Anne Janzer

I feel slightly sorry for Anne Janzer, the author. When you write a book with this title, you are really setting yourself up for the critics who suggest that you are not very good at it yourself. However, I think she has done a fairly good job and has employed many, if not most of the techniques that she recommends. First, she has been humble enough to seek out the advice of good non-fiction writers and draw on them as case studies....She also recommends being humble. I also empathised with show more her when she mentions non-fiction writers slavishly following a formula such as commence each chapter with a story etc., etc. I read a lot of non-fiction and I really do get tired of this formulaic approach by so many authors.
Overall, I think she has done a very good job. She sets the stage by saying that you need to write for a specific audience and you are never going to win over the whole audience. I especially liked the section where she deals with writing for an antagonistic audience; who already have their minds made up and have no intention of changing their views. My former colleague Ralph E was mystified about how intelligent people could accept and defend ideas where the data seemed unequivocal and opposed to their way of thinking. Yet they could come up with the most contorted explanations to explain the data and preferred this to changing their minds. Anne, kind-of, deals with this. But doesn’t really come up with a solution....I guess the key to Anne’s book is that it’s about writing to be understood....not to be believed. I’m somewhat surprised that no-where does she use Rudoph Flesch’s work and tests on the “readability” or ‘comprehension” of text. I remember reading his book about 60 years ago and it had an enormous impact on me. I still remember much of his mantra: Short sentences; use verbs; use personal pronouns...and I consciously try to incorporate this into my writing. (And use his test to check how I’m doing). But that reminds me of a situation where I had written a book for a UN organisation and it was going through the process of peer review. One of the critics/reviewers complained that it was written too much in a “chatty: style rather that in the formal style admired in the UN. I had run it through the Flesch test which suggested that it was written at an appropriate level for a high school graduate. I thought this was about right as many of the potential readers would not have English as their first language. Fortunately, the editor and the publications manager agreed wholeheartedly with me on this. So no re-writing on this score, anyway.
Anyway, I liked Anne’s book a lot. And I’ve learned a lot from it and will try and apply some of the lessons in my future writing. Five stars from me.
I’ve extracted some of the gems from the book below: mainly to help me remember it and refer back to it...but it may also help others.
“Introduction: Why are certain writers so effective at connecting with us and explaining complicated and unfamiliar topics, while others leave us cold?.....Determining what “works” in writing is a highly subjective exercise....In doing the research for this book, I started by surveying the writers I find particularly engaging and successful....I dissected these authors’ writing strategies to tease out what they did. To offset my own biases, I interviewed many nonfiction lovers about their strategies and favourite writers.
The same methods and techniques appeared repeatedly: stories, explanatory analogies, skilful use of details, figurative language, repetition, and more.....A piece of writing succeeds or fails not on the page but in a reader’s head. To increase the impact of your nonfiction writing, focus beyond the words and topic, on the minds of the readers.
If, as is often the case, the intersection of your enthusiasm and the readers’ interests is a narrow sliver, don’t worry. Skilful writers expand the sweet spot as they write. They do this by understanding what’s going on in the readers’ heads.....I’m assuming that you’re either a nonfiction writer seeking to explain things or someone who loves reading this kind of work. Either way, you’re curious about what makes the best writers so effective.....The end goal is being understood, and understanding is a cognitive function....Masterful communicators make esoteric subjects interesting for the rest of us.....Simply reading this book won’t make you a better writer. If only it were that easy! By exploring and practicing the methods in this book, you can expand your skill set and develop a writing style that reaches more people.
As the world grows ever more complex, we need people who write and speak across industry and genre boundaries, who incite our curiosity and show us the truths we should see.
I. Understanding Your Readers: Authors who are expert in their fields can fall prey to one of two conflicting temptations in this situation:....They stick to writing for readers they know, such as colleagues or people like them.....Conversely, they may attempt to write for everyone, assuming that the reader brings nothing to the conversation. This approach often results in a generic, dull description that interests no one.
No matter how compelling you find your topic, you won’t reach everyone—that’s a given.
Put aside your fascination with the subject and think about the target audience....It may be counterintuitive, but if you want to reach a larger audience, consider concentrating more closely on a specific segment of it. To broaden your impact, tighten your focus on the reader.
Once you’ve chosen a target reader or two, make a list of the identities, beliefs, or experiences you may have in common. Particularly when you’re trying to reach people outside your field,.....When we first meet someone, we instinctively look for ways that we are the same or different. We’re not aware of many of these us/ them filters. Deep in our primitive minds, we are trying to determine if the person poses a threat.
Our social identities are fluid.....When reading fiction or nonfiction, we virtually inhabit different groups, perspectives, and identities. So, take your readers’ roles and identities into consideration when writing.......In the technology industry, where I spent my career, businesses create buyer personas, or detailed profiles of buyers and decision-makers. Personas begin with job titles and add general demographic and psychographic information, such as attitudes and aspirations, to create a fictional character who represents a segment of buyers. Armed with this insight, marketers generate content to meet the needs of specific groups of prospects and customers....Writers can benefit from doing something similar.
Aiming for a market segment isn’t enough. We don’t write for data or segments—we write for people.....For example, you might start with People who read the New York Times and are interested in housing policy.....Look for shared experiences and identities.....“When we find one place of agreement, it’s easier to get to the next place of agreement.
These are my three essential rules for choosing your ideal reading audience:
1. Your audience is never “everyone.”
2. Having a specific audience makes your writing better.
3. Personas, demographic classifications, and customer segments aren’t people. Write for people.

Daniel Pink writes about topics ranging from neuroscience to human motivation to chronobiology, explaining these subjects for the general reading public....It turns out that he applies many of the writing practices described in this book, while focusing relentlessly on the needs of his audience.....What’s more, one of my own tests of whether I understand a concept is whether I can explain it quickly and clearly to someone who knows little about the subject.”...“In the writing itself, my circle is quite small. The most important reader is my wife, who is also my business partner. She reads every word I write—often multiple times. She is an extremely sharp-minded and astute reader who—and this is important—doesn’t shy away from telling me I’m not making sense.
In each of his books, Pink draws readers in with stories and anecdotes told well.
I asked him how he found the balance of story, data, and exposition. His response: “I don’t aim for specific ratios. But I think hard about what combination is the best way to get across an idea. Sometimes doing that requires leaning more heavily on one particular element.
What other advice does he offer to nonfiction writers? “Three things. Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite.”
How can we train ourselves to think about that absent reader and their needs? We need to develop empathy for people who are not present.....Cognitive empathy refers to the ability to take another person’s perspective......Affective empathy is the ability to summon the appropriate emotional response for another person’s emotional state. The common refrain for affective empathy is “I feel your pain.”
As a writer, cognitive empathy helps you understand readers’ perspectives: what they already know and need to know, what they are doing when they encounter this information.
always remember that human thought is a complex combination of abstract thought, linear thinking, associative processes, emotions, sensory perceptions, mental shortcuts, and ephemeral memories. You are not an entirely rational being. Nor is your reader. By planting yourself firmly in the field of rationality and ignoring emotion, you reduce the effectiveness of your writing.
At the risk of vastly oversimplifying a complex field, let’s create a working model of the reader’s brain,
• Sensory systems interpret the sight, sound, touch, and other senses.
• Reasoning systems include the prefrontal cortex and other regions of the brain that manage language, symbols, and abstractions....But the reasoning mind isn’t always rational.
• Emotional systems use evolutionarily older parts of the brain, including the limbic systems. Some emotions run pretty deep.
Further back in time and lower in the brain you’ll find the amygdala, an ancient structure that manages the quick responses that keep us alive in times of threat. It’s home to the “fight or flight” instinct. Emotions related to the amygdala (fear, disgust, etc.) kick in quickly, before rational thought has a chance to work.
The limbic (emotional) systems may respond to the ideas or to the writer personally. A reader who feels threatened might have an active amygdala response as well.
You are writing for the reader’s entire mind, not just the rational parts. I’m not saying that you should overtly manipulate people, but if you want to be effective in reaching your audience, understand how and why readers react to your writing.
The most effective writers don’t simply explain things—they make their ideas memorable. They leverage innate communication skills to connect with other people....Writers apply different techniques and strategies for reminding themselves about the reader, so as to activate cognitive empathy.
• Many people visualize their ideal readers when drafting.
• A few paste pictures of target audience members on their walls.
• Others try out topics or ideas on existing groups of colleagues, students, family members, or strangers at parties.
In his book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?, Alda describes how he realized that improvisational acting techniques could help scientists communicate more effectively....It makes sense. Improvisation requires that actors focus intently on their scene partners to follow what’s happening. The two cardinal rules of improv are saying yes, and… to any situation offered you, and always making your partner look good.
Alda didn’t stop at applying this insight to his own television work. He joined up with Stony Brook University in New York and lent his name to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, where training and research continues in this intersection of empathy and scientific or medical communication.....Says Laura Lindenfeld, director of the Alda Center, “Our mission is to train scientists and medical professionals to communicate with empathy, warmth, and clarity.”
“Principally, the same things that make you a good speaker make you a good writer. It has to do with your relationship with the audience....Communication is about being present with your audience—whether it’s a real one standing before you or a virtual audience
Methods for Writers: Getting to Know Your Readers To develop cognitive empathy for your reader, use a two-pronged approach: get in front of real people, and then ponder their needs when they are absent. Here are a few strategies....Hold a workshop, and talk with people directly.....Or, find a friend or colleague who can serve as a proxy or stand-in for your ideal reader......Do whatever it takes to test your message with other people and see how they respond. Do their eyes light up? Are they confused?....This tactic only works if you pay attention to the other person.....Will they encounter this piece of writing as one more thing to do in a busy day? If so, you’ll have to earn their attention—What’s their motivation for reading?...Do they need a quick answer? If so, what are their questions? Anticipate and answer their questions up front, then go into the “how and why” of your answers.
Write a letter to yourself from your ideal reader, with all the questions you think they might ask.
Few of your readers care about what you know, no matter how many years you have spent accumulating that wisdom. They care about what they need or want to understand....You’ll have to decide what to include and what to leave out. The more you love your subject, the harder this decision can be....Once we know something, it’s difficult to remember not knowing it. We take our knowledge for granted...When smart, caring people write incomprehensible stuff, the curse of knowledge is usually to blame. It plagues experts who write for the layperson, or the industry insider addressing an outsider....Before you write a single word, you face a fundamental decision about exactly what you want and need to cover. Answer these three questions. Breadth: Will you cover a single issue or a wide range of topics?...Depth: Should you dive into details? How many are necessary? Background: How much does the reader already know, and how much will you need to backfill?....These decisions depend almost entirely on your readers.
For some books, breadth is part of the essential value, as in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry....Tyson went wide, not deep...The book is a masterful example of writing about a complex and abstract topic....The KISS mantra can become a convenient excuse for hiding complexity that you would rather people not see, such as:
Removing transparency from investments, because investors don’t need to know the possible risks...Not communicating to patients the complete range of treatment options available or the potential risks...Get to the important points. Don’t lead with the gnarly details, but don’t hide them, either.
Sabine Hossenfelder..is a theoretical physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and writes about physics....She reports, “The most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves. How can we blame them for not knowing what it takes if we never tell them?”
Deciding what to cover and what to leave out challenges everyone.....Get guidance from outsiders
“There are two dangers to knowing your subject matter well. First, you think everyone else knows it already, and as a result, no one understands what you write. Or, you think that nobody knows this stuff, and you go into excruciating detail.”...The key, says Popky, is getting feedback from the right individuals. “You need people who understand the audience and provide the right level of feedback at the right time....Identify your key points...If the audience will only remember two to three things from your talk, what would they be? Once you know those points, underline and repeat them.”....The more time and effort we have invested in the words, the harder it is to cut them. That’s a problem, because the most valuable editing tool is often the Delete key....Instead of deleting sections, relocate them.
When editing my book manuscripts, I create a companion file called “Stuff that needs a new home.”....Now you’ve got a rich source of material for other purposes, such as blog posts, articles, examples, speeches, or lessons.
Before you begin the work, do a site survey of your audience’s understanding of the topic. Make your best guesses for the following questions: What do the readers already know that is correct? What do they imagine they know about the topic?...What do they believe that is wrong or incomplete?....We cannot possibly know everything we need to know, so we rely on other experts to understand things for us. However, we unconsciously claim ownership of expertise that doesn’t live in our own heads.
When writing to explain, you may need to navigate the reader’s illusion that they already know enough about the topic....Consider the numerous urban legends that persist to this day, despite constant debunking....These legends spread and persist because they combine emotional context (often fear) with effective storytelling.
In his marvellous book “A Field Guide to Lies”, the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin writes:
It’s important to accept that in complex events, not everything is explainable, because not everything was observed or reported....Put this understanding of human cognitive foibles into the hands of entities that want to control our beliefs, and misinformation can take a dark turn into destructive rumour, political mudslinging, and intentional manipulation....Whether you’re confronting actively disseminated doubt and misinformation or the product of loosely regulated thought and looser ethics, the result is the same. You need to deconstruct a belief that has already taken hold in the reader’s head......Here are a few strategies you might use to scope out the extent of misinformation you may face.
• Check social media
• Let Google help you.....For example, typing....”How the moon landing was faked” directed me to a Wikipedia page about the conspiracy theories.
Writing Advice from a Cognitive Scientist....Dr. Steven Sloman teaches psychology to college students, contributes to and edits academic journals, and writes for the general public. He said: “I’ve come to appreciate that in general, many readers don’t want much detail. “You have to keep one group interested, while also satisfying the more reflective and detail-oriented readers.....I try to appeal to both groups. First, I present a concept in a skeletal way, so the people who only want a high-level understanding get what they need. Then I describe the ideas in more detail for the second group, and the first group passes their eyes over it, feeling like they understand.”.......“We spent a lot of time thinking carefully about which were the right stories to tell. We were very selective....Evidence and storytelling are separate but both necessary.”
Sloman and Fernbach warn against attempting to abruptly shatter people’s illusions. Telling people that they’re wrong is a great way to antagonize them....“First, recognize the range of values out there, so the readers feel that their views have been acknowledged. If you’re talking about abortion, for example, start with ‘some people feel that abortion is murder and others that it represents an individual’s personal choices.’ Lay out the range of values first,
Sloman suggests that writers focus the discussion on causes and consequences instead of values.....Succeeding with a tough audience isn’t easy. Your success rate will never reach 100 percent.....If you don’t acknowledge the situation before you set out, however, you may lose more people than you reach.....Let’s look at three types of potential resistance to your topic:
1. People who have already made up their minds and resist changing them
2. People who simply don’t want to hear about what you’re writing because they feel threatened by it at some level.....
3. Readers with deeply held beliefs that are in conflict with your ideas

According to psychologist Arie Kruglanski, people exhibit different levels of a need for closure as a personality trait.....People with a strong need for closure tend to make decisions more quickly in uncertain situations. Having made a decision, they stick to it with more tenacity.....Remember that a straightforward, evidence-based approach may not work when minds are already convinced.....We all maintain filters for the facts and data we are willing to absorb.....The gray rhino is Wucker’s metaphor for those obvious, high-probability problems that we choose not to think about. On an individual basis, ignoring our gray rhinos can be hazardous, such as when people in the path of a hurricane disregard evacuation orders, or heart-attack survivors neglect to make lifestyle changes.
If you’re writing about a well-known risk, recognize the strength of any potential denial you might face. Find creative and constructive ways to invite the reader to contemplate topics they would rather ignore. Pay particular attention to upcoming chapters on analogies and storytelling,....When your topic area impinges on your readers’ moral or ethical beliefs, reason and evidence won’t suffice.....Modern-day writers may not realize when they trespass on deeply held beliefs...We are surprised when our rational, logical words create a storm of emotional response.
Dave Gray In his book “Liminal Thinking: Create the Change You Want by Changing the Way You Think”, he writes: “Beliefs are unconsciously defended by a bubble of self-sealing logic, which maintains them even when they are invalid, to protect personal identity and self-worth”........Deeply held beliefs resist attempts to poke holes in their logic or consistency. Only in the case of beliefs, people can keep using them for a long time after they start springing leaks. Your beliefs originate from many sources: family, religious or social institutions, personal observation, popular culture, the media, and more. They are not entirely shaped by rationality. They seem obvious to you, and thus are hard to detect.....In his book The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes six “foundations” of moral feeling and thought, which are shared between different people and cultures in different doses, and consist of:
1. Care/ Harm (Does this harm someone?)
2. Fairness/ Cheating (Is someone taking unfair advantage?)
3. Loyalty/ Betrayal (Is this disloyal, unpatriotic, etc.?)
4. Authority/ Subversion (Is this disrespectful?)
5. Sanctity/ Degradation (Does this violate a deep inner sense of human dignity?)
6. Liberty/ Oppression (Does this impede my freedom or rights?)

Haidt compares these values to taste buds.....You may not like spicy food yourself, but you realize that billions of people around the world do....When people make moral judgments about a situation, they deploy a combination of these foundational issues....Haidt suggests that many political divides result from mismatched moral foundations. Some people care primarily about care/ harm or fairness/ cheating, while others call on more of the foundations, including loyalty, respect, and sanctity.
You cannot simply reason away a reader’s deeper beliefs. Haidt writes:...People sometimes have gut feelings—particularly about disgust and disrespect—that can drive their reasoning. Moral reasoning is sometimes a post hoc fabrication....Given those different foundations, people will always disagree about what’s right. Society is best served when opposing sides collaborate and balance each other out. We can do that only if we listen to each other and interact with civility.
You won’t win over everyone.....Maybe you’ll reach a few hundred, or more. Start by setting realistic expectations....Let’s start with the easy part: what doesn’t work:
• Data, data, and more data.....
• Lecturing.....Instead, help the reader see through another’s eyes.
• Insisting on being right.
• Before you can effectively reach people with different beliefs, first you must understand your own.
Dave Gray argues that we must cross the thresholds of our own belief systems.“ I recommend that you learn to access your emotional state, especially as you react to new information or other people’s ideas. Are you feeling curiosity or a more negative emotion, like fear, anger, or anxiety? If you have a strong emotional reaction to a concept, it’s very likely you are having that feeling because the new information somehow threatens a belief that you hold.....“You may want to bifurcate yourself into two personalities—the writer and the editor. The writer can be driven by strong emotion but the editor should keep a cool head and focus on triangulation. Ask yourself: Who agrees with these points? Who is likely to disagree? Who will be threatened by this?”......Understand and appeal to the various ethical foundations (moral taste buds) of your readers. Anchor the discussion around the beliefs that are important to your audience. If you are hoping to reach a socially conservative readership, think about ways to address concerns of loyalty or sanctity.
The now-famous images of suffering polar bears trigger the care/ harm foundation, but there are many others. Do we have a sacred obligation to be caretakers of the planet? Do we demonstrate loyalty to the community and the next generation by taking a long view? Is it fair for one group to consume finite shared resources or take actions that affect impoverished countries around the globe?.....Experiment with presenting your ideas in relation to different values, beyond the ones that seem obvious to you.
As author of the book The Gray Rhino, Michele Wucker is accustomed to the challenges of writing and speaking about the risks we don’t want to think about.....She suggests that before you even start writing, frame your work in the terms of what the audience needs. “Who is your audience, and what do you want them to do or think differently because they read this....Do you want them to change their minds, are you helping them to understand an issue, or both?.....Test your message.....Focus on the positive.....When writing about obvious risk, it’s easy and tempting to dwell on the downside, or attempt to spur action by highlighting the magnitude of the risk. This approach can backfire. Say Wucker, “Write to hope, not just to fear......Watch your tone and style.....Don’t preach. Don’t bombard people with facts, but do include enough facts, in context, that you have strong evidence to back up your point of view. Steer clear of anything that sounds like a personal attack.....Don’t use hot-button words that raise up reader defences....Finally, Wucker accepts that there will always be pushback when writing about this sort of topic.
II. How to Explain Complicated Ideas: In 2012, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced they had observed a particle consistent with theories of the Higgs boson....Journalists struggled to describe the importance of the discovery....Whether pleasure or pain, curiosity clearly runs deep in our human nature. As a species, human beings have benefited significantly from our ability to learn, and curiosity spurs learning. How can you activate your readers’ curiosity?....You want to appeal to the intrinsic desire to learn....Lead with the benefit.....To appeal to Litman’s D-type, deprivation-based curiosity, induce a knowledge gap: expose contradictions, paradoxes, or puzzles, or pose an intriguing question. Having activated the gap, make sure to fill it.
We are not particularly interested in subjects about which we know almost everything or practically nothing. We tend to be interested when we know quite a bit but feel that there is more to be learned.....Of the nonfiction books intended for a general audience on my bookshelf, a large percentage begin with a story that, at first glance, has nothing to do with the title of the book......When it comes to hooking your readers, who better to ask than Nir Eyal, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products?
III. How to Not Be Boring:...When writing outside of an academic context, you cannot assume the same relationship with the readers......Identify the tone you want to communicate, and then let that decision guide stylistic decisions.....A so-called conversational tone is often effective for communicating complicated or abstract ideas in a direct, person-to-person way......When it comes to mechanics, writing is nothing like speaking....Real conversation has much more going on than simply words passing back and forth. Please don't write exactly as you speak.
Readers need more clarity than that.....In an in-person interaction, we rely on physical cues, intonation, pacing, and nonverbal articulations to communicate.....The easiest path to comprehension is often a tone that mimics a personal exchange. The reader "hears" your voice as if you were there, speaking with them, but without the messiness of real conversation.....A conversational style isn't your only choice as a writer. You might aim for an objective, journalistic tone, or a more elevated, formal tone.....If you seek to change the tone of your writing during revision, you will generate the largest impact by working with these four elements of your writing style:
1. Paragraph length
2. Sentence structure
3. Point of view (first-, second-, or third-person)
4. Vocabulary (word choices)

Short paragraphs offer the reader a chance to process what they've been reading. Breaking up long blocks of text may be the fastest way to lighten the tone of your writing....Briefer sentences communicate more effectively, particularly for people reading online....Simply saying "you and I" instead of "the author" and "consumers" or other abstractions will make your writing more personal, and hence warmer.
12. Images and Imagery:...When we read about an image, we visualize it. When we read about an action, we imagine performing it, readying our own muscles to do the same thing......Nonfiction writers can leverage the power of images to connect with their readers' minds.....When you encounter a metaphor while reading, you might stop for a moment and regroup. The part of your brain that has been parsing the language is momentarily confused: Well, this is unexpected! Remember, surprise is one of the sources of curiosity....Unexpected metaphors can hook the reader, at least for a moment....The power of metaphors and similes to grab attention derives in part from their novelty. When used frequently, metaphors and similes lose the element of surprise.
If you use a simile (this company is like a unicorn), you owe it to the reader to explain it. You cannot simply move on to another topic....In writing about physics, Hossenfelder finds that people seize on those metaphors too literally....She writes: A typical problem is that, in the absence of equations, [people] project literal meanings onto words such as 'grains' of space-time or particles 'popping' in and out of existence. Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors......Metaphor or simile connects with readers only if it is familiar to them already.
Negative images: Words related to warfare and weaponry crop up in the strangest places, like a "battle" against illiteracy or "taking aim" at poverty. Ouch. Even common verbs like trigger can trigger a reaction....Once analogies or metaphors morph into figures of speech, we lose sight of the cultural or emotional context they bring along with them.
13. Credibility, Humanity, and Humility:...Think about the nonfiction writers you most enjoy, whose works you read regardless of the subject.....They show up as real human beings, and narrow the distance between their own expert status and your understanding. They treat you, the reader, with respect, and themselves with humility.....People who lead into their subject by writing about their credentials often seem self-absorbed. Unless the author is a celebrity, the reader is there to learn about the topic....As it turns out, the easier you make it for readers to understand your topic, the smarter they think you are....The path to credibility lies in connecting with your readers authentically and earning their trust.....Science is often taught through the stories of the people making the discoveries, connecting abstract topics to real people. Nearly every topic has a human angle.....If you want to be human in your writing, add a dash of humility as well.
In an experiment, the listeners didn't always warm to the accomplished, high-performing contestants. They preferred the smart students who had made the unrelated gaffe, spilling coffee, to the other accomplished candidates.......it made them more human...When you think of the reader as your equal—perhaps not in subject matter expertise, but in other ways—you escape the curse of condescension. If you show up as a fallible and curious human being in your writing, readers are more likely to trust you.
Rules to remember:.....Credibility is granted by the reader, not asserted by the writer. Earn it rather than insisting on it. To connect more deeply with individual readers, give them a glimpse of yourself as a real person......A small amount of vulnerability can help you earn the reader's attention or trust.
14. Humour:....On his HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, comedian John Oliver regularly tackles complicated financial, scientific, and legal issues...Oliver's entertaining treatments often inspire action beyond the show. So, what's going on here? How can these esoteric and downright depressing topics be funny?....Thomas Veatch, posits that to be funny, a joke must 1) violate a subjective expectation, and 2) still represent a normal situation......Jamie Holmes describes it beautifully in his book “Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing”: For puns and jokes, laughter is a testament to the voracious power of our sense-making minds, as all three of the processes involved-expectation, surprise, and the discovery of a rule that resolves the puzzle-happen almost instantaneously......Focus on having fun rather than being funny. "People fundamentally misunderstand what humour can be. Everyone thinks I have to be funny. On the improv stage, if you're trying hard to be funny, you will fall flat. Being funny isn't the most important thing—having a sense of fun is. Fun makes a big difference in writing. You can't get to funny without fun."
Humour hints:....Aim for a smile rather than a guffaw. Deploy humour in service of the content, not the other way around. Focus on the positive; remember the role of humour for signalling that everything is OK.
15. Finding Your Personal Style:.....Even if you master every method here, you won't reach everyone.....Occasionally, I sense an author adhering to a specific formula or set of rules that remains constant throughout a book, such as: Start every chapter with a story. Cut back and forth between the anchoring story and the background explanation three times in each chapter. End each chapter with a teaser of about three stories you will share in the next chapter. These formulas are like training wheels. They take you only so far, and at a certain point, they'll get in your way......I cannot give you a story-to-data ratio, nor tell you how many metaphors to use per thousand words. There is no single formula.....You'll have to find your own balance......Even among devoted readers, some people respond to stories, others to data, and others to an apt analogy that resonates with them. The most adept writers combine techniques to reach more people.
Summary: ...In this book, you've encountered ways to explain abstract topics, such as using analogies, anecdotes, and repetition. You've surveyed methods for sustaining the reader's interest, including appealing to innate curiosity, using figurative language, and infusing your writing with humour and humility.....You can adjust your style to reach a broader audience or connect more deeply with your readers.
The way that you mix and blend these tools becomes part of your personal nonfiction style.
Writing this book has changed the way I read nonfiction, since I cannot help mentally labelling the writing methods as they whiz past. (Humour! Personal anecdote! Clever analogy!) I now see the forest and the trees, switching perspective with disconcerting regularity.
Here's my call to action for you: Select a few methods from this book and adopt them in your writing. You're probably already doing most of them, but see what happens when you use these techniques with intention. Experiment”. show less

Janzer provides an insider’s view of the inner battle between natural adversaries – the creative versus the disciplined sides of any writer – and offers help on reconciling them to achieve writing success. Her concise prose, precision word choice, and effective use of clever metaphors throughout her book bring clarity to the abstract and a pleasurable reading experience. The Writer’s Process delivers an interesting slant on the craft of writing to aspiring and experienced authors alike.

No. This is an insulting book. There are far better writing books. You'll get more from reading the psychology and drawing your own conclusions. This is shallow and cursory. DNF at 15%, barely into part one.

Here is the paragraph that ejected me from this waste of time:

"Consider the tortured novelist, forever toiling in obscurity on a manuscript that never finds its way into readers’ hands. This writer lives almost solely in the domain of the Muse (the intuitive and impulsive), without show more the discipline of the Scribe."

Consider, author, that 'tortured' is a harmful cliché and you are an awful human for putting it here.

Consider that obscurity is not damming for many writers. MANY writers.

Consider that a if there's a manuscript, writing is happening, which means both your scribe and your muse 'characters' are at work BY YOUR OWN DEFINITIONS, thus contradicting the last sentence. Did you edit this at all? You conflated writing and being published. They are not simultaneous, nor are they at all the same thing, and here is where I will never read anything you write ever again.

The more I think about this, the angrier I get. show less

I found this book to be fantastic. I have read a number of books on the writing process as a creative writing teacher. I feel though that Janzer's book is the most accessible while still also providing really good information. I especially respect that she has re published a new edition that has updated information regarding using or not using AI in writing and how to do it well. As an English teacher I plan to recommend all my colleagues at the very least review the section on AI as Janzer show more has some of the most succinct and well written advice on how to use AI ethically and responsibly. I highly recommend this book! show less