Tips for writing book reviews

August 18, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

I often edit book reviews for the monthly magazine I edit for an audience of financial advisors. As a result, I’ve been thinking about what separates the best book reviews from the serviceable book reviews.

1. Don’t forget the essentials

Your readers will seek a brief overview of the book. You don’t need to regurgitate the table of contents. In many cases, a line or two will suffice.

Also, give the names of the author(s), the book, and the publisher. That’s all information your readers will need if they want to buy the book. Your readers may also appreciate the book’s list price so they know if it’s in their budgets, and a link for buying it.

When I send my contributors a template for their reviews, it includes a fill-in-the-blanks sentence with the information I want. I italicize [Book Title] because that’s the magazine’s style for book titles.

[Book Title] is published by [publisher] at a list price of $___. It is also available as an e-book.

2. Why is this book worth reading—or not?

Sometimes a book is worth considering because of reasons like the following:

The author is a respected expert or has a strong background in the topic
The book covers a hot topic
The book promises a solution to a pressing problem
Other people have said great things about the book

While the factors above make it worthwhile for someone to read and evaluate, the actual book may not live up to its promise. For me as a reader, the value of a nonfiction book depends on:

Does it solve a problem for me?
Does the book deliver what it promised?
Is it written well enough that it’s not painful to read?

Your approach to your review may vary according to your background and the audience for your review.

For example, if you’re a financial advisor reviewing a book for a magazine aimed at financial advisors, then look at the book through the eyes of a financial advisor. This means that a book that’s great at educating individual investors on using educational savings accounts may not teach advisors anything new. On the other hand, advisors may benefit from recommending the book to their clients.

Similarly, a technical book on trusts or taxes might bore individuals, but become an invaluable reference for advisors. One of the valuable things you can do as a reviewer is to identify the audience for which a book is best suited.

Provide specific examples of what makes the book worthwhile. This means that you don’t simply say, “This book provides great ideas for turning spendthrifts into savers,” although that’s a great start. Give an example of a specific idea, and why or how it works.

Other potential topics could include the following, some of which I drew from “How to Write a Nonfiction Book Review” from Lesley Ann McDaniel’s blog and “Book Reviews” from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

What did you like most (or least) about this book?
What would you have done differently in tackling the topic?
Are there other books that cover this topic better?
Did the author’s argument persuade you?

3. Use quotations, if appropriate

Sometimes a good quotation from a book can drive home the point you want to make. But choose carefully. Rather than quote a clunky sentence, consider paraphrasing.

4. Bring in personal experience

If you’re a financial advisor writing for an audience of financial advisors, readers will be interested to learn your personal perspective. For example, you might say something like “the next time I face this [specific problem], I’m going to experiment with author’s suggestion to …”

On a similar note, you could say something like, “As a financial advisor, I wish the author had said more about …, but clearly that’s out of his scope as a writer for a general audience.” Or, “I’ve tried the technique the authors suggest, but until I read their book, I didn’t realize what I was doing wrong.” That bit of vulnerability lends authenticity to your review.

Of course, make it clear whether you recommend the book to your readers.

5. Be critical, but not unkind

Of course, sometimes a book doesn’t live up to its promise. You don’t have to praise a book that doesn’t deserve it.

On the other hand, don’t be mean. When I was learning how to critique my writing students’ work, I was told to “criticize the writing, not the person.” That’s great advice in any setting.

Another resource

I like the suggestions in “How to Write a Compelling Book Review” on the Oxford University Press’ blog. One of the tips that stood out for me was “Summary, however it is handled, should be combined with your evaluation of the book.” You’re writing a book review, not the kind of unopinionated book report that I had to write back in middle school.

The image in the upper left corner has this attribution: Review by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 ImageCreator

Write better sentences with Joe Moran

August 11, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Joe Moran’s First You Write a Sentence. suggests an exercise to help you learn to write better sentences.

Try this exercise

Learn from the artistry of others when you try this exercise described by Moran.

Find a sentence you like and look at it for a distressingly long time, until you start to see past its sense into its shape. As with a painting, the trick is not to exhume some buried symbolism or esoteric meaning, but only to make time to look. Take the sentence apart and reverse-engineer it, the way computer programmers do when they dismantle software to see if they can copy it without infringing the rights. Turn its shape into a dough-cutter for your own sentences. Learn to love the feel of sentences, the arcs of anticipation and suspense, the balancing phrases, the wholesome little snap of the full stop.

My analysis

I’m not a good literary analyst. I often felt like the “weak link” in the writers group that helped me give birth to Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients. However, I’ll share my analysis to keep you from feeling intimidated by the exercise.

Moran’s paragraph is striking for its use of metaphors. I especially like “Turn its shape into a dough-cutter for your own sentences.” That’s a nice short sentence—and I love short sentences.

However, my love of short sentences suggests that perhaps I should look at Moran’s work for how to use long sentences gracefully. The last sentence of his paragraph has 24 words, yet it flows easily. That may be partly because the sentence is not a mishmash of dependent clauses. I can read about each of the loves—”the feel of sentences, the arcs of anticipation and suspense, the balancing phrases, the wholesome little snap of the full stop”—without worrying about which other part of the sentence they relate to. It also uses some unusual word combinations. How often have you thought about the “feel” of a sentence? “The wholesome little snap of the full stop” made me smile.

Try it, you may like it

The next time you see a sentence that you like, pause. Copy it for later analysis, or, if you have the time, analyze it on the spot.

If you learn something from this exercise, I’d love to hear about it.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

Moot or not?

July 21, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

For years, I assumed that if something was “moot,” it didn’t matter, or wasn’t worth arguing about. Was I ever wrong!

However, it turns out that I have company in misunderstanding this word.

Here’s what I discovered thumbing through Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage.

Moot means arguable or subject to discussion, but the misusers think it means hypothetical, superfluous, or academic.

It’s a good thing I’ve never used the word “moot” in my written—and probably not in speech, either. That’s no moot point!

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

4 great tips for writing sentences

July 7, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Joe Moran’s First You Write a Sentence has some great sentences about sentences.

Here’s a sampling of them, sorted by the lesson they suggest.

1. Slow down

Moran writes:

Most of us, when we write, march too quickly on to the next sentence. To write intelligibly is hard enough, so be sure you have done that first. Fix your sights on making one sane, sound, serviceable sentence. As a farmer must do, hold your nerve and resist the impulse to put your energies into cash crops with quick returns. Have the confidence to leave fields fallow, to wait patiently for the grain to grow and to bear with the dry seasons.

What a great analogy with farming!

I don’t recommend pausing after every sentence. After all, too many people struggle to complete a first draft. But, at some point, you should pause to review what you have written. Don’t hesitate to throw it out and start over if it doesn’t work. Your second draft is bound to benefit from the ideas “marinating” in your head.

2. Don’t tax your reader’s memory

“A sentence must stick in the mind. It has to be literally memorable, never so intricate that it cannot be absorbed all at once,” says Moran.

He also says:

The limit of a spoken sentence is the breath capacity of our lungs. The limit of a written one is the memory capacity of our brains. The full stop at the end of a sentence sets the limit. By the time it arrives, you must still be able to recall the sentence’s beginning. If you can’t keep it all in your head, then maybe those words weren’t meant to be together.

“Maybe those words weren’t meant to be together” agrees with my assessment of many complex, long sentences that I read in the fields of investment and wealth management.

I like using the idea of “memory capacity” to explain why many long sentences don’t work. I think that some of my clients might understand that better than my babbling about “too many dependent clauses.”

Complex sentences and paragraphs are also a problem when key information is unintentionally omitted. As Moran says, “A readers should not be asked to do the equivalent of lining up all the screws and dowels and puzzling over the instructions, only to find that the Allen key is missing.” Ooh, there’s another analogy that makes me smile.

3. Give gifts

Moran says that writing should be “an act of generosity, a gift from writer to reader.” So, follow the rules of good gift giving. For starters, “the gift should never feel like more trouble than it is worth.” Moreover, “the gift of knowledge that a sentence brings should never have to be bought, as it often is, with the reader’s boredom or confusion.”

Despite Moran’s suggestions, confusion abounds in many examples of financial writing. That’s no gift.

4. Move up and down the ladder

Moran uses S.I. Hayakawa’s idea of a ladder of abstraction. Concrete nouns like “chair” and “wall” are on the lowest rung. Abstract nouns—nouns like “truth” or “knowledge”—are on the top rung.

Moran says:

Writing stuck on one rung of the ladder of abstraction is too monotone. Arguments that use only abstract nouns, like truth and power and knowledge, are hard to care about because writing that sidesteps the senses is dull. Sentimental or pious writing also leans on abstractions, replacing difficult feelings with consoling simplifications. When words are too general, they paint inadequate pictures. But writing that describes only the feelable things in front of our faces is also dull, because it does not say why those things should matter to someone else. Writing stuck on the ladder’s middle rungs is worst of all, because here sit words with an illusory concreteness. Keep shinning up and down the ladder, though, and the reader gets the gist in different ways. She grasps big ideas through concrete things, and concrete things through big ideas. The tangible ignites the elusive and both of them shine brighter.

Moran himself seems to have a flair for “shinning up and down the ladder.”

I had to return this book to the library before finishing it. I’m definitely re-reserving it. It’s worth reading all the way through.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

Solve the right problem

June 23, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

“A great solution to the wrong problem will always fail,” says Nielsen Norman Group’s Sarah Gibbons in her three-minute video on “User Need Statements in Design Thinking.” Nielsen Norman Group consults on website usability. However, much of what Gibbons discusses applies to other written materials, too.

User need statement

Gibbons defines a user need statement as “An actionable problem statement used to summarize who a particular user is, the user’s need, and why the need is important to that user.” Understanding this information will help you write better communications of all kinds. That includes blog posts, articles, white papers, and even emails.

It interested me that she spoke about the need to empathize with the user.

More resources

If you prefer to learn from written materials instead of video, check out Gibbons’ article on “User Need Statements: The ‘Define’ Stage in Design Thinking.”

To learn about my approach to understanding your audience, read my blog post on identifying “What problem does this blog post solve for them?” and my book, Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients.

The image in the upper left is courtesy of Free photobank torange.biz [CC BY-SA 4.0].

Describing an interview-based assignment to writers

June 16, 2020/in writing, writing process/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Recently a company contacted me to write an interview-based post for its blog. I’ve often done this for blog posts that show off the expertise of the company’s staff. However, what was unusual about this request was that I’d need to interview experts outside the company for the post. The need to find external experts makes an interview-based assignment more time-consuming and less attractive to writers. It’s more like writing a magazine article than a typical content marketing piece.

I learned later that the company’s marketing director had omitted an important piece of information when it described its interview-based assignment. It could have reduced my qualms about accepting an assignment requiring interviews of external experts. I describe it below.

The challenges of using external experts

Using external experts is challenging for two reasons.

First, it takes time to find and schedule them. If the writer doesn’t know relevant experts, a good deal of networking may be required to find them. That’s especially true if there’s no trade association or other group where such experts gather.

Scheduling can be more challenging than when working with a company’s internal experts. Internal experts are motivated to participate for the good of their employer (though they still can be challenging to schedule, but that’s another story). External experts don’t feel a pressing need for your company to succeed at its marketing.

Second, the experts may not wish to use their expertise on behalf of the company that’s your client. It’s generally less prestigious to appear on a corporate blog or in a corporate magazine than in a publication that’s perceived as independent. Also, the expert may worry about appearing to endorse the products or services offered by your client. On the other hand, some corporate publications don’t quote experts by name. That’s even worse because the expert gets no visibility in exchange for sharing insights.

The missing information

After I turned down the interview-based assignment, I learned that the marketing director had unwittingly withheld a piece of information that would have made it more attractive. He told me that he planned to find experts for the writer. That was potentially a big timesaver for the writer.

Of course, just naming experts isn’t enough. For the reasons mentioned above, experts may not want to help a corporate publication. However, if you’re a marketer assigning articles, and you can promise cooperative sources to your outside writers, that’s a big plus. Don’t hide that; feature it!

Of course, there’s other information that writers will seek, including:

Your topic, defined as specifically as possible
Pay
Word count
Place of publication
Target audience and why they’ll care about your topic
Your timeline and editing process

When you provide complete information up front, you’ll get a more realistic price from your writer. Also, the entire writing and editing process will go more smoothly.

One idea to a sentence

June 9, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

“One idea to a sentence” is the title of a section in Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage. It’s also a darned good idea for financial writers.

Bernstein advises this approach for “those kinds of writing in which instant clarity and swift reading, which are other ways of saying quick comprehension, are dominant desiderata.”

Research favors shorter average sentence length

Bernstein cites research showing that articles with a shorter average sentence length are more easily understood.

He explains:

…in other words, a few sentences of three or four words offset some rather long sentences and pulled the average down. Still, although there were some rather long sentences, there were no complicated ones.

This analysis led to the one-idea-per-sentence approach. That’s partly because “Confining a sentence to a single thought will usually reduce the number of words.”

If the folks whose work I edit took this approach, I would spend less time breaking long sentences into two or even three sentences. This kind of editing is an easy way to boost readers’ comprehension.

No splinters, please

Of course, I must be careful not to create what Bernstein calls a “splinter.” Sometimes, as Bernstein says, “a writer or an editor ineptly splits a long sentence, then finds himself holding a meaningless splinter like this: ‘The charge came after an assertion by District Attorney Hogan.’ “ This is part of what writing guru Bryan Garner means when he calls for “no brevity without substance.” I think he and Bernstein have similar philosophies about the characteristics of good sentences.

I also tend to favor one idea per blog post. But that’s a topic for another day.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

The photo in the upper left has is courtesy of Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha [CC BY-SA]

Down with nouns!

June 2, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Joe Moran, the author of First You Write a Sentence. hates how people abuse nouns, sometimes abetted by the passive voice.

He says Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann defended himself at the Nuremberg War Trials “With an impenetrable shield of nouns.” For example, “He described his role as ‘emigration specialist.’ The Auschwitz death trains were ‘evacuation transport.’ ”

That’s not just using nouns, it’s using nouns that obscure the true meaning—they’re euphemisms.

Nouns shed responsibility

Moran dislikes noun-heavy writing:

In nouny writing, anything can be claimed and nothing can be felt. No one says who did what to whom, or takes ownership or blame. Instead of saying that x is not working (verb and participle), they say there has been a loss of functionality (two nouns) in x. These words are not even trying to illuminate; they are immunizing themselves against the world. The aim, even if unknown to the writer, is to bore the reader into not looking closely at the words. Instead of inviting a response, as writing should, it shuts it down.

Verbs bring writing to life

The solution to “nouny writing” is to “disinter the buried verbs and bring them back to life by reverbing them,” says Moran. He believes in “restoring the proper links between the nouns by adding verbs and prepositions, even if this means using more words.”

Moran sets the bar high, saying that writers should use strong verbs to connect the nouns. That means limiting use of forms of the verb “to be” and of the passive voice.

“The passive voice thwarts our healthy desire to ascribe acts to actors and give events a sense of verbal drive,” Moran says. Ooh, I like the verb “thwart”! One-syllable words tend to be stronger. (Of course, “be” is a big exception.) Still, he sees a use for the passive voice, which is sometimes “more truthful.”

Moran is a big fan of verbs, saying “put them next to other words and they are as life-giving to the sentence as light and air to the world.”

Nouns versus verbs

“Nouns and verbs are the two poles of the sentence. Nouns keep it still; verbs make it move,” says Moran. In the end, “Every sentence has to mix the right blend of nouns and verbs.”

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

What “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” taught me about writing

May 19, 2020/in writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Today’s guest post comes to you from business writer Anne Brennan.

What “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” taught me about writing

By Anne Brennan

Between the political climate and writing deadlines, sometimes you just need a break.

I’m not really into cars, and I drink coffee strictly for the caffeine, but I do like to laugh, so I am hooked on Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix show, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”

Ironically, I pressed “Play” for the hilarity, but I found out that Seinfeld and his buddies really talk about the writing process and how they mine their lives for material. I find it fascinating.

Does your writing need a jolt? Check these out tips from some of your fave comedians.

1. Keep sharp.

It’s fascinating to see big-time comedians like Eddie Murphy or Steve Martin admit that they are too chicken to jump back onto the comedy stage. They think they lost their edges, and it feels too intimidating. This episode was obviously before Eddie Murphy returned to SNL and killed. (See, I’m picking up the lingo.)

Writing daily in a journal or working on small writing projects helps keep you in the flow, so you don’t have to start from scratch when it’s time to produce material.

2. Work or play?

In one moment, Seinfeld makes Larry David, co-creator of “Seinfeld,” laugh so hard David does a spit-take at the diner. Seinfeld asks: “How did we get any work done?” Their camaraderie has endured, obviously. Ironically, David always hoped the show would get canceled so he didn’t have to write any more episodes.

I had the impression Seinfeld was basically retired, as he quips he doesn’t need money, but then he reveals he works three out of four weekends…and then all of a sudden there are images of him starring in Las Vegas. Hmmm…sounds like work to me.

If writing starts to feel like work, switch to play mode. Write about something fun, take a break, play with your dog, whatever helps shift you from drudgery to enjoyment.

3. Embrace the inner critic.

Every writer has an inner critic. Imagine what it’d be like to have this critic in actual human form, as an audience member, heckler, or even professional paid critic, scowling as you share your writing. Comedians know this is just part of the deal. Some of the funniest stories are about the times they bombed, or how they handled a heckler. Chris Rock shares a story about bombing so badly that HE had to pay the comedy club manager $50 and beg his dad for a ride home.

Suddenly, MY inner critic looks pretty nice.

If you’re questioning yourself during the creative process, acknowledge it. The more you write, the more you’ll develop resilience, just like the comedians.

4. What’s the big idea?

You’d think “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” would focus a lot on show biz talk like agents, tours, and how to land a Netflix deal. Actually, there’s a lot of talk about ideas between the comedians.

Ideas are everything, and not just in show business. This dawned on me when I worked at the Chicago Tribune. The job description said writer/editor, but I felt like I was an idea factory. Everyone was always asking for an idea, in one form or the other.

Seinfeld’s strategy for brainstorming? You just wait. The idea will come. Dave Chappelle lets the idea–no matter how crazy–be the “driver.” He’s basically there for the ride. He puts his ego in the backseat and lets the idea–say, a blind, black white supremacist–take over.

Writers should run with their big ideas.

5. Use sweat equity.

Some guests are NERVOUS. Seth Rogen is visibly sweating during his interview. “Are you nervous?” Seinfeld asks, sipping his coffee.

“Jerry, don’t do this to me,” Rogen says, begging him not to point it out.

If your writing is boring you, take a chance and go a little deeper. Choose a topic that means something to you. Break a sweat.

6. Reasonable doubt shouldn’t stop you.

Are you a little reluctant to submit your blog, white paper, or novel to someone? You have good company. It amazes me that a few of the legendary comedians subtly ask Seinfeld if their episode is going all right. The episodes are about 18 minutes long. At a few points, the guests—this includes David Letterman—ask if the filming is continuing because they’re not providing enough funny material. News flash: Seinfeld was enjoying their company so that’s why they continued filming.

Feeling a little doubtful your writing is hitting the mark? You’ve got good company. Keep on truckin’, so to speak.

7. Use a surprise ending.

Seinfeld interviews a variety of comedians, from his hero, Jerry Lewis, to current star Sebastian Maniscalco. It’s inspiring to see how their stories intertwine, how they started their careers and the twists and turns of fate. You never know where an idea will take you, that’s the fun part of writing…and life. You can see the shock passing over Maniscalco’s face when Seinfeld asks him what he’s doing later after they film.

“Want to come over for dinner?” Seinfeld asks.

Maniscalco’s about to say, “That would be fan…tastic,” but he regains his composure to finish the sentence. His reply: “That would be… fascinating.”

It was hilarious.

Anne Brennan is a freelance writer whose credits include: Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Crain’s Chicago Business and Yoga Journal. Find writing tips and info at her LinkedIn profile.