non fiction essay example

25 Great Nonfiction Essays You Can Read Online for Free

Alison Doherty

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

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I love reading books of nonfiction essays and memoirs , but sometimes have a hard time committing to a whole book. This is especially true if I don’t know the author. But reading nonfiction essays online is a quick way to learn which authors you like. Also, reading nonfiction essays can help you learn more about different topics and experiences.

Besides essays on Book Riot,  I love looking for essays on The New Yorker , The Atlantic , The Rumpus , and Electric Literature . But there are great nonfiction essays available for free all over the Internet. From contemporary to classic writers and personal essays to researched ones—here are 25 of my favorite nonfiction essays you can read today.

“Beware of Feminist Lite” by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The author of We Should All Be Feminists  writes a short essay explaining the danger of believing men and woman are equal only under certain conditions.

“It’s Silly to Be Frightened of Being Dead” by Diana Athill

A 96-year-old woman discusses her shifting attitude towards death from her childhood in the 1920s when death was a taboo subject, to World War 2 until the present day.

“Letter from a Region in my Mind” by James Baldwin

There are many moving and important essays by James Baldwin . This one uses the lens of religion to explore the Black American experience and sexuality. Baldwin describes his move from being a teenage preacher to not believing in god. Then he recounts his meeting with the prominent Nation of Islam member Elijah Muhammad.

“Relations” by Eula Biss

Biss uses the story of a white woman giving birth to a Black baby that was mistakenly implanted during a fertility treatment to explore racial identities and segregation in society as a whole and in her own interracial family.

“Friday Night Lights” by Buzz Bissinger

A comprehensive deep dive into the world of high school football in a small West Texas town.

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates examines the lingering and continuing affects of slavery on  American society and makes a compelling case for the descendants of slaves being offered reparations from the government.

“Why I Write” by Joan Didion

This is one of the most iconic nonfiction essays about writing. Didion describes the reasons she became a writer, her process, and her journey to doing what she loves professionally.

“Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Roger Ebert

With knowledge of his own death, the famous film critic ponders questions of mortality while also giving readers a pep talk for how to embrace life fully.

“My Mother’s Tongue” by Zavi Kang Engles

In this personal essay, Engles celebrates the close relationship she had with her mother and laments losing her Korean fluency.

“My Life as an Heiress” by Nora Ephron

As she’s writing an important script, Ephron imagines her life as a newly wealthy woman when she finds out an uncle left her an inheritance. But she doesn’t know exactly what that inheritance is.

“My FatheR Spent 30 Years in Prison. Now He’s Out.” by Ashley C. Ford

Ford describes the experience of getting to know her father after he’s been in prison for almost all of her life. Bridging the distance in their knowledge of technology becomes a significant—and at times humorous—step in rebuilding their relationship.

“Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay

There’s a reason Gay named her bestselling essay collection after this story. It’s a witty, sharp, and relatable look at what it means to call yourself a feminist.

“The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison

Jamison discusses her job as a medical actor helping to train medical students to improve their empathy and uses this frame to tell the story of one winter in college when she had an abortion and heart surgery.

“What I Learned from a Fitting Room Disaster About Clothes and Life” by Scaachi Koul

One woman describes her history with difficult fitting room experiences culminating in one catastrophe that will change the way she hopes to identify herself through clothes.

“Breasts: the Odd Couple” by Una LaMarche

LaMarche examines her changing feelings about her own differently sized breasts.

“How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story” by Donna Minkowitz

A journalist looks back at her own biased reporting on a news story about the sexual assault and murder of a trans man in 1993. Minkowitz examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have changed since she reported the story, along with how her own lesbian identity influenced her opinions about the crime.

“Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell

In this famous essay, Orwell bemoans how politics have corrupted the English language by making it more vague, confusing, and boring.

“Letting Go” by David Sedaris

The famously funny personal essay author , writes about a distinctly unfunny topic of tobacco addiction and his own journey as a smoker. It is (predictably) hilarious.

“Joy” by Zadie Smith

Smith explores the difference between pleasure and joy by closely examining moments of both, including eating a delicious egg sandwich, taking drugs at a concert, and falling in love.

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan

Tan tells the story of how her mother’s way of speaking English as an immigrant from China changed the way people viewed her intelligence.

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace

The prolific nonfiction essay and fiction writer  travels to the Maine Lobster Festival to write a piece for Gourmet Magazine. With his signature footnotes, Wallace turns this experience into a deep exploration on what constitutes consciousness.

“I Am Not Pocahontas” by Elissa Washuta

Washuta looks at her own contemporary Native American identity through the lens of stereotypical depictions from 1990s films.

“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White

E.B. White didn’t just write books like Charlotte’s Web and The Elements of Style . He also was a brilliant essayist. This nature essay explores the theme of fatherhood against the backdrop of a lake within the forests of Maine.

“Pell-Mell” by Tom Wolfe

The inventor of “new journalism” writes about the creation of an American idea by telling the story of Thomas Jefferson snubbing a European Ambassador.

“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf

In this nonfiction essay, Wolf describes a moth dying on her window pane. She uses the story as a way to ruminate on the lager theme of the meaning of life and death.

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Nonfiction Essay

While escaping in an imaginary world sounds very tempting, it is also necessary for an individual to discover more about the events in the real world and real-life stories of various people. The articles you read in newspapers and magazines are some examples of nonfiction texts. Learn more about fact-driven information and hone your essay writing skills while composing a nonfiction essay.

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What Is a Nonfiction Essay?

Nonfiction essay refers to compositions based on real-life situations and events. In addition, it also includes essays based on one’s opinion and perception. There are different purposes for writing this type of essay. Various purposes use different approaches and even sometimes follow varying formats. Educational and informative essays are some examples of a nonfiction composition. 

How to Compose a Compelling Nonfiction Essay

When you talk about creative writing, it is not all about creating fictional stories. It also involves providing a thought-provoking narrative and description of a particular subject. The quality of writing always depends on how the writers present their topic. That said, keep your readers engaged by writing an impressive nonfiction paper.

1. Know Your Purpose

Before you start your essay, you should first determine the message you want to deliver to your readers. In addition, you should also consider what emotions you want to bring out from them. List your objectives beforehand. Goal-setting will provide you an idea of the direction you should take, as well as the style you should employ in writing about your topic on your essay paper.

2. Devise an Outline

Now that you have a target to aim for, it is time to decide on the ideas you want to discuss in each paragraph. To do this, you can utilize a blank outline template. Also, prepare an essay plan detailing the structure and the flow of the message of your essay. Ensure to keep your ideas relevant and timely.

3. Generate Your Thesis Statement

One of the most crucial parts of your introduction is your thesis statement . This sentence will give the readers an overview of what to expect from the whole document. Aside from that, this statement will also present the main idea of the essay content. Remember to keep it brief and concise.

4. Use the Appropriate Language

Depending on the results of your assessment in the first step, you should tailor your language accordingly. If you want to describe something, use descriptive language. If you aim to persuade your readers, you should ascertain to use persuasive words. This step is essential to remember for the writers because it has a considerable impact on achieving your goals.

What are the various types of nonfiction articles?

In creatively writing nonfiction essays, you can choose from various types. Depending on your topic, you can write a persuasive essay , narrative essay, biographies, and even memoirs. In addition, you can also find nonfiction essay writing in academic texts, instruction manuals, and even academic reports . Even if most novels are fiction stories, there are also several nonfictions in this genre.

Why is writing nonfiction essays necessary?

Schools and universities use nonfiction essays as an instrument to train and enhance their students’ skills in writing. The reason for this is it will help them learn how to structure paragraphs and also learn various skills. In addition, this academic essay can also be a tool for the teachers to analyze how the minds of their students digest situations.

How can I write about a nonfiction topic?

A helpful tip before crafting a nonfiction essay is to explore several kinds of this type of writing. Choose the approach and the topic where you are knowledgeable. Now that you have your lesson topic, the next step is to perform intensive research. The important part is to choose a style on how to craft your story.

Each of us also has a story to tell. People incorporate nonfiction writing into their everyday lives. Your daily journal or the letters you send your friends all belong under this category of composition. Writing nonfiction essays are a crucial outlet for people to express their emotions and personal beliefs. We all have opinions on different events. Practice writing nonfiction articles and persuade, entertain, and influence other people. 

Nonfiction Essay Generator

Text prompt

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Write about the influence of technology on society in your Nonfiction Essay.

Discuss the importance of environmental conservation in your Nonfiction Essay.

Essays About Creative Non-Fiction: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Check out our essay examples and writing prompts guide if you’re writing essays about creative non-fiction.

Creative non-fiction is a skilled and artistic way of telling stories based on true accounts, facts, and interviews. It can include essays, long-form articles, or books. Writing creative non-fiction can be very challenging when writing a literary work as it combines in-depth research and authentic, creative storytelling.

This work requires great attention to detail and getting the facts straight while keeping your readers engaged with your imaginative writing style. In short, authors of creative non-fiction enjoy the best — as well as the paramount challenges — of both the journalistic and poetic worlds. 

5 Intriguing Essay Examples

• 1. Whatever You Write, There You Are  by Kristen Martin

2. The 5 Rs Of Creative Nonfiction Story by Lee Gutkind

3. svetlana alexievich’s nobel prize is a huge win for nonfiction writing by katy waldman, 5. legends of the fall by chiqui jabson chua, 1. types of creative non-fiction writing, 2. creative non-fiction writing tips, 3. a personal memoir, 4. a travel guide and experience essay, 5. business writing, 6. a memorable family gathering, 7. the story behind a painting, 8. creative non-fiction works you love, 9. an unforgettable lesson in class, 10. the person who inspires you the most, 1. whatever you write, there you are   by kristen martin.

“Creative nonfiction can take many forms, be it a meandering lyric essay or long-form narrative journalism, and its practitioners don’t always agree on how creative one can be with the truth.”

For the most part, the authors of creative non-fiction have to constantly choose between sharing their personal experiences and the universal. While creative non-fiction seems biased toward the latter, authors surprisingly understand their inner selves more deeply when they embark on an outward journey to explore material facts. Nine creative non-fiction authors share their experiences of this so-called “backdoor memoir” phenomenon.

“What is most important and enjoyable about creative nonfiction is that it not only allows but encourages the writer to become a part of the story or essay being written. The personal involvement creates a special magic that alleviates the suffering and anxiety of the writing experience; it provides many outlets for satisfaction and self-discovery, flexibility and freedom.”

Gutkind lets readers into his 5R techniques of being a creative non-fiction journalist. These Rs are real, reflection, research, reading, and riting. This immersion journalist, whose extensive experience included participating in an open-heart surgery as a wallflower observer, talks about the main elements of creative non-fiction while writing one along the way.

“After conducting hundreds of interviews, she arranges people’s intimate testimonies into a choir of almost impersonal witness; the resulting works have been called “novels-in-voices,” immersions in experience that are governed by a fierce, purposeful intellect.”

The Swedish Academy surprised the world in 2015 as it awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to a creative non-fiction writer, marking a first in half a century since it happened. The move makes a resounding statement in the literary world on the essence of reportorial documentation after years of its unacceptance and criticism as a literary work.

4. Africa’s Cold Rush And The Promise Of Refrigeration by Nicola Twilley

“Over the next four or five hours, as the heat of the day sets in, gradually wilting the cassava leaves and softening the tomatoes, these men will cover hundreds of miles, carrying food from the countryside to sell in markets in the capital, Kigali.”

In this remarkably creative non-fiction, a journalist poignantly and painstakingly chronicles the daily hardships in Rwanda, where men rise before dawn and help bring food to the market in the next town, often just in the nick of time before spoilage. Twilley immerses in Rwanda and its cold chain problem, interviewing scientists, cold economy experts, and policymakers who all work toward making refrigeration happen for the African country. 

“In the foothills of western Kyoto, towering bamboo trees sway in the mild wind, turning the sunlight into a delicate jade. Nearby, temples and villas sit amid fine gardens and, not too far uphill, a town pulsates with living traditions from ancient Japan.”

This article is an enjoyable descriptive non-fiction piece, giving us a Kyoto tour in early fall and autumn. We follow the author on her commute through an urban neighborhood, up to the mountain, and into one temple after another. With the author’s vivid imagination and ingenuity for words, the readers are led on to a journey in Japan as though they are experiencing firsthand the stillness of Kyoto’s green trails and the serene beauty of its mountainous landscape. 

10 Great Writing Prompts on Essays About Creative Non-fiction

List down the many types of creative non-fiction and explain how they simultaneously promote the presentation of facts and creative storytelling. Like this guide, you may also find your best picks for each type of creative non-fiction. 

Taking tips from some of the essay examples above, determine the common denominators in the authors’ techniques in producing creative non-fictional works. Then, explain how these techniques helped the authors achieve their desired effects.

If you were to write your memoir, what events would you be putting in the spotlight? For your essay, imagine how you would structure your memoir. You can choose either a sad or joyous event. What matters the most is to describe memorable experiences so that you can narrate them in exact detail. To ensure your essay will enthrall your readers, read our storytelling guide . 

Traveling creates wanderlust, a desire to feed yourself with new information and experiences. For this easy, recall a trip, or embark on a new adventure. First, write about the culture of the place and the people around you. Next, describe the place and culture and share the most important lessons you have learned from this adventure. Finally, describe the other future adventures you’d like to go on.

Business writing is not a usual source of attraction for several writers — especially for writers who chose to write because they despised math. There are joys never imagined in weaving stories from numbers. In this essay, offer your readers some tips to enjoy and make a profit in writing creative non-fictional pieces about business.

For this writing prompt, recount a memorable gathering with family and relatives. To make this pass as creative non-fiction, first detail the purpose of the gathering, the settings, and the decorations as vividly as you can. Then, describe each family member present and their unique qualities that make them unforgettable. Finally, recount the conversations and the emotions surging in you as they chattered away. 

Pick a painting that captivates you the most and try to peel into its layers of meaning by researching its history, the stories, and the people that inspired the painter of the work. Next, try to mull the connection between the painting’s story and yours. This could explain what made you entranced at first glance. 

If there are creative non-fiction literary works that have shaped who you are today, talk about them in your essay and elaborate on the reasons you have admired the author’s thoughts. Then, convince your readers to pick up this book to see their self-transformation. 

Some classroom lessons succeed in keeping us engrossed in learning. Some could form the foundations of a hobby, while some could be our first step toward a professional career path. In this essay, reminisce on a class lecture you will never forget. Explain briefly what the subject matter was at the time and what your professor said about it that was forever etched on your memory. 

Each of us has an idol we look up to as an inspiration to reach our goals, whether a historical figure, a fictional character, or a living personality. Share yours and write a piece of creative non-fiction about their story as a hero. Then, point out their qualities, achievements, or advocacies that made you realize your bigger ambitions, find confidence, and believe in yourself. 

If you liked this article and want to put these ideas into practice, check out our round-up of storytelling exercises .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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What Is Nonfiction: Definition and Examples

Sarah Oakley

Table of Contents

What is nonfiction, is nonfiction a genre, what is a nonfiction book example, how prowritingaid can help you write nonfiction.

Nonfiction writing has become one of the most popular genres of books published today. Most nonfiction books are about modern day problems, science, or details of actual events and lives.

If you’re looking for informative writing made up of factual details rather than fiction, nonfiction is a great option. It serves to develop your knowledge about different topics, and it helps you learn about real events.

In this article, we’ll explain what nonfiction is, what to expect from the nonfiction genre, and some examples of nonfiction books.

If you’re considering writing a book, and you can’t decide between fiction or nonfiction , it helps to know exactly what nonfiction is first.

Similarly, if you want to indulge in some self-development, and you decide to read some books, you’ll need to know what to look for in a nonfiction book to ensure you’re reading factual content.

Nonfiction Definition

To define the word nonfiction, we can break it down into two parts. “Non” is a prefix that means the absence of something. “Fiction” means writing that features ideas and elements purely from the author’s imagination.

Therefore, when you put those two definitions together, it suggests nonfiction is the absence of writing that comes from someone’s imagination. To put it in a better way, nonfiction is about facts and evidence rather than imaginary events and characters who don’t exist. 

Nonfiction Meaning

As nonfiction writing sounds like the opposite of fiction writing, you might think nonfiction is all true and objective, but that’s not the case. While nonfiction writing contains factual elements, such as real people, concepts, and events, it’s not always objectively true accounts.

A lot of nonfiction writing is opinionated or biased discussions about the subject of the writing.

For example, you might be a football expert, and you want to write a book about the top goal scorers of 2022. Your piece could be objective and discuss exactly who scored the most goals in 2022, or you could add some opinions and discuss who scored the best goals or who performed the best on the pitch.

Opinions make nonfiction books more unique to the author, as it sounds more authentic and human because we all have our own thoughts and feelings about things.

Adding opinions can also make nonfiction books more interesting for readers, as you can be more controversial or use exaggeration to increase reader engagement. Many readers like to pick up books that challenge their thoughts about certain topics.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Nonfiction is a genre, but it’s more of an umbrella term for several reference and factual genres. When you’re in the nonfiction section of a bookstore or library, you’ll find the books in categories based on the overall theme or topic of the book.

There are several categories of nonfiction:

Biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs

Travel writing and travel guides

Academic journals

Philosophical and modern social science

Journalism and news media

Self-help books

How-to guides

Humorous books

Reference books

Historical, academic, reference, philosophical, and social science books often focus on factual representations of information about specific subjects, events, and key ideas. The tone of these books is often more formal, though there are some informal examples available.

Biography , memoir, travel writing, humor, and self-help books are creative nonfiction. This means they’re based on true events and stories, but the writer uses a lot more creative freedom to tell stories and pass on information about what they have learned from life.

Readers often criticize journalism and news media for not being objectively truthful when telling people about events. However, almost all journalism is biased or opinionated in one way or another. Therefore, it’s good to read from multiple different sources for your news updates.

If you want to read nonfiction to get an idea of what it’s like, we’ve got several examples of great nonfiction books for you to check out.

Historical : The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Biography : This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes

Travel Writing : Blue Highways: A Journey into America by William Least Heat-Moon

Philosophical : The Alignment Problem: How Can Machines Learn Human Values? By Brian Christian

Self-Help : Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? By Dr. Julie Smith

Humor : What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

If you want to write nonfiction, you can use ProWritingAid to ensure you avoid publishing a manuscript full of grammatical errors. Whether you’re looking for a second pair of eyes catching quick fixes as you write, or a full analysis of your manuscript once it’s written, ProWritingAid has you covered.

You can use the Realtime checker to see suggested improvements to your writing as you’re working. If you use the in-tool learning features as well, you’ll see fewer suggestions as you write because it’ll essentially train you to become a better writer.

If you’re more of a full-blown analysis editor, try using the Readability report to see suggestions highlighting where you can improve your writing to ensure more readers can understand what you’re saying. Readability is important if you want to reach more readers who have different levels of reading comprehension.

Another great report you can use for nonfiction writing is the Transitions report. Transitions are the words that show cause and effect within your writing. If you want your reader to follow your points and arguments, you need to include plenty of transitions to improve the flow of your writing.

Now that you know what nonfiction means and how ProWritingAid can help you produce a great nonfiction book, try nonfiction writing , and see how fun it is to share your knowledge and opinions with the world. Just don’t forget to check your work is factual and relevant.

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The Finest Narrative Non-Fiction Essays

Narrative essays that I consider ideal models of the medium

• Linguistics

Authors like , , , , , and epitomise this way of writing.

I'm not a Writer , but I write to explore other things – anthropology, weird cultural quirks in the web development community, interaction design, and the rising field of " tools for thought ". These things are all factual and grounded in reality, but have interesting stories twisted around them. Ones I'm trying to tell in my little notes and essays.

Perhaps you're the same kind of non- Writer writer. The playful amateur kind who uses it to explore and communicate ideas, rather than making the medium part of your identity. But even amateurs want to be good. I certainly want to get good.

Knowing what you like is half the battle in liking what you create. In that spirit, I collect narrative non-fiction essays that I think are exceptional. They're worth looking at closely – their opening moves, sentence structure, turns of phrase, and narrative arcs.

The only sensible way to improve your writing is by echoing the work of other writers. Good artists copy and great artists steal quotes from Picasso.

You may want to start your own collection of lovely essays like this. There will certainly be some Real Writers who find my list trite and full of basic, mainstream twaddle. It probably is. I've done plenty of self-acceptance work and I'm okay with it.

Twaddle aside, the essays below are worth your attention.

by Paul Ford

Paul Ford explains code in 38,000 words and somehow makes it all accessible, technically accurate, narratively compelling, and most of all, culturally insightful and humanistic.

I have unreasonable feelings about this essay. It is, to me, perfect. Few essays take the interactive medium of the web seriously, and this one takes the cake. There is a small blue cube character, logic diagrams, live code snippets to run, GIFs, tangential footnotes, and a certificate of completion at the end.

by David Foster Wallace – Published under the title 'Shipping Out'

Forgive me for being a David Foster Wallace admirer. The guy had issues, but this account of his 7-day trip on a luxury cruiseliner expresses an inner monologue that is clarifying, rare and often side-splittingly hilarious.

He taught me it is 100% okay to write an entire side-novel in your footnotes if you need to.

by David Graeber

Graeber explores play and work from an anthropological perspective. He's a master of moving between the specific and the general. Between academic theory and personal storytelling. He's always ready with armfuls of evidence and citations but doesn't drown you in them.

by Malcolm Gladwell

This piece uses a typical Gladwellian style. He takes a fairly dull question – Why had ketchup stayed the same, while mustard comes in dozens of varieties? – and presents the case in a way that makes it reasonably intriguing. He's great at starting with specific characters, times and places to draw you in. There are always rich scenes, details, personal profiles, and a grand narrative tying it all together.

Some people find the classic New Yorker essay format overdone, but it relies on storytelling techniques that consistently work.

by Mark Slouka

by Joan Didion

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On opening essays, conference talks, and jam jars.

The Essay as Bouquet

"Hermit crab" essays can take many forms, both natural and not

Ambrose Bierce, the American editorialist and journalist, wrote in his 1909 craft book, Write It Right , that “good writing” is “clear thinking made visible,” an idea that has been repeated and adapted by countless writers over the past century. My own addition would be to add that the act of lyric essay writing not only makes thoughts visible but also institutes order and layers meaning when it is not always immediately apparent. And although ideas may begin free-form or as stream of consciousness, on the page or screen, we make the jump from internal to external. We craft them into a form, whether chronological or otherwise. One such approach to form is the “hermit crab” essay, so named by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola in their craft book Tell It Slant . Miller later defined it in an article for Brevity as “adopt[ing] already existing forms as the container for the writing at hand, such as the essay in the form of a ‘to-do’ list, or a field guide, or a recipe.” This approach creates meaning by juxtaposing the personal story with its imposed “container,” allowing the more traditional narrative to be in conversation with our personal, cultural, and/or scientific assumptions and understandings of the chosen form.

“Hermit crabs,” Miller explains, “are creatures born without their own shells to protect them; they need to find empty shells to inhabit (or sometimes not so empty; in the years since I’ve begun using the hermit crab as my metaphor, I’ve learned they can be quite vicious, evicting the shell’s rightful inhabitant by force).” Ironically, however, most containers that writers find are of the nonorganic variety: a shopping list, a course syllabus—not unlike the hermit crab who makes its home inside a bottle cap. Here, we will look at a few examples that do employ natural forms as a container, encouraging a conversation between the human-made and the natural world.

Chelsea Biondolillo’s “On Shells” from Essay Daily is, at first glance, a fragmented essay that alternates between the narratives of the author learning to beachcomb as a child, the author becoming a writer and teacher, and the background on shell collectors. At first, it appears the essay resists form when our author implies she didn’t initially embrace the imposed form of a hermit crab essay because it felt contrived. But as we move through the essay, the fragments take on their own form: that of shell collecting and of nature itself. Biondolillo tells us at the end that she has learned that writing “practice is inefficient by design. Collect as many tools and forms and voices and structures as you can so that you are as well-equipped as possible when you sit down to work.” So is beachcombing a practice of collecting the best of random bits, your own practice of creating order. She says she has learned not to be as “worried about the prize at the end of the page” as she once was; every essay we read and write will have a literal end, but there will also never be an end. The essay is about the journey, the collection of random bits, and what the resulting collection means when the pieces are looked at as a whole. And so Biondolillo’s imposed form as an act of shell collecting, reinforced by the small pictures of shells on the page between each fragment, helps illustrate that while nature can be random, as we find meaning in nature, so we also find that this randomness can—and does—forge its own form.

Yet one may also rightfully argue that nature is not entirely random, but has developed clear and consistent taxonomies, cycles, and behaviors. In Jennifer Lunden’s “The Butterfly Effect” (first published in this magazine), we learn about the life cycle of butterflies in a series of encyclopedia-like entries that also serve as the form to tell the story of the author’s own connection to butterflies, beginning in adolescence. Yet, in the early sections, like “Metamorphosis,” “Migration,” and “Habitat,” we learn as much about how these terms apply to our author’s own life as to the butterflies she is traveling, in this essay, to see.

And then our narrative—and our encyclopedic structure—spins outward. We learn about “The Butterfly Lady,” who found healing amongst the butterflies in California. The threads of these three parallel stories—the author’s, the Butterfly Lady’s, and that of the butterflies themselves—woven together form a single whole, a container. Is the container the form of the scientific encyclopedia entry? If so, we can reflect on what this says about humans imposing form on nature; after all, it is we who insist on categorization, on creating a narrative out of the sometimes disparate layers of a natural phenomenon. Or is our container the cocoon that is spun outward, protecting the chrysalis as it transforms? I would argue it is both: our encyclopedia headers look outward to “Monsanto” and “Global Warming,” and how these affect the environment not only of the butterfly but also of the author, and, in fact, of all humans. This form—or, one might argue, this dual form—reflects human imposition on nature as well as the inverse: how we define nature, yes, but also how our decisions affect it. The repetition of the headers “Migration” and “Habitat” also creates a cyclical movement often at odds with human written narration, though it is frequently seen in nature: in seasons, metamorphosis, life and death. As these threads diverge and converge, we also see wildness and humanity doing the same, ending with our word for a natural occurrence—susurrus—which would exist whether humans witnessed and named it or not.

Finally, Julie Marie Wade’s “Bouquet,” originally published in Third Coast and reprinted in her book Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures , is itself a bouquet that pairs the name, horticultural descriptions, growing tendencies, and cultural relevance of different kinds of flowers with scenes or reflections. The personal reflects the natural, both through the flowers’ innate tendencies and the symbolism culture imposes on them. For example, a brief explanation of why the long-lasting cornflower is known as “bachelor’s button” is paired with the story of a relationship as well as Wade’s struggle to accept her own sexual identity. What makes the bouquet an appropriate container is the interplay of the natural characteristics of each flower—those that humans cannot control—with the cultural import we have given many of these flowers, as well as the symbolism of the bouquet as an object. The bouquet is a human form made of nature—a collection of (in this case) disparate flowers, cut and contained and most often given as a gesture of love. A bouquet, too, is a sum of its parts. Each flower can and does exist on its own in the wild, but in relation to others in our human-made form, each plays a particular role. Here is the author’s literary bouquet: a collection of the personal blooms that make up the story she is telling—a bouquet the reader believes, by the end of reading, to be a gift to her beloved. As in both Biondolillo’s and Lunden’s essays, there is always the tension of seeing a natural form in its native habitat—a shell, a butterfly, a flower—and the human manipulation of it.

Can we ever not see nature through the lens of our humanness?

As I began my own investigation into nature-influenced hermit crab essays, I thought I would find numerous essays that used the infinite unblemished forms found in our natural world as a perfect metaphor and container for our very human and imperfect stories. But I found it challenging to unearth many examples of nature-as-form, and those I did find built upon the interplay of the natural world and human influence. Perhaps this only makes sense: can we ever not see nature through the lens of our humanness, especially as we strive to use it as a container to help make sense of our own stories and experiences?

Perhaps Biondolillo best expresses the essence of what a hermit crab essay is: “Acuity to see the unbroken curve of aperture against all of the chips and shards the sea has thrown up, to see the unblemished whorl, the striations in deep relief among the smooth nubs of wood, the distracting pebbles of glass, the wet strings and sheets of seaweed, already rotting in the first light of morning.” At first reading, I interpreted this to be an appreciation of nature and an effort to emulate its “unbroken curve” and “unblemished whorl” in one’s writing. But maybe that’s not the whole story. The hermit crab essay as inspired by nature can be formed from the broken “chips and shards” and the “distracting pebbles of glass.” Are these imperfect bits manmade or from nature? And does it matter? They are all part of the world in which we live: nature influenced by humans and humans inspired by nature—and all of us if not rotting, then certainly evolving in each new morning’s light.

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Essay Samples on Nonfiction

Are all stories fictional: truth of writing.

Introduction Stories are just that: Stories. It requires characters, a setting, a conflict of some sort, meaning and an end. As my professor, Dr. Morton has taught me, the only real way a “story” can be entirely true is if it is not a story...

• Writing Experience

Kennedy's Revenge: A Blend of Fiction and Non-Fiction

Introduction Kennedy’s Revenge: The Election of 2016 by Stephen L Rodenbeck has an enticing format in which the book is split between both fiction and non-fiction, with alternate chapters for each. This interesting structure is something which originally drew me to the novel, as I...

The Intricacies of Fiction and Nonfiction

Exploring the Boundaries of Fiction and Nonfiction Every book, short story, or novel ever written will have bits and pieces of fiction inside of it, and every different type of writing is considered to be a story. What exactly is a story? According to the...

Thematic Analysis Of Marissa Havens' Non-fiction Novel Boys In The Boat

Competing in the Olympics Is the boys way of showing the world how they overcame depression and won against the Nazis. Hitler’s attempts to be victorious by hosting the 1936 Berlin Olympics nevertheless the American rowing team won Hitler’s Third Reich was creative in using...

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What They Fought For and And the War Came: Examples of War Non-Fiction

His opening paper, 'And the War Came,' offers the conversation starter of why it came. Withdrawal didn't consequently prompt war, McPherson battles; rather, 'a progression of choices and activities by men on the two sides expedited the war' — for the most part Lincoln's choice...

• What They Fought For

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Best topics on Nonfiction

1. Are All Stories Fictional: Truth of Writing

2. Kennedy’s Revenge: A Blend of Fiction and Non-Fiction

3. The Intricacies of Fiction and Nonfiction

4. Thematic Analysis Of Marissa Havens’ Non-fiction Novel Boys In The Boat

5. What They Fought For and And the War Came: Examples of War Non-Fiction

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Introduction

Most of your familiarity with essays probably comes from your own coursework. When you are assigned an essay for a class, perhaps you’ve been assigned an expository essay or a persuasive essay. In other words, you may have been assigned an essay with a clear purpose.

Literary essays are an exciting departure from those essays that many of us have been assigned. Employing techniques akin to those used by novelists, poets, and short story writers, essayists work to explore an idea. In fact, the word “essay” is etymologically linked to the notion of experimenting, weighing, or testing out. Essayists rarely produce straightforward manifestos or polemics. Instead, they entice the reader to care or understand or learn by using elements and techniques common to and found in literature. The more adept you are at recognizing those elements, the better you’ll be able to appreciate a work of creative nonfiction.

In order to analyze creative nonfiction, you should be aware of the different rhetorical structures writers use. Most of these structures will be familiar to you. What is important to consider, though, is how creative nonfiction writers use literary structures and techniques to achieve a particular effect.

Analyzing Nonfiction

Analysis of Nonfiction

Like analysis of fiction, poetry, and drama, analysis of a nonfiction requires more than understanding the point or the content of a nonfiction text. It requires that we go beyond what the text says explicitly and look at such factors as implied meaning, intended purpose and audience, the context in which the text was written, and how the author presents his/her argument. Before you can analyze, however, you must first comprehend the text and be able to provide an objective summary.

When working with a complex text, it is best to start with short excerpts, go through several reads of the piece if possible, and focus on moving from basic comprehension on the first read, to deeper, more complex understandings with each subsequent reading. For an example of an effective strategy, use the “SOAPSTone” strategy, which consists of a series of questions that provide a basis for analysis. Remember that regardless of analysis strategy, you must always provide evidence taken directly from the text to prove their point.

Subject: What is the subject? This is the general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text. Try to state the subject in only a few words or a short phrase so as to concisely summarize the topic for your own comprehension purposes.

Occasion: What is the occasion? It is the time and place of the piece; the context that encouraged the writing to happen. This can be a large occasion (an environment of ideas and emotions that swirl around a broad issue) or an immediate occasion or specific event.

Audience: Who is the audience? The audience is the group of readers to whom the piece is directed. The audience may be an individual, a small group, or a large group of people. It may be specific or more general.

Purpose: What is the purpose? It is the reason behind the text. What does the author want the audience to think or do as a result of this text? Does the author call for some specific action or is the purpose to convince the reader to think, feel or believe in a certain way? Too often readers do not consider this question, yet understanding the purpose of a nonfiction text is crucial in order to critically analyze the text.

Speaker: Who is the speaker? This is the voice that tells the story. What is their background? Is there a bias? Does that impact how the text is written and the points being made? Typically in nonfiction, the speaker and the author are the same; however, when we approach fiction, we must realize that the speaker and the author are often NOT the same. In fiction the author may choose to tell the story from any number of different points of view. In fact, the method of narration and the character of the speaker may be a crucial piece in understanding the work, particularly in satire. However, in nonfiction, the speaker and the author of the text are most likely going to be the same, which allows us a different avenue for analysis, as we can critique a text alongside what we know about the author.

Tone: What is the tone? This is the attitude a writer takes towards the subject or character: It can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, or even objective. Examine the author’s choice of words, sentence structure, and imagery. Consider providing students with a list of tone words to help them find the exact word. Often in informational text, the tone is objective because the author is simply relaying information and is not trying to sway the audience; however, in literary nonfiction as with fiction, the author may want his/her audience to feel a certain way about the situation, characters, etc.

“Text-Dependent Analysis: Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMzHrroZGM

“Analyzing Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_k6RXWMHas

“How to Analyze Non-Fiction.” Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 http://www.rpdp.net/literacyFiles/literacy_101.pdf

The world of creative nonfiction is broad, but learning to analyze the techniques used by literary and personal essayists is a good way to understand how much crafting goes into making a true story, told well. And though the word “essay” may have once been associated with homework assignments and tests, rest assured, there’s much more to the form.

Like fiction, creative nonfiction relies on the careful choices made by a writer. What separates creative nonfiction from fiction, of course, is the writer’s tacit promise to be conveying a story or set of events that is purported to be true. In order to accentuate that truth or present it in its most compelling fashion, creative nonfiction writers use a variety of literary elements and techniques. Everything from the structure of an essay to its shape to its tone influences how a reader makes sense of the content.

ENG134 – Literary Genres Copyright © by The American Women's College and Jessica Egan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Is Nonfiction? Definition & Famous Examples

POSTED ON Sep 15, 2023

Written by Sarah Rexford

What is nonfiction, and why does it matter to know its definition?

Consider this: you want to write a book about your life, but you’re unsure if it will be listed as fiction or nonfiction . 

Why would a book about your life be fiction, you ask?

Well, while some authors prefer to base their stories strictly on reality, other writers choose to draw from true events while infusing the story with creative liberties. When people see a book listed as nonfiction, they assume that everything in it actually happened and is completely accurate – to the best of the author's knowledge.

Conversely, when a book, movie, or series says “based on true events,” there is a lot of room for interpretations, exaggerations, and even completely made-up characters and parts of the story.

Need A Nonfiction Book Outline?

To get clear about this genre, I first ask (and answer) the question, what is nonfiction? Then, I explain how you can confirm a book is nonfiction, list popular subgenres and types of nonfiction books, share three classic characteristics of nonfiction books, and highlight a few famous nonfiction authors. So, are you ready?

This guide answers “what is nonfiction?” and more:

First, what is nonfiction .

A nonfiction book is one based on true events and as factually correct as possible. It presents true information, real events, or documented accounts of people, places, animals, concepts, or phenomena. There is no place for fictional characters or exaggerations in this genre.

But that doesn't mean it won't read like fiction. There are plenty of people who have such a fascinating or unbelievable story to tell that it doesn't feel real. The Prince Harry memoir comes to mind. It has everything that you might find in a fantasy novel – except it really happened. A real-life prince? Yes. War, drama, and family conflict? Yes. A movie star wife? Also yes.

Others about trauma, death, and struggle have less magic to them, but could be equally difficult to believe due to the difficulties encountered by the author. An example here is the Jennette McCurdy memoir , I'm Glad My Mom Died .

There are plenty of other memoir examples , but memoirs are just one answer to, “What is nonfiction?” In reality, it includes a whole host of other subgenres.

How can I tell if a book is nonfiction?

For starters, any nonfiction book should be listed as nonfiction – whether online or in a physical book store. But if you want to be sure the book you have in your hands falls in this category, here's what you can do:

• Examine the cover. Fiction books often have more artwork on the cover and may include a character or symbolism. Meanwhile, nonfiction book covers are often (though not always), more minimalist. Some may not have any artwork or may include a picture of the author.
• Find clues in the title and subtitle. Nonfiction book titles are often much more literal and descriptive about the subject matter. Exceptions to this are memoir titles, as they might be more interpretive.
• Read the author bio. A nonfiction author bio often leads with the author's qualifications (a degree or lived experience) and reasons for writing the book, while a fiction author bio might be more personal or speak to other books the author has written.
• Look for a preface and/or table of contents. Most nonfiction books are penned to educate or help the reader. Many of them will have a preface introducing the concept or the author's background on the subject matter. Similarly, they'll likely include an easy-to-navigate table of contents, similar to a textbook or educational text.
• Scan the pages for citations or a reference list. Nonfiction books are factual. Therefore, the presented information should be backed up by studies, academic papers, or other reputable sources.
• Read reviews. This is much easier if the book is listed online. But nonfiction book reviews usually use words like “transformation,” “helpful information,” and “life-changing.”
• Consider the style and tone. While any author is free to use any tone in writing , most nonfiction authors default to an educational (even if casual) tone. Memoir authors may be the exception to this one, as most personal accounts are written in the distinct tone and voice of the author.

What types of nonfiction books are there?

When posed with the question, “What is nonfiction?” it's also worth noting the different subgenres, types of writing, and themes in books that appear in the nonfiction category.

Popular nonfiction book genres include:

• Memoir and autobiography
• Spirituality or faith
• Health and fitness
• Art and photography
• Motivational and inspirational

Each of these sub-genres includes the three characteristics of nonfiction that we'll discuss in a bit. But before we get there, consider the different types of writing that could also appear in nonfiction:

• Narrative nonfiction
• Creative nonfiction
• Scientific works
• Historical accounts

3 purposes and characteristics of nonfiction 

Now you have a strong foundation and can confidently answer the question, “What is nonfiction?” Let's go deeper. Why do people read nonfiction? What is the purpose of a nonfiction book?

Equally as important as being able to define nonfiction is to be able to describe the characteristics that make a book an effective nonfiction piece.

1. What is nonfiction? Inspiration.

One of the primary characteristics of nonfiction is its inspirational themes. While there are many types of nonfiction, most of them find a way to weave in enough inspiration to help readers want to better themselves and lead a better life.

Whether your book focuses on a personal victory – instilling in readers the idea that “I overcame this and so can you” – or uses data to inspire readers to join the 5 a.m. Club, nonfiction is inspiration, no matter how overt.

2. What is nonfiction? Education.

Educational nonfiction exists as its own sub-genre. However, even outside of strictly educational books, nonfiction includes lessons for readers who desire to self-educate.

Need an example? James Clear’s bestseller, Atomic Habits , stands as a key example of the power nonfiction has in educating readers – while inspiring change.

3. What is nonfiction? Self-discovery.

Some of the bestselling nonfiction today acts as a guide for readers intent on self-reflection. It often uses repetition in writing to portray a theme.

In fact, at a deeper level, answering the question, “What is nonfiction?” often comes down to identifying how a particular book helps readers see parts of themselves they would not otherwise see. 

Top nonfiction authors

Let's finish this long-winded answer to “What is nonfiction?” with some concrete – and a bit famous – examples. What better way to define what a nonfiction book is than to read some of the top books in the genre? Who knows, maybe you'll learn something along the way!

Elizabeth Gilbert

Readers know Elizabeth Gilbert for her New York Times bestsellers Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic . She put travel memoirs – and nonfiction books – on the map in a whole new way with the former and continues to write great books to this day. Big Magic is a nonfiction book that focuses on creativity – and does so from a vulnerable perspective.

Fiction writers often create vulnerable characters. However, with nonfiction memoirs, it’s arguably more difficult. Why is this? You, the author, are often the protagonist. Whatever you reveal is likely personal.

What you can learn from her: How to write with appropriate vulnerability to connect with your readers on a more personal level. 

Related: Memoir Writing Do's and Don'ts

James Clear

Another bestselling author, James Clear, focuses on self-development through small, atomic-sized habits in his aptly-named nonfiction book, Atomic Habits. His mindset shift guides readers into self-discovery, and his writing inspires change that lasts. Within the pages of his book, you'll find top atomic habits quotes to inspire your personal goals and habits.

Now known as one of the leaders in the self-development world, Clear didn’t start at his current success level. His personal journey further proves the results of his message. 

What you can learn from him: How to provide small, actionable next steps that lead to large, impactful results.

Related: 14 Books Like Atomic Habits To Read Next

Jennette McCurdy

To say Jennette McCurdy is famous would be a massive understatement. With nine million Instagram followers and a bestselling memoir, her writing style is one to take note of. 

I’m Glad My Mom Died is an evocative title that sets readers on a hilarious yet heartbreaking look at Jennette’s life, including deep-seated, personal struggles. 

What you can learn from her: Balance humor and heartbreak to communicate your story with the highs and lows associated with great plots.

David Goggins

At times a polarizing figure, David Goggins’ work ethic is no joke. Known for his extreme self-discipline, stringent workout routine, and early mornings, his book, Can’t Hurt Me , has sold four million copies.

What you can learn from him: Don’t shy away from fully communicating your passion, your past as it relates to your writing, and your progress. Combining all three can help your readers in profound ways. 

These iconic authors paved, and are paving, a definitive answer to the question, “what is nonfiction?” with their work:

• Svetlana Alexievich
• Frederick Douglass
• Rebecca Skloot
• Mark Twain 
• Caroline Fraser 

Fraser focuses on America’s beloved Laura Ingalls Wilder. Svetlana Alexievich’s Nobel Prize winner is known as a landmark work of oral history. Frederick Douglass’s personal narrative tells horrific stories of overcoming with beautiful prose. Rebecca Skloot shares scientific knowledge in a way that resonates with her readers. 

Mark Twain’s adventures are iconic in American history. C.S. Lewis is known for his compelling nonfiction works (as well as his original fiction plots). 

These names, and many more, can provide a foundation on which to draw from as you move into ideating your draft. But you might still be asking if nonfiction is the right path for you – and your book.

Should you write a nonfiction book?

Don't just want to know what nonfiction is but why – and how to write a nonfiction book as well? Well, can you answer any of these questions with a resounding “yes!?”

• Do you live a unique life?
• Have you overcome something life-changing or mindset-altering?
• Do you have a desire to teach a valuable lesson?
• Is there something you know due to your profession, education, or background that could help others?
• Do you want to shift from teaching one-on-one as a service provider to changing multiple people's lives with the same amount of effort?
• Do you have a business that you want to grow?
• Are you passionate about a specific event or time in history – and want more people to learn about it?

The next time someone asks you, “What is nonfiction?” you can explain that nonfiction encompasses writing based on factual events or data – and then hand them a copy of your own book as an example!

Define nonfiction with your own book

So what is nonfiction? As you can see, it's a lot of things. Great nonfiction is storytelling grounded on facts, written with purpose, and crafted in a creative way that readers connect with. Excited to craft your own nonfiction narrative but feeling unsure where to start? Fret not! Here are some helpful guides to get you started:

• How to Write a Biography
• How to Write a Book About Christianity
• How to Write a Psychology Book
• How to Write a Self-Help Book

Now it’s your turn to become the protagonist in your own story. Whether you choose to write a memoir or autobiography or want to share lessons learned from a less-personal perspective, it’s your turn to answer the question, “What is nonfiction?” 

While many nonfiction books (especially self-help) include data and stats, the stories mentioned above are not simply a collection of data but a framework that ties the following together:

• Inspiration 
• Education 
• Self-discovery 

It's important to define what is nonfiction as it relates to your specific writing goals . Think about the themes, topics, and characteristics you want to include in your manuscript. Consider how you want your readers to feel during and after reading your book.

Your nonfiction can mix horror and heartbreak, tragedy and triumph, failures and persistence. You can use your expertise to inspire others to health, wellness, and new levels of self-development. 

Every writer has a unique perspective to share. Your viewpoint matters, and what you have to say can play a vital role in the trajectory of the nonfiction genre!

Need book writing help ? Reference the free resource below for further guidance!

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What Are the 10 Best Nonfiction Essays of the Past 50 Years?

There were innumerable notable essays written between 1961 and today. However, even though it’s a crazy idea to attempt to make a top ten list of the pieces that shaped the era, that’s what we do at Flavorpill — so go with it, and tell us what we left out in the comments section below. This post was inspired by the University of Iowa’s nonfiction Essay Prize, which is “given each year to the work that best exemplifies the art of essaying — inquiry, experimentation, discovery, and change.” Get more details on the 2011 nominees here .

1. “ White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art ” by Manny Farber – Film Culture, Winter 1962

Farber defends the unpolished, B-grade, underground films and directors that make what he deems “termite art” great. The author is sick of the overwrought attempts at creating and sustaining masterpieces, instead calling for art to devour its own boundaries. Let’s shake it up already!

2. “ Frank Sinatra Has A Cold ” by Gay Talese – Esquire , April 1965

This was an incredible essay, not only because of the insane amount of reporting involved, but because of the fact that Talese overcame the blow of not being able to access his subject by interviewing every single person possibility affiliated with Sinatra. Through this prismatic lens, we get a clearer view of Ol’ Blue Eyes than we ever could have with him stealing the show. He writes, “They are wise to remember, however, one thing. He is Sinatra. The boss. Il Padrone.”

3. “ Slouching Toward Bethlehem ” by Joan Didion – The Saturday Evening Post , 1967

On the hunt for a hippie named “Deadeye,” Didion takes us to the nexus of counterculture: San Francisco. It’s an astute analysis of American society, but also one that is ultimately empathetic; the author attempts to understand what others would merely disregard or shun.

4. “ The Long-Winded Lady ” by Maeve Brennan – The New Yorker , January 10, 1970

It’s as if Brennan is simply writing her weekly letters to a good friend; there’s an intimacy to her work as she details the perfect moments of living in a city. In this particular essay, Brennan explains a night out on the town and an encounter with a woman who was absolutely blotto on the corner of 45th and Broadway.

5. “ Fascinating Fascism ” by Susan Sontag – The New York Review of Books , February 6, 1975

Sontag dissects the jacket copy in The Last of the Nuba by Leni Riefenstahl line by line in order to take down the lauded filmmaker by reminding us of her Nazi past. It’s a convincing tack by the master of the polemic.

6. “ Dark Icons ” by Gary Indiana – Random House’s Boldtype column, 1997

Christopher Fowler writes in the Independent : “Indiana is as detested as he is adored.” In “Dark Icons,” he profiles the criminal superstar, Charles Sobhraj. He writes, “We have made these people stars because their implacable nature is somehow unbelievable, and utterly fascinating in a nauseating sort of way.”

7. “ Consider the Lobster ” by David Foster Wallace – Gourmet , August 2004

DFW attends the 56th Annual Maine Lobster Festival and investigates how and why we indulge in consuming this aquatic arthropod with such gusto. (Yes, there are footnotes.)

8. “ I Can’t Get it for You Wholesale ” by David Rakoff – Harper’s Bazaar

Rakoff’s sardonic take on Paris Fashion Week makes this one of his most memorable essays. Here’s what he has to say about Mssr. Karl Lagerfeld: “Seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin overrisen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, inhuman oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money.”

9. “ Getting In ” by Malcolm Gladwell – The New Yorker , October 10th, 2005

A Canadian outsider looks into the Ivy League college phenomenon in the US and analyzes the social logic involved in the process. It’s a fascinating rumination on the history of the admissions process.

10. Carl Wilson, “ Let’s Talk About Love ” – The 33 1/3 series collection, December 2007

In this essay (which is really a novella), Wilson attempts to understand the appeal of the award-winning Quebecois chanteuse, while also acknowledging his previously held disdain for Dion’s music and personality. It is a masterful “journey to the end of taste,” and by the end we’re all thumping our chests and rooting for Céline Marie Claudette Dion.

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

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• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
• What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
• Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
• What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
• How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

• Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
• Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

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Blog • Understanding Publishing

Posted on Jun 02, 2020

Writing a Non-Fiction Query Letter (+ Sample Query Letter)

Writing a non-fiction query letter is like writing your own ticket to the big time. If you want to convince an agent or publisher that your idea has ‘bestseller’ written all over it so that they get it published , the few hundred words that make up your query must be irresistibly compelling.

Elsewhere on this site, we go into detail on how to write a query letter for a novel . You can head there now and download a checklist for fiction queries which, truth be told, are about 90% the same as non-fiction ones. But with the help of current and former agents on the Reedsy marketplace, this guide will help you understand the other 10% that will push your non-fiction query over the top.

Note: This following process is not intended to be linear, starting with “Dear Ms. Agent” and ending in “Yours sincerely.” Instead, it’s a thorough guide that will prepare you for the querying process.

Create an airtight book proposal

What’s the biggest difference between a fiction and non-fiction query? In non-fiction, the author is not expected to provide a completed manuscript the way a novelist would. Instead, they present a book proposal, a 15-50 page pitching document with various details and sample chapters from your book.

Reedsy has created a dedicated guide to writing book proposals that will show you how to prepare this document. But here’s the gist: a proposal should aim to answer the questions every agent will want to ask about you and your book. The document can be broken down into the following sections:

• An overview — what is the book about?
• Target audience  — who is it written for?
• About the author — why are you the one who should write it?
• Marketing plan — how are you going to help sell it?
• Competitive titles — what are similar titles on the market?
• Chapter outline — how are you going to structure your book?
• Sample chapters — can you actually write?

Don’t start querying until you have solid content for each of these sections. According to Jon Darga , former non-fiction editor at Penguin Random House and current agent at Aevitas Creative Management, agents and acquiring editors will notice if you leave anything out.

“I've seen a lot of proposals that think they can get away with just the pitch and an annotated table of contents. But we need to be able to make sure you can write, too! Overall, though, a non-fiction proposal should be faster and easier to put together than the full manuscript that you'd read with a novel. Much less writing!”

FREE RESOURCE

Book Proposal Template

Craft a professional pitch for your nonfiction book with our handy template.

Personalize your letter for each agent or editor

Agents and editors get flooded with queries and submissions every week. They call it slush , which shows how optimistic they are about pulling gold nuggets from their query piles. With this in mind, editor Rachel Stout (formerly an agent with Dystel & Goderich) reminds authors that they need more than a well-written pitch to get an agent’s attention.

“You need to show this agent that you are being intentional in your querying, and that you're reaching out to this agent for this book, for this specific reason. You're letting that agent know you're particular about who you query.”

This is where personalization comes in: the process of researching individual agents and publishers in order to:

• Ensure that you only query those who want what you have to sell; and
• Show the recipient of the letter that you are interested in them , specifically.

The second point is crucial. You need to demonstrate that you’ve done your research and you’re not just firing off boilerplate emails and BCC’ing the rest of the publishing world. It can be as simple as getting their name right (more of an issue than you’d imagine) and mentioning a book they’ve worked on — bonus points if it’s similar to yours!

Rachel goes into detail and reveals her top tips in a recent webinar on personalizing queries . Watch the replay and check out the transcript for invaluable advice on personalizing your non-fiction query letter.

Resources for researching agents

Ready to research some literary agents? Hit the ground running with our extensive directory of non-fiction literary agents! We have 500+ agents listed right there, all of whom have already been researched and vetted by our team, allowing you to pick from the best of the best.

Additional resources for researching agents include:

• Agent databases such as Agent Query , Query Tracker , or Publishers Marketplace (see the profiles listed for each agent in our directory ).
• Acknowledgments pages of similar books (which you can comb through for more of an old-school approach).
• Publishing conferences where agents and editors will happily speak with authors.

You'll find more assistance and resources in our post on how to find a literary agent . But in short, you need to find agents who are both open to submissions and seeking your type of book, then make notes of details about them that you can use to personalize your query letter.

Show that you’re the right person for the job

What makes a non-fiction query stand out from the crowd? For Jon Darga, it’s about author platform more than anything else:

“Not necessarily how many Twitter followers you have, but positioning yourself as the one best person to write that book. It would be really difficult to write, say, [cancer physician] Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies if you weren't involved in the medical sciences in some way.”

Your platform doesn’t depend on advanced degrees, either — it’s about how your experience makes you uniquely qualified to write this book. In this next section, we’ll look at the short bios of first-time authors to see how, as Jon says, they position themselves as the best person to write each of their books.

Example 1. Memoir

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay.

The UK’s biggest non-fiction hit over the past few years, this memoir offers readers a humorous look at the doctors, nurses, and wards of Britain’s national healthcare system.

About the author (from the book): “Adam Kay is an award-winning comedian and writer for TV and film. He previously worked for many years as a junior doctor.”

Analysis: Boom — there it is. Who better to write a funny book about being a doctor than an acclaimed comedian who used to be a doctor? Before this book was published, Kay’s modest profile as a comic may not have been enough to pass as a “platform” — but his expertise on the subject has more than made up for it.

Example 2. Business

ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. 

This 2010 book showed its readers a new approach to entrepreneurship that leverages inexpensive apps and tools to simplify and streamline businesses.

About the author (from the book): “Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are the president and co-founder/president of Basecamp (formerly 37signals), a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary.”

Analysis: Fried and Hansson co-authored a book that’s intrinsically tied to both their story and their product; they built a company that created the very solution that allowed them to grow. Very meta.

Example 3. Health and Addiction

We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life by Laura McKowen

In this inspirational book , the author addresses the big issues faced by alcoholics in a charming and heartwarming way.

About the author (from the book): “Laura McKowen had a successful career in public relations and the Mad Men -esque drinking culture of advertising. After getting sober, she became recognized as a fresh voice in recovery, beloved for her soulful and irreverent writing. She now leads sold-out retreats on sobriety and is a celebrated yoga instructor.”

Analysis: McKowen’s bio is a quick and highly effective sell of her book. We see that the author has been through the wringer and can offer a first-hand account of alcoholism. Her mention of running “sold-out retreats” validates her claim of being an expert in helping others cope with their recovery. It also implies she has an existing audience of potential buyers

Sometimes, you just need something that no one else has

Let’s say that you don’t have a sexy CV, IMDb credits, a successful company, or even a personal story that ties into the subject of your book. In Jon Darga’s experience, that’s not necessarily a dead end: “I have published books without an obvious platform by writers who convinced me they'd found information and connections that nobody else had!”

A unique angle can take many forms. For example, you might take the wisdom found in ancient texts and spin it in a novel way (like Becky Sheetz Runkle did with Sun Tzu in her book, The Art of War for Small Business ). Or perhaps you’ve uncovered primary sources that other historians may have missed, as David Blight did in his 2018 biography of Frederick Douglass ). So long as you’re able to demonstrate why a more experienced writer couldn’t do a better job than you on this particular book, there’s still hope.

Query Letter Template

Learn how to grab a literary agent’s attention with our free template + checklist.

Start the letter with your strongest selling point

When you’re pitching a novel, you’re always told to “start with the hook,” which refers to a killer plot detail that makes anyone listening want to learn more. In a non-fiction query, the goal is still the same — to hook the reader — but the bait can take many forms. And guess what? You already know what most of these hooks are.

Hook 1: The Story

Dear Ms Buchanan,

I’m seeking representation for my debut non-fiction book, APOCALYPSE COW, which uncovers the darkest chapter in the USDA’s history: a failed 1980 paramilitary operation to neuter millions of cattle in South America.

Hook 2: Your platform

Dear Mr Caulfield,

You've definitely heard of my clients, but if I've done my job right, you've never heard of me. Meryl Streep's nose? Julia Roberts' forehead? Madonna's... everything? All my handiwork. I'm Beverly Hills' most prolific cosmetic surgeon and author of INNER BEAUTY OUTSIDE.

Hook 3: Personalization

Dear Ms Wormwood,

I recently read your post in the Publishers Weekly blog on the dearth of younger voices in historical non-fiction. You mentioned an interest in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and I would love for you to consider representing my non-fiction book, ROSSETTI VS. THE ART BROS.

Hook 4: An untapped section of the market

Dear Mr Chinaski,

I am writing to seek representation for my book, WFH: WORK, FAMILY, HAPPINESS — an irreverent parenting guide for the 5 million digital nomads scattered across North America — a third of whom are on the cusp of starting families.

Once you have the agent or editor sitting up and paying attention, it’s time to reel them in with the rest of your query letter...

Follow instructions and don’t reinvent the wheel

If you have wacky ideas for attention-grabbing ways to write your query letter (Pretend to be their high school buddy! Jokingly threaten to harm their pets!) then take a breath and start again.

In almost all cases, the best approach is a straightforward one: follow a fairly standard format and clearly communicate why they should be interested in your book.

With online submissions now being the norm, you often won't have to worry about structuring your query letter. You just have to fill in a form. But here’s a piece of advice that could make or break your query:

Follow the submissions guidelines.

This tip sounds so obvious that it verges on insulting. However, as we mentioned at the start of this guide, agents and editors are often swamped. A query that fails to follow the submission guidelines will be viewed poorly at best, and at worst, be rejected sight unseen.

In cases where submissions guidelines are loose, your query should contain:

• An irresistible hook
• Some aspect of personalization
• Estimated word count
• Intended readership
• Comparative titles
• A brief, relevant bio
• Your book proposal with sample chapters

To see what a standard non-fiction query might look like, here’s an actual example of a letter that worked.

Sample Non-fiction Query Letter

One of Jon Darga’s clients kindly permitted us to reprint their query letter. The title and author name have been redacted — and some of the formatting and wording has been altered from the original.

Dear Mr. Darga,

Here’s some free doctor’s advice: never get sick in July. At best, you’ll meet a doctor at the hospital on her very first day, and she won’t know the difference between a sleeping patient and a patient in a coma. Worst case scenario, you’ll meet a more seasoned physician who was high on drugs the night before, still a little drunk that morning, and has contemplated suicide twice since you arrived in the ER. How do I know this?

I am many things: a dreamer, a high achiever, an Ivy-Leaguer; I’m not White, mostly Black, and questionably Asian; I’m a saboteur, a heavy drinker, a trust abuser; I am someone’s lost son; I’m not sure if I like myself. I am fragile. I am haunted. I’m the last person you want to trust your life to. And I’m your doctor.

[TITLE] is an unflinching, uncensored examination of the often harrowing, sometimes shocking, and progressively dehumanizing twists and turns of medical residency training, and how it provided the perfect context for the culmination of, and ultimate triumph over this young doctor’s struggles with his vices, mental illness, and complex relationship with his father.

A memoir written in the irreverent spirit of the Samuel Shem’s medical classic House of God , while embracing the vulnerability of Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air , my work provides a candid account of the ways in which residency training shattered the mind of an empathetic and well-intentioned doctor, and the arduous task of piecing it back together again through painful and overdue self-discovery.

I am a certified Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat surgeon) with degrees from Harvard and Emory University School of Medicine but I also appear frequently at The Moth competitions, where I’ve won their Storyslam and came runner-up in the Detroit Grandslam. I’m also a writing consultant for [POPULAR TV DRAMA], distilling complex medical and social issues into palatable and understandable mainstream storylines.

[TITLE] offers a modern and fearless appraisal of what it means to be unsure of yourself every day, even as you hold another person's life in your hands. It's hope and love and a cry to keep moving forward, to live each day the very best that we can. I hope you enjoy the read.

This letter comes in at under 380 words, but checks all the boxes and demonstrates that the author can write well, which every query should aim to do. After all, if the agent or editor doesn’t think you can write a compelling letter, why would they think that your book's any better?

To learn more, enroll in Reedsy’s free courses on Writing a Query Letter and Submitting Non-Fiction to Agents and Editors .

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Submit to your shortlist and always follow up

Now that you have compiled all the elements of your query letter, it’s time to get it out into the world. But where should you start? Here are a few pointers to help you with the actual communication side of querying.

Decide whether you want to query agents or publishers (or both)

When it comes to agents, the conventional wisdom is that you’ll need one if you want to publish fiction traditionally; for non-fiction, however, authors can often submit directly to publishers.

When asked to clarify which precise types of books would require an agent to publish, Jon Darga pushed back at the premise.

“The question, for me, should be less what types of non-fiction book and more what are the author's goals ?

“If the author is an academic who's happy doing a deal directly with a university press , or someone who just wants to see their memoir published by an indie press , then you probably don't need an agent. But if your goal is to be published traditionally and commercially by one of the Big Five , you'll need an agent to make those inroads.”

Don’t be afraid to query more than one agent or publisher

Some agencies will only let you query one of their agents at any given time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put your feelers out to a few of their rivals.

Rachel Stout suggests querying anything from five-to-ten places at a time. “You can go to fewer, you can go to more, but remember it will be up to you to keep track of where your query is and who has had it for how long.”

Indeed, you will want to keep track of those queries so you can chase them up in good time — which leads to our next point.

Follow up at precisely the right time

It’s not unusual for your query to get buried under a mountain of slush, so you should always follow up. Again, read the submission guidelines — they will often tell you how long you should expect to wait for a reply (six weeks is not uncommon!). If you haven’t heard back by then, reply-all to your original query and just say that you’re following up and you’re looking forward to hearing from them.

Bonus tip: if you hear back from any of the agents you’ve queried, you should mention this in your follow-up to the ones who have yet to reply. Just frame it as a polite reminder to check out your submission and not to miss out on something valuable (your book!).

Don’t lose heart

Most published authors have had to deal with rejections at various points in their careers. If an agent rejects your query, it could just mean that the book is not right for them — but it might be perfect for another agent or editor. So keep at it.

As long as your non-fiction book is well-written and has a viable market, you can find a way to get it into the hands of readers. If it’s not with a Big 5 publisher, you might consider looking into a boutique press. And if not them, then perhaps it’s time to dive into the exciting world of self-publishing . Whichever route you take, good luck!

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