GenresNon-fiction
Travel
Going somewhere, and coming back changed — or not.
Travel writing is not a list of places you went and meals you ate, though meals can be wonderful on the page when they are doing more than proving you were there. The reader wants a mind moving through a place, noticing what a hurried visitor would miss, and honest about the fact of being a visitor. A journey needs a reason. Curiosity is a reason. So is a question, a job, a return, a walk you decided to finish.
Guidebooks are a different craft. They have to be useful, current, and arranged so a person can find the station before they find your feelings about the station. Narrative travel can afford more wander, and still benefits from shape. Don't collect countries like stamps. Stay somewhere. Learn enough of the context that your surprise is interesting rather than ignorant, and don't treat the people who live there as extras in your development. If nothing happened and you felt very moved anyway, make sure the writing earns the feeling.
The kinds of book inside it
Narrative travel
The journey is a story, with a person in it, and the places should change the telling rather than sit there as scenery.
Guidebook
Usefulness comes first, which means clear organisation, practical detail, and opinions that help a traveller choose.
Place essays
A location is thought about rather than traversed at speed, and the essays should add up to a way of seeing.
Adventure
The difficulty is part of the point, and the practical reality of the trip should be as present as the exhilaration.
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.