Nicolas Cole explains why the best nonfiction answers a reader's real question through story, not definition. A viral answer about entrepreneurship beats a dry one because it shows what it's actually like: building an app, making millions, losing it all.
The greatest nonfiction writing always answers a reader's question. And it's such a simple idea, but everything that you wrote was a response to a question. It was a question-answer site. And then you noticed that the most viral answers were not just literal answers to questions, they were stories. An example I use all the time is you might come across a question that's like, "What's it like to be an entrepreneur?" And the lowest-ranked answer would be, "Being an entrepreneur is..." and then insert formal definition. The highest upvoted answer would be something like, "When I was 18 years old, I developed my first smartphone app and made $2 million." and by the time I was 21, I was broke. I had lost it all and was back living on my parents' couch. And you're like, obviously I'm gonna read the rest of the answer.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
