It’s Not You, It’s Them.” In her nonfiction roundup, Rowan added a few essentials when writing to connect – namely, honing your “so what” and writing persuasively versus prescriptively.
- In Week 2, I encouraged you to think of your “Writing as Coffee Shop Conversation.” If you imagine your reader right next to you, you’re more likely to tell your stories in a natural, conversational voice that encourages connection and reader-writer dialogue. Read Rowan’s follow-up, citing how well specific examples from that week’s grid accomplished this task, in her weekly nonfiction roundup.
- We then moved into some specific writing techniques that can help you connect. In Week 3, I delved into “The Art of the Single Scene Story” – a ruthlessly plot-driven technique that leaves no room for your personal commentary, navel-gazing, or asides to the reader. Rowan gave y’all some kudos for successfully executing this technique in her nonfiction roundup at week’s end, while sharing another device for grounding your story: focusing on a single object or action.
- Finally, in Week 4, I added one more technique to ground your stories and connect with your readers – using a leitmotif to connect disparate scenes that happen over a span of time. How does this fit into our nonfiction know-how? When you link scenes using a theme, you avoid commentary, thus “Letting Your Readers Do Some Work” rather than spelling everything out for them.
It ain’t over. We’ve got more nonfiction know-how on deck for February. All next month, Rowan and I will be teaming up to talk to you about the vital importance of editing and revising your work, which takes you beyond just reviewing your copy for errors to substantively editing for content and structure. Join us to keep learning and take your writing to the next level.
Yeah write super challenge
The first round of super challenge #3 is currently underway! Good luck to all of our participants as they await the results. Did you miss out on registration? Sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any announcements.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Nonfiction know-how:
connections
This month’s nonfiction know-how is learning the difference between navelgazing and reaching outward. That is, as storytellers we’re at our finest when it’s not about us, it’s about the reader. So when you write an introspective post, think about saying instead of “am I the only one who feels like this,” you should be saying “I feel like this too, you are not alone.” Learn more from Rowan here.*
*Check out our website on February 1st to find out what we’ll be focusing on next month for our nonfiction know-how!
Want more info?
Is this your first time here? Check out Sunday’s post which kicked off the week here at yeah write. Our email subscribers can also join us in the yeah write coffeehouse at its home on Facebook. If you’ve never taken the time to read them, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines. The rules are a little different for each of our challenges and we’d hate to have to send back great writing on a technicality.
Did you happen to end up here because you suddenly saw yeah write in your stats? Sometimes members of our community spot excellent writing and they send those posts on over to us. We hope you don’t mind. Take a look around and get to know our community. We’re sure you’ll be happy here.
Have questions you can’t find the answer to by poking around the site? Email us or find us on Facebook and Twitter and we’ll happily help you out.
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How to submit and fully participate in the challenge
Basic yeah write guidelines: 1000 word limit; your entry can be dated no earlier than this past Sunday; nonfiction personal essay, creative opinion piece or mostly true story based on actual events.
1. In the sidebar of this week’s post, please grab the code beneath the nonfiction badge and paste it into the HTML view of your entry
2. Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid
3. Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message
4. Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge
5. Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
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