How do you turn years of knowledge into a book readers can follow? Michael Manahan Sr. shares the story behind The Great Contest and practical writing insights.
Meet This Week's Guest
How do you turn years of knowledge into a book readers can follow? Michael Manahan joins Linda Goldfarb to share the story behind The Great Contest and writing insights on explaining complex subjects, receiving criticism, and revising with your reader in mind.
Welcome
Welcome to Your Best Writing Life! I’m Linda Goldfarb. Have you ever understood a subject so well that explaining it to someone else became the challenge? Today, Dr. Michael Manahan joins me to talk about writing The Great Contest and how to help readers follow a demanding subject.
Guest Bio
Dr. Michael Manahan is an engineer and author of The Great Contest. His background includes patents in applied mechanics, decades of engineering leadership, and 36 years as a volunteer prison chaplain. His writing draws on his professional experience and years of biblical study and teaching.
Episode Content
Writing about a subject you’ve studied for decades brings its own challenges. Where do you begin? What does the reader need explained? And how do you know your message is coming through?
Michael takes us behind The Great Contest to explore how his engineering work and ministry experience shaped his approach to writing about faith and trials.
Our conversation includes:
- What prompted him to write this particular book.
- The challenge of making technical ideas understandable.
- How teaching and speaking influenced his writing.
- Organizing a book before developing the narrative.
- Receiving criticism and returning to the draft.
- Reading your work through your audience’s eyes.
Michael also discusses whom he wrote The Great Contest for and what he hopes readers gain from it. We close with one thing you can do this week to move toward your best writing life.
Connect with Michael
Website: esteemforgod.com
Instagram: @authormichaelmanahan
Look for The Great Contest by Michael Manahan on Amazon.
Put It into Practice
Choose one writing insight from this conversation and apply it to your current draft this week.
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