Simon Winchester's necessities for non-fiction books

Simon Winchester read from his new book at Seattle's Central Library last Wednesday night, and as part of his talk he discussed the three needed elements for a successful non-fiction book.

First of all, he said there has to be a good idea. As a newly naturalized citizen of the United States, he sorted through several ideas until he struck "on the word 'united' in the United States." How did that come to be? How had it managed to last?

You might think the next necessity would be decent writing. He said no, the next important thing is structure, some way of organizing the book that makes sense to the reader.

Once again he sorted through several ways of structuring the book -- chronological, by important people in American history, etc. -- until a relative reminded him of the Chinese system of elements: wood, earth, water, fire and metal (there's a sixth -- air). That seemed to him to be a way to put the book in order, although he worried that following a Chinese system might be off-putting to American readers. In my review of the book for The Seattle Times, I did not mention this organizational structure. I thought it a bit strange, but not off-putting. Had he followed it more strictly, or mentioned it more often, I might have found it intrusive. But it stays in the background, guiding the development of the book but not getting in the way.

Last necessity? That would be decent writing, of course. You'll find lots of that in the book.

Find a new angle and always gather string

Whether you like sports or not, this is a great article that should remind writers of two things: Find a new angle to a well-covered topic and always gather string.

Ken Norton's death meant many writers would be eulogizing the 1970's boxer who fought Muhammed Ali three times. This author found a way to do so that brings a fresh approach and tells us something even the most ardent boxing fan might not know about Norton.

Also notice that Leigh Montville, the author, got the information from an interview he did with Norton in 1995. Like all good hoarders, writers should keep bits of string, roll them in a ball to be unrolled and used who knows when. Save your notebooks, mark them so you can find that bit of information you need to take a new angle or provide background in a new piece you are writing. If you have your notes online, start files to keep it all straight. You might even consider developing a spreadsheet as a master file of where your interview notes or past stories are kept.

Zinsser keeps teaching despite blindness

For the past four years when I have taught the non-fiction writing class at the Professional and Continuing Education program at the University of Washington, I have used William Zinsser's book "On Writing Well." It's my preference probably because I agree with nearly everything he says there: Make sure every word is doing work, etc.

He's right in line with my goal of getting the most meaning out of the fewest number of words -- OK, I'm in line with his purpose in non-fiction writing, not the other way around.

All these many words to introduce a New York Times story on what Zinsser, at age 90, is doing now. Have a look.

This looks like a really good book to have

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd Tracy Kidder (The Soul of a New Machine) and his longtime editor, Richard Todd, are rock stars of narrative nonfiction. When they talk about their art and craft, you'd be wise to listen. In Good Prose they share both practical editing advice and general narrative recommendations relating to things like structure, point of view, style and voice. Rather than just collaborating on a single seamless text, however, each intersperses his own thoughts amid the guidelines and examples. The resulting easygoing ramble on good writing is as entertaining as it is useful. It is hard to avoid aphorisms in this sort of book, and Kidder and Todd are not afraid to include several. For example, in discussing where to start a work, they caution that "the heart of the story is a place to arrive at, not a place to begin." In a discussion of authorial voice, they advise "if you can't imagine saying something aloud, then you probably shouldn't write it." Fortunately, they break the schoolhouse rules with pertinent quotations from many nonfiction writers (from Montaigne to David Foster Wallace) and personal commentaries on Kidder's own books. When thousands of books, tweets, 'zines and blogs confront readers every day, perhaps the best advice Kidder and Todd have for writers is to first ask themselves: "Who am I to be writing this? Who asked me? Who cares?" Honest answers here might mercifully cut down the clutter. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan. Discover: An entertaining, useful ramble about good writing by a Pulitzer Prize-winning master and his longtime editor. Random House, $26 hardcover, 9781400069750

The alumni speak

From Steve:

I am working on a project to create concerts in August at the Panama Hotel inspired by history mentioned in the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

4Culture provided significant grant funding and I set up a blog at http://holdenontooscar.blogspot.com/ to chronicle my progress. Hope you can attend!

In April I will find out if I was accepted to a Biography Fellowship at CUNY. Even if that doesn't pan out, the process of applying helped focus my book project.

-Steve Griggs
http://stevegriggsmusic.blogspot.com/

From Viv

Along with a friend, I just started a new Meetup: Seattle Social Media Meetup. We are having our first meeting on Wednesday, February 6th. The meeting day will always be the first Wednesday of the month.

This group has been needed for a long time so people are jumping on it pretty quick. We have only had it up 2 days and have not publicized it anywhere yet, but had 10 people join just last night! It will be a collaborative, supportive, informative group. We plan to have a speaker each month. (I know this won't mean much to all of you, but we are modeling this after the Seattle WordPress Meetup which is a phenomenal group.)

Starting this group is directly aligned with my writing. I made the decision to spend this year focussing on building a platform; a following of fans. As part of that, I decided to set the book off to the side while I focus on blogging and social media. The writing and research I am doing on the blog will feed into the book eventually. But I realized I needed to "chunk out" the process and decided to make social media my first focus.

Over the holiday I focussed on getting my blog up and running solidly on self -hosted Wordpress plus invested the time to really learn Twitter. I launched my new plan just a week ago and have been blown away by the increase in traffic - to my blog and Twitter. The numbers may not look impressive yet but that is a big increase in followers and I also had a big leap in subscriptions. It is quite exciting! Twitter: @ejbrowne Blog: DancingUpsideDown.com

Hope to see some of you in February 6th.

Viv Ilo E. Veith
Cell: 206.696.8904
Twitter: @viviloveith
vividlyclear.com