Writing a Non-fiction Book: Capture Real-life Experiences

Writing a Non-fiction Book: Capture Real-life Experiences

“Congratulations! You have reached the end of this course. I hope you have learnt all the skills you need to write an engaging life story. After finishing your Final Project, I'm sure you'll be in a great position to write and sell your book idea, with a detailed proposal and a sample chapter to prove its potential. Before saying g goodbye, I'd like to give you some final tips and tricks. If you're interviewing someone else to write their story, as I did with Marta, do your best to make them feel safe, comfortable, and hydrated. Ask about their childhood, and if necessary, share a bit of yourself to set them at ease. Take a belt and braces approach to recording your interviews, so you can focus on the relationship with your subject without worrying that the technology might go wrong. That means spare batteries, and ideally, a backup recording device.

Look for moments of dramatic change and be wary of plateaus. For your follow up interview, drill down into more detail on the same stories. Again, ask for physical descriptions and dialogue, and lean into any recurring motifs and themes. Seep yourself in the kind of background research that will help your story come to life on the page. Go exploring the locations you are writing about, listen to music and look at images that relate to your subject, and be prepared to go down many a google rabbit hole. Read widely, both fiction and nonfiction, and don't rule out TV and film as ways to fire up your imagination. Look for ways to apply a traditional three-act structure for maximum dramatic impact, remembering to start late and end early. Spend some time thinking about your characters. Identify their positive and negative characteristics and make sure you clearly understand what they want. Then, look for opportunities for setups and payoffs, and remember that the bigger a twist, the more critical it is that it's appropriately seeded. When you're ready to write your chapter, take a moment to think about the narrative voice you're going to use, always remember to show, don't tell, and be sure to include plenty of dialogue, using your imagination when necessary. Once you've written your sample material, print it out, put it in a drawer for a few days, and then start going through it with a red pen, editing ruthlessly. Try to make your second draft as punchy as possible. Now that you have your final project, please share it in the forum! I'd also like to see the steps you took to get there! Also, I recommend you engage in the conversation; it does wonders in publishing a story! See you there! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“ Final Project Congratulations, we've reached the end of this Domestika course. I hope you've learned the skills you need to write an engaging life story. If you followed along and completed the tasks I set throughout the course, you'll be in a great position to write and sell your book idea with a detailed proposal and a sample chapter to prove its potential. FINAL PROJECT Your final project will be unique and original to you, reflecting your own personal style. Here are a few tips and tricks to get you started. INTERVIEWING If you're interviewing someone to write this story like I did wi...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Writing a Non-fiction Book: Capture Real-life Experiences

• Level: Beginner
• 100% positive reviews (55)
• 1637 students
• 4 units
• 16 lessons (3h 39m)
• 12 downloads

• Category

  Writing

• Areas

  Communication, Creative Writing, Narrative, Non-Fiction Writing, Storytelling, Writing