Ep 147: 5 Editing Rules that Instantly Improve Any Nonfiction Manuscript

If you’re writing a nonfiction book or memoir and your draft feels messy, scattered, or “not quite ready,” this episode will help you clean it up fast. I’m sharing 5 editing rules that instantly improve any nonfiction manuscript — the same rules I use to help guide the authors whose manuscripts I edit. 

These are the patterns I’ve seen again and again after coaching hundreds of authors, editing countless drafts, and publishing six nonfiction books of my own. When you understand these rules, your writing gets clearer, tighter, and far more compelling. And most importantly, your reader stays with you.

Inside the episode, you’ll learn:
 – Why your intro is probably too long
 – How writing for ONE reader changes everything
 – How to make each chapter deliver a single promise
 – The difference between clarity and jargon
 – How to end chapters with momentum (and why that matters more than you think)

If you want help starting your book, you can grab my free “Can't Stop Writing” guide here:
https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/chapterone

And if you’re ready to self-publish a book that looks and feels professional — without getting lost, overwhelmed, or making amateur mistakes — the full Publish the Damn Book Already program is here:
https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/publish

🗞️ The Damn Good "Can't Stop Writing" Formula

Grab the free nonfiction or memoir kickstart that's helped hundreds of authors get out of their heads and into the flow: 

👉 https://www.publishaprofitablebook.com/chapterone

Your readers are waiting! Let's get your book published!

PublishAProfitableBook.com/Publish (use code AUTHOR25 for 25% off!)

Chapters

• 1:22 Five Fast Fixes For Messy Drafts
• 1:59 Rule One: Cut The Throat Clearing
• 3:24 Free Resource For Stronger Chapter Ones
• 3:25 Tighten Openings And Use Backstory Wisely
• 3:51 Rule Two: Choose One Reader
• 6:05 Narrow To Go Wide
• 6:37 Rule Three: One Question Per Chapter
• 8:31 Define The Promise And Cut Filler
• 9:32 Rule Four: Expertise Equals Clarity
• 11:18 Ditch Jargon And Borrowed Authority
• 13:32 Rule Five: End With Momentum
• 14:49 Workshop And Course: Next Steps
• 15:40 Connect And Closing Notes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

Hi, everybody. All right. If you are writing nonfiction or memoir and your draft feels messy, overwhelming, all over the place, like a dumpster fire, I've got five tips that are going to help you clean it up really quickly. I've coached hundreds of authors, I've edited countless manuscripts, and I've published six of my own nonfiction books. These five patterns show up for almost every first-time author. And it makes perfect sense that they would, because how would you know this if you're a first-time author? So let's just launch right in. Rule number one: cut out the throat clearing. What I mean by that is all the warm-up writing, the preambles, the disclaimers, the I was born in 1967 stuff. If you want to go back to that for backstory and to fill in holes and to make things clear, do that. That works. Most authors don't start their book too late, which is what they fear they're doing. They start too early. And especially today, a reader, if in a few seconds, maybe give them a few minutes, but they don't connect with, they're not brought into your story, they're gone. So again, use the backstory, like intersperse it where it makes sense, but make sure it makes sense. Make sure it actually has a relevance to the message that you're trying to share and the and the story that you're laying out. You don't need to include it just to include it. It's not an autobiography. When you tighten those first couple of paragraphs and the first chapter, you immediately sound more confident, more professional, more like you know what you're doing. And to be clear, nobody knows, even authors who have written eight, nine, 10 books have to go back and clear all that up and clean all that up. So if that's something that you would like help with, I do have a free resource called The Damn Good I Can't Stop Writing Formula. I'll put the link down in the episode notes. If you can remember, it's publish a profitablebook.com forward slash chapter one, all spelled out, O-N E. That'll help you tighten up that first chapter. A great way, here's a tip right now to work through this for memoir versus nonfiction. Highlight the first three to five paragraphs of your manuscript and ask yourself does anything critical slash essential happen here? If it doesn't, either remove it or like put it in the parking lot so that you can use it later. Rule number two, choose one reader. I've been saying this for a decade. If you're writing your book for everyone, you're writing it for no one. I know we all want our books to be for every woman, every man, every mother, every working professional, every dog owner. We all want that. But if you're writing for all of them, you're really writing for none of them because you're going to be trying too hard to please all of them. And none of them will see themselves in your writing. They won't see themselves as someone who can bet who, like, oh, she gets me or he gets me if you're the author. This is where the biggest editing breakthrough happens for most authors. And frankly, it's the hardest one in my experience to get them to because most authors are so committed, and I I have been as well, to, but if I if I narrow my audience, I lose people. And the reality is the way you go wide, like to get a bigger audience, is actually by narrowing your focus. It's totally counterintuitive, but it absolutely works. So when you're writing for everyone, your voice is watered down. You're thinking too much about should I say this, should I say that, should I swear, should I not swear? Like, how do I address people? Do I, she, he, them, what do I do? Your stories lose power, your message gets blurry. The it it's it doesn't work. So define one real specific reader. And when I'm working with authors, many times I have them name that reader, like Sally or John, or many times it's you from five or 10 years ago. So be clear about who you're writing to, and the rest of the manuscript starts to fall into place because you're not in not only are you not writing to a bunch of people, but you're not including a bunch of extras that may or may not um apply to your target reader. Okay, rule number three: every chapter needs to answer a singular question. It has to deliver a singular promise, even if it's not outwardly stated as this is the promise of this chapter. If your chapter is trying to educate, inspire, explain, give proof, give theory, add in other people's examples, give exercises, reflect on your own life, et cetera, all at once, the reader won't remember anything. And they'll get to the end of the chapter and be like, what did I just read and why? Like, what what? We don't want that. And obviously, and frankly, as the author, when you're working on editing, you'll get to the end of the chapter and be like, what is this about? So, one exercise that I have my authors do, the authors with whom I'm working, is take every chapter. Can you summarize it in max three sentences, preferably one or two? What is the point of the chapter? Why is it important that you are writing about that particular event or a part of your process, whatever the case may be? What why does that deserve its own chapter? And another way to look at this is to say, so that you're making sure that you're not leaning on other people's expertise and the expertise that you've this is I'm saying the same thing, but gleaned from other people in the past and that has influenced your process and your insights, is to look at the chapter and say, okay, what is the core topic of this chapter? And then what is something that people or I, as the author, got, and I see the air quotes, but wrong about this topic? Or what did I misunderstand? What do I see a lot of other people misunderstand? And what is the truth of it in my experience? It's not the global truth. It's like, what do I want people to see differently? Because that is why they're picking up your book. Whether they realize it or not, there is a book or 17 out there on every single topic under the sun. So if they're buying your book, it's because that they're missing a piece and they're hoping, subconsciously or consciously, that your book will provide that piece to them. So that's a great way to go through and and and get clear about like why am I talking about this and how am I talking about it differently. Another great way to do this is to write out for yourself, and you don't have to be formulaic about this in the manuscript, but to say by the end of this chapter, the reader will be able to fill in the blank, or the reader will better understand blank, or the something of that nature, so that you're very clear about what the intention of that chapter is. And then you can go back and look at everything that you've written and say, does this even fit with what I'm trying to do and say? And you will probably cut a lot of it out. And that's okay. That is what editing is. So there's as much removing usually as there is modifying and adding. It's not just changing a word or two and adding a comma. That editing is much more broad and um, well, frankly, helpful and beneficial than that. But if you can't finish the sentence clearly by the end of this chapter, the reader will. The chapter is probably trying to do way too much. Okay, rule number four expertise shows up as clarity. Now, if you're writing memoir, your straight memoir, you're probably not trying to show up as an expert. If you are writing nonfiction and you're writing about a process or like how to do something, how you learned to navigate something, then you are putting your expertise out there, even though it feels probably very uncomfortable. It might feel very uncomfortable right now for you to consider yourself an expert. Just hear me on this. It the expertise shows up, just put air quotes around expertise. It shows up as clarity, not jargon and buzzwords and leaning on other people's expertise and insights. So if you've mentioned another expert, whether it's Dr. Becky or Dr. Shafali or Brene Brown, I see that one a lot, more than twice in your whole manuscript, it's an clue to maybe take a look at that. Um you're leaning, you might be leaning a little bit too hard on their expertise. This happens a lot. It's completely understandable. It the reason I believe that we do it is because it feels comfortable to be able to say, well, you're using that other person's expertise and credibility as proof of your own expertise and credibility. So by saying, Well, Brene Brown also says this, or as Carl Jung said, it's in a way a crutch because it's it's the wall that you get to put up in front of, I'm not yet fully comfortable leading and and with my insights, because I'm not completely sure that they're insert adjective, valid, worthy, um, that they matter, that anyone's gonna care. And they're not necessarily backed in science. They're backed in experience. So this is another part of the book writing process that authors who are writing nonfiction and memoir go through that they don't expect that they're gonna go through. This is a messier part of the middle where we are having to recognize oh, this is an area of this book or this topic that I'm not as confident with as I thought I was. And so taking some time to go back and assess that and relook at that will only better the final product and your confidence in talking about that topic, whether it's to clients or in Instagram reels or on a stage or wherever you're doing it, people at the coffee shop, like wherever you're doing it. So it's a very valuable exercise to undertake. And knowing that you will probably have to undertake it is super helpful because then you won't be shocked by it. So when you're overexplaining, when you're using words, and I don't mean I'm the general you, right? When an author uses words like inner child and shadow work and um wheelhouse and things that people might not even really understand yet what you're talking about. So insider language, giving too much of an explanation, especially when it's someone else's intellectual property, the reader starts to feel either not smart or super confused. And either way, they're already probably a bit uncomfortable with what they're reading about. And so it's an easy reason to close the book. So simplify your language, tighten up your explanations, lean on your experience and your expertise and your insight, and use examples that are preferably your own instead of abstract concepts and other people's examples. That's what makes your book and you trustworthy. Rule five, fifth and final. End every chapter with momentum. Most chapters, and by the way, this will almost always happen in the draft stage. That's fine. But when you're in the final honing stage, most chapters still end with a really soft landing because the author is subconsciously assuming that the reader will keep going. Instead, end with a question, a challenge, a cliffhanger. We all know why we cannot stop watching whether it's um nobody wants this or the secret lives of Mormon Wives or Selling the OC. It's because we think just one more episode or just one more chapter when you're reading. I'm currently reading What Happened to Lucy Vale by Lauren Oliver, and I keep thinking, just one more chapter, just one more chapter. And I get to the end of the chapter and she just ends it with a cliffhanger or a question, and it's fiction. And I'm like, oh God, I have to see what happens. And so I keep going, and before I know it, it's 2:30 in the morning. A strong chapter ending pulls the reader in the right direction, which is into the next chapter. If you follow these five rules, you are going to be perfectly primed to dive into my art of manuscript editing workshop. This is my most practical down-to-earth training for cleaning up a messy draft. And that entire workshop is included in my course publish the damn book already. So you don't just learn how to edit your manuscript, you learn to self-publish in a logical, linear, no-panic way. It also teaches you how to publish in a way that doesn't scream amateur and doesn't have you running to the pantry for just one more handful of salt and vinegar potato chips. I cover cover design, interior formatting, ISBN registration, library of congress, uploading to all the distributors correctly, printing, all of it, pricing, it's all in there. So if you want your book to be clear, compelling, and professionally polished, the link to find out more about publish the damn book already is in the description, in the episode notes, or you can go to publish a profitable book.com forward slash publish. And keep the questions coming. You can reach me on Instagram at Elizabeth Lyons Author. I'm over on YouTube. I you might be watching me there right now at Write the Damn Book Already is the channel name on YouTube, or you can email me, Elizabeth at elisabeth lions.com. I hope this has been helpful. I'll talk to you again soon.