If you're writing non-fiction, here are four questions you need to answer

Eric Nelson, executive editor at Wiley is a really smart guy. Of course I follow him on Twitter.  Tonight, apropos of nothing, he dropped these helpful hints into the scrum (my guess is he's reading proposals and feeling frustrated.)

If you're writing a nonfiction book, here's a few questions to answer. Like, actually write them down.

#1. What is your best story, and how does it explain the larger argument of your book?

#2. What's a key distinction you draw in the book, and why has no one else drawn it?

#3. What's the key moment in the recent past that made the world the way it is today? (At least the part of the world you're describing.)

#4. Why now? What we do we know now, but didn't 6 months or 6 years ago?