Kurt Vonnegut tech writing tips
Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite writer. He shared 8 rules for story telling, which also work for non fiction — especially technical non fiction.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Your expertise is valuable, but so is the reader’s time. Reading takes a lot of effort. Make every second of it count. Keep it concise. Keep it simple. Make it as easy and quick as possible to achieve great things.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
In tech writing the reader is the main character. They want to accomplish something new, challenging, and rewarding. The reader must know you’re on their side. Root for them.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
What does your reader want, and why? Fully understand their desires and motivations. Your reader has a goal. Know it. Show it. Satisfy it.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
So much tech writing is so much blah.
A reader doesn’t want your brain dump. They want revelations — eureka moments that will make them sit up and take notice. And they want to advance towards their goal, constantly. Build your writing around forward motion towards the goal and revelations to tricky puzzles or questions the reader is asking themselves.
Don’t just tell, don’t just show, reveal.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
Define your book’s goal rigorously. What does the reader want to be able to do by the end? Every page stands between the reader and their goal — so the fewer the better. Ditch the introductions, the preamble, the history. Throw them straight in.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Most tech is awful. It’s fussy, complicated, confusing, and inconsistent. There are countless opportunities to mess up. Establish obstacles and difficulties for the reader to face. Create drama. It’s better that they face these challenges in the protected environment of the book than the harsh reality of the outside world.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Imagine a single target reader and focus on them. Imagine they’re sitting with you, and write what you would tell them in conversation. Anticipate that person’s questions, problems, points of confusion. Let the reader’s needs and wants pull words from you — don’t push your words onto them.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
A lot of tech books try to teach readers one isolated component at a time. To hell with that. Bring all the components in early. Show them what they’l have built by the end — give them a screen shot. Build working examples in the first chapter. Then keep adding complexity and progress until the happy final page.
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