Tell It Slant, Second Edition

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. —TONI MORRISON

Readers tend to care deeply only about those things they feel in the body at a visceral level. And so as a writer consider your vocation as that of a translator: one who renders the abstract into the concrete. We experience the world through our senses. We must translate that experience into the language of the senses as well.

By paying attention to the sensory gateways of the body, you also begin to write in a way that naturally embodies experience, making it tactile for the reader.

We go to literature—and perhaps especially creative nonfiction literature—to learn not about the author, but about ourselves; we want to be moved in some way.

Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. … If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else. —N. SCOTT MOMADAY

to tell the truth, yes, but to become more than a mere transcriber of life’s factual experiences.

What are the smells you remember that even in memory make you stop a moment and breathe deeply, or that make your heart beat more vigorously, your palms ache for what’s been lost? Write these down. Write as quickly as you can, seeing how one smell leads to another. What kinds of images, memories, or stories might arise from this sensory trigger?

Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. … If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else. —N. SCOTT MOMADAY

In nonfiction, if we place a premium on fact, then this man’s diary would be the ultimate masterpiece. But in literature and art, we applaud style, meaning, and effect over the bare facts.