There’s a painful moment that happens in almost every writing feedback session, and it goes something like this: the writer has been talking about something enormous–a philosophy, an abstract argument, a way of seeing the world–and the agent across the table finally says, “I like the feel of it, but what is it about?”
The 10,000-Foot Problem
You can pitch from many altitudes. You can drop into a character’s body, or see the whole thing from space.
When you’re dealing with big ideas, it’s tempting to stay at 10,000 feet.
You can see everything at once from there, after all–your entire cast of characters, maybe even your town as a character. Plus, describing your ideas in the abstract makes them feel bigger, more important.
But here’s the catch: nobody can live at 10,000 feet. Even pilots eventually run out of fuel and need to land.
And readers need somewhere to land emotionally.
Imagine a specific, hypothetical person. Not “the reader,” but a specific possible reader. We named our hypothetical Harry–who’s driving a car and about to run into a building and maybe this nonfiction book’s philosophies on life will help him.
What concept, right now, in this moment, would benefit Harry?
That’s not making your work commercial or oversimplified.
It’s giving it humanity.
The Idea Might Be an Experience–But the Reader Still Needs Bulletpoints
Some ideas really are best experienced rather than described. That’s not a flaw in the idea. Most readers love an experience (except those weirdos that only read nonfiction).
But it creates a real tension: your query still has to have an answer to that most horrible of questions (second only to “What’s for dinner?”): What is the book about?
As for the agent reading? Picture them. They just had lunch. The caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet. They’ve got to get through 40 queries today.
They need to be able to describe what you’ve made to themselves before they can champion it to anyone else.
If they have no idea what you’re talking about, unfortunately, they simply don’t have time to ask.
And low caffeination + high reading speeds + high quantity + high pressure does not increase comprehension. Optimize for that reader, and you’re well on your way.
“All Vibes, No Plot”
Even if they can’t understand it, an agent can feel that something is there. They can sense a goal, a conflict, maybe even emotional payoff.
But if they can’t find it or articulate it, there’s not much they can do. They can skip your confusing query and go to the pages–but if you start in abstraction there, too, they’ll likely give up.
If you’re writing practical nonfiction, think about benefit to your reader. If a reader understands this idea, what do they get? A happier life? A different sense of morality? Permission to slow down? The ability to see the nuance underneath the world they thought they knew?
You don’t have to promise all of it. You don’t even have to promise happiness, or enlightenment, or transformation. But you have to know what the reader wants, and what they walk away with. Even if they’re not one and the same.
Maybe they come in hoping for romantic happiness–and you teach them to love themselves. Maybe they’re hoping to get a job, and you teach them to start a business. The goals don’t need to align–but they do need to be present and clear.
Borrow the Confidence of a Mediocre Self-Help Writer
This is maybe the most counterintuitive and most useful piece of advice in the whole exchange: if you’re stuck, look at how a mediocre self-help book makes its promises. Notice the structure. Notice the (sometimes completely unearned; we’ve seen bios like “I’m a human therefore I’m an expert on all humanity!”) confidence.
Here’s what most nonfiction writers are missing: telling a reader plainly what they’re going to get. (If it’s fiction, the answer is a great story—but what kind of great story? How will it feel?)
Clarity Isn’t the Enemy of Depth
It’s easy to mistake clarity for a kind of commercialization–as if making an idea easy to understand is the same as optimizing for capitalism. But fast comprehension is not the enemy of depth.
A brilliant idea, described without clarity, doesn’t reach anyone. It just hovers, maybe glows with interesting vibes–but it’s admired from a distance.
The books we love, the books that change the world, feel much closer.
Without clarity–and fast clarity, the kind that works even on a tired brain in a caffeine slump–even the best sentences in the world are floating up where no one can quite grasp them.
Try coming back down to sea level.
Find your Harry, your hypothetical reader. (We hope yours isn’t in as dire a situaton as poor Harry but, well, we were trying to make a point.)
Figure out what he needs before he runs into the building.
Or after, while he’s recovering and his friends are signing his cast.
This won’t make your ideas smaller.
It’ll make the audience of people who understand (and therefore have a chance to love!) your book that much bigger.
Many thanks to member Isaiah Behnke, lifelooknow.com, for letting us share his consultation as a learning tool.