✏️🛠️ How Any Writer Can Stop Fearing Fact-Checking and Learn to Love It

Checking your facts means second-guessing everything you thought you knew. The first step is shifting your mindset from defending against mistakes to celebrating your work.

Photo by Alison Brockhouse

Next week at Narratively Academy, longtime National Geographic fact-checker Brad Scriber joins us for a very special seminar, The Expert’s Guide to Fact-Checking Your Nonfiction Book. We’re especially excited to offer this class, because tackling fact-checking is such an essential step for any nonfiction writer. But it can also be a very daunting one. Today, Brad joins us to put some of those fears at ease and explain how any writer can shift into the fact-checking mindset — and maybe even enjoy it!

You are the expert on your manuscript. As they say, you wrote the book on it. Now you have to doubt your every word? You can be forgiven for chafing at the idea of turning skeptic on your own writing for a fact-checking review. But this important editorial step can protect your hard work, and a small shift in mindset can help you feel good about the process — even while it’s happening.

Writing is about looking at the world, finding new connections and taking your au…