GenresNon-fiction
History
What happened, and why it still matters.
History for a general reader has to do two things at once. It has to be responsible to the evidence, and it has to be a book someone finishes. Those are not enemies. A clear question, a limited scope, and a sense of what it felt like to be there will take you further than a determination to cover the whole century just in case. Readers can feel when a chapter is only there because you couldn't bear to cut the research.
Argue something. Even a narrative history is quietly claiming that these causes mattered more than those ones. Show your working without turning the pages into footnotes with interruptions. People help. A campaign, a village, a law, a ship, a strike: scale the subject so that individuals can appear without pretending that one person caused the lot. And write for a reader who is intelligent and not necessarily already on your side, or already an expert. The expert can feel welcomed without being the only person in the room.
The kinds of book inside it
Ancient
The sources are fewer, so you should be honest about the gaps, and the daily life you can recover will often matter more than another retelling of a famous war.
Medieval
Faith, land, and power need translating for a modern reader, without being translated into modern personalities.
Early modern
Print, religion, and the beginnings of states and empires give you change you can actually watch, if you pick a door into it.
Modern
The reader may think they already know the story, which means your angle has to be sharp and your facts have to be better than the version they half remember.
Military
Strategy and experience both belong, and a battle chapter should be followable on the ground, not only impressive from above.
Social
Ordinary lives are the archive, and the book should make work, home, and custom as interesting as the decisions of kings.
Microhistory
A small event or place is the lens, and it earns the method when it shows something the wide survey would have smoothed over.
When you want a first sketch, Storywell can draft a contents list in this vein. You are still the one who writes the book. Compose an idea.