“As we discussed” and other conversational distractions in books

A nonfiction book is not a conversation. No matter how conversational you feel, it’s written in the form of a lecture: “I know these things, and I’m sharing them with you.”

True, you can imagine a book as a conversation for planning purposes. I’ve recommended that you imagine the questions that your reader is asking and organize your chapters to answer them.

But plenty of authors give me manuscripts to edit that include phrases like these:

“As we discussed in Chapter 2 . . . “

“We’ll cover this technique in greater detail in Chapter 6 . . . “

“Now use the steps we went over earlier in this chapter . . .”

You are not plural and you’re not in a conversation

The first problem with this is the so-called “editorial we,” which is an excuse to write about yourself in the plural. The editorial we is appropriate for editorials on media sites, where it refers to the publication’s official opinion (for example, “We are very concerned about the senator’s tax proposal, and we’re recommending that the legislature vote against it.”)

It was also common in research reports when I was an analyst. A report might include a comment like “We don’t recommend firing all your software developers and replacing them with AI.” The “we” in that case was the research advisory organization, and the sentence indicated the organization’s official stance.

But in books, unless you have a coauthor, there is no “we.” While you have an imagined connection with a reader, the “we” is presuming a relationship that the reader didn’t consent to. It’s along the lines of a doctor asking “How are we feeling today?” (I have a tummyache, doc, but I have no idea how you feel.) Take credit for what you wrote. Write “I.”

The second problem is “discussed.” The reader naturally thinks, “You just told me what to do and how to think . . . we didn’t ‘discuss’ anything.” Verbs like “cover” and “went over” don’t explicitly reference a conversation but carry the same implication.

You wrote the book. So say so.

Here’s how to properly rewrite the passages I cited earlier:

“As I described in Chapter 2 . . . “

“Chapter 6 includes more details on this technique . . . “

“Now follow the steps I described earlier in this chapter . . . “

You’re writing a book and they’re reading it — don’t be shy. Authors don’t hide that they wrote something. They use “I” and verbs like “wrote” or “described.”

I’m glad we cleared that up.

Strike that. I hope I’ve clarified a better way to handle this.