Couch to 100k #1

Tips for geeks, I mean non-fiction writers – the first in a series

Don’t worry, I’m not turning this Substack over to some Live Laugh Love bullshit, or pretending to be the Joe Wicks of the non-fiction tables (actually, isn’t he already the Joe Wicks of non-fiction tables, and infinitely more successful than I’ll ever be? Shut up inner writing voice, that isn’t helping). But as this is the first of the non-fiction writing tips I’ll be sharing, it’s getting its own entry: subsequent parts will crop up at the end of my ‘normal’ posts (you know, the usual nonsense about Thunderbirds modernism or geese), so look out for them there.

This is a chance for me to share some thoughts from 20-odd years in publishing and from having written a number of narrative non-fiction books myself. I thought I’d do this partly because I enjoy it, and partly because I don’t like the gatekeeping around publishing that makes it feel exclusive or impossible. I’d like to demystify some of the process for the kind of creative people who have great ideas but maybe lack the confidence and guidance to do something with them, especially those who feel like they aren’t the kind of people who write books. As if that should be a thing. Also, the writing tips people usually give are to do with fiction, and those kids already have enough help out there. Probably too much, really. I’m talking to the geeks.

Hello geeks. Let’s write a book.

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Tips for non-fiction writers #1

So you love writing. And you have an idea for a non-fiction book. But as a first timer, how to approach it? It can be daunting, or feel absurd. How can little old me do a book? Well, stop that. The good thing is, it absolutely felt like that to me, and I’ve written five of the buggers now, so if I can do it chances are you can too. One thing I do know is it’ll likely be nothing at all like you imagined: both the process of doing it, and the end product. But that’s part of the excitement of writing. If we knew all of the answers at the beginning there would be no need to write it all out. But then, as someone who starts out knowing very little about the subjects he writes about at the beginning of the process, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

My main piece of advice, is, of course, writing advice is generally useless – smug, annoying and misguided. Fuck those Facebook platitudes, it’s not a competitive activity, there are no rights and wrongs about where to write or how many words or what will or won’t work. We all write for different reasons, in different circumstances, with different experience to bring to bear on whatever it is. If the first exercise I set on Couch to 100k (I know, catchy, eh?) was to give everyone the same topic to write about, you’d all do it differently. Because we are all annoying like that. Welcome to writing a book.

Now, you might have an idea already. Or you might just have a thought, an inkling, the glimmer of an enthusiasm on the edge of your perception. Maybe you’d love to write something about a subject you’re into, but haven’t alighted on the right way of turning that into a book yet. So here’s something I’ve done with all of my books at the outset, which has helped identify the sort of book I might want to write.

EXERCISE: Make a list of ten of your favourite non-fiction books, ideally ones you’ve read in the last couple of years, so that they give a good idea of your current taste. Then start to look for shared characteristics: the sort of story told; the way it’s told; the tone of voice, etc. What does this begin to tell you about the sort of books you enjoy? And what does this mean for how you might approach yours?

It’s possible that exercise might have unlocked some potential ways of writng about your subject that you have not considered before. Often I have an idea for a book that seems to exist in some rarefied abstract realm, and doing this exercise can remind me that I’m not writing in a rarefied abstract realm, it’s mostly in a shed in Milton Keynes.

So what makes a good subject for a book?

I’m firmly of the opinion that no subject is a bad subject for a book per se, it’s what you do with it. Perhaps you have the desire to write a book about frogspawn. Or gravel. Or ribbon. Sure, that one word might taunt you. Who is going to be interested in that? But nothing is innately boring. Not when you can communicate what is actually exciting you about the subject. Frogspawn contains the miraculous secret of life; gravel a doorway into the ancient formation of geology and stardust; ribbon the tale of industrial revolutions, global culture and the history of fashion.

Actually, why am I writing this blog post, all of those books sound amazing. Shut up inner writing voice.

But perhaps you have two different ideas? Five? Twelve? (Alright, calm down, no-one likes a show-off). How do you begin to work out what might have legs and what might not? (Back to the frogspawn again there.) Well, first you need to pay attention to each, to see what you might be able to do with them. That might help you decide.

EXERCISE: Write each of your ideas down as a heading. Under each start making a list, a spider diagram, etc, addressing a few basic thoughts: Why now? Is there some topical reason in the world or your life that makes this an idea for now, or later? An anniversary approaching, a moment in history that needs recording as it’s happening, people that need interviewing about the subject now? Are there other books on this subject? If not, why not? If there are, are they any good? Is your angle/tone different? Would you read it? How excited do you feel about this subject? Can you imagine yourself still being as excited in two years time?

This exercise might take a while, but it’s a good doodle on a bus/in your lunch hour. It might help to flush out some thoughts around urgency and your excitement for the subjects. Even if you only have a single book idea, this is useful to help focus your mind on what makes it right for you to concentrate on now.

Finally, a much quicker exercise, and one that can help add to the one above:

EXERCISE: You have five minutes on each of the book ideas you have come up with. Write the first line of each book. It doesn’t have to be polished or considered, or the actual first line, of course. Just dash down an eye-catching opening sentence for each heading. It might give some idea how different, difficut or delightful each might be to approach. Probably not delightful at this stage, unless you’re really lucky.

So that’s it for this first trainign session of your Couch to 100k. I’m not planning on giving some comprehensive guide to every aspect of writing a book, because no such thing could exist, given how differently we all work. But I’m hoping to give some prompts and prods that might get you out of tricky situations, or that may help you look at a challenge in a different way, so you can push on and not feel overwhelmed. Also, I’m easily bored so… What was that?

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Annoying Faber Quizmaster

Anyway, enough with the non-fiction. A while back I wrote some book quizzes for the Faber website – one on LGBTQ+ writing and one on leading Black voices in contemporary fiction. So should you be at a loose end these might while away a bit of time/make you curse the whole concept of the trivia book quiz and possibly the internet.