Tell It Like It Is

Book excerpt: America's favorite writing coach and bestselling author returns with an "indispensable" guide (Diana K. Sugg, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter) to writing clearly and honestly in a world full of lies, propaganda, and misinformation. The darker and more dystopian the future appears, the more influential public writers become. But with so much content vying for our attention, and so much misinformation and propaganda polluting public discourse, how can writers break through the noise to inform an increasingly busy, stressed, and overwhelmed audience? In Tell It Like It Is, bestselling author, writing coach, and teacher Roy Peter Clark offers a succinct and practical guide to writing with clarity, honesty, and conviction. By analyzing stellar writing samples from a diverse collection of public writers, Clark highlights and explains the tools journalists, scientists, economists, fact-checkers, even storytellers use to engage, inform, and hook readers, and how best to deploy them in a variety of contexts. In doing so, he provides answers to some of the most pressing questions facing writers today: How do I make hard facts—about pandemics, wars, natural disasters, social justice—easy reading? How do I get readers to pay attention to what they need to know? How do I help contribute to a culture of writing that combats misinformation and propaganda? How do I instill hope into the hearts and minds of readers? With Clark's trademark wit, insight, and compassion, Tell It Like It Is offers a uniquely practical and engaging guide to public writing in unprecedented times—and an urgently needed remedy for a dangerously confused world.