The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write to Explain

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Write to Explain

When your purpose is to explain, you are giving your reader a tour. A good guide never skips a stop, and never fakes what they do not know.

Every explanation is a trip you take your reader on. Here is what a good one carries, what each part does for the reader, and where this grade raises the bar: your stops should draw on more than one source.

A clear destination

Your topic, in one sentence the reader cannot misunderstand. They should know exactly where this tour is going before it starts.
Stops in the right order, from more than one source

Your steps or facts, at least three, in the order that helps the reader most, and drawn from more than one place: what an expert said, what a fact sheet or a statistic reports, and what you observed yourself. A tour built from three kinds of knowing holds better than one built from memory alone.
What to notice at each stop

For each step, one more line: what it means, why it matters, or where you learned it. Naming your source at a stop is not a detour. It is what tells the reader they can trust the view.
An ending that leaves them knowing the way

Wrap it up and remind the reader what they now understand. They should walk away able to explain it to the next person themselves.

Spend your tools

The craft moves you already know still do the work, pointed at an explanation.

Nelson · Specific nouns

Two nouns can point at the same thing and FEEL different. "Place" is flat; "shelter" carries care. "Animals" is neutral; "strays" carries the loss. That extra feeling a word carries is its connotation, and choosing it on purpose is real power. Nelson would want the exact one.

The animals at the place needed homes. The strays at the shelter needed homes.

Vinny · Strong verbs

A verb can do more than name an action; it can set the pace. "Waited" is a snapshot; "had been waiting" stretches the weeks behind it. "Was deciding" slows the choice down so the reader feels it. Vinny knows the verb sets the clock.

The dog waited. I decided to stay. The dog had been waiting for weeks. I was deciding, slowly, to stay.

Connie · Clause control and subordination

When two ideas share a sentence, one can lead and one can follow. Tuck the lesser idea into a subordinate clause ("where I learned...") so the main idea ("changed me") carries the weight. Model the commas around the clause; that is the rule. Connie can join clauses, but you decide which one leads.

I volunteered at the shelter. I learned why pets get returned. It changed me. Volunteering at the shelter, where I learned why pets get returned, changed me.

The Mayor · Introduction and conclusion craft

The opening and the close do the heaviest lifting. A strong introduction earns the reader's attention with a real moment, not "this is about." A strong conclusion does more than stop; it hands the reader the meaning. Craft both ends, and the middle is trusted.

This is about the shelter. In conclusion, pets matter. The third time I saw his name on the whiteboard, I understood the problem. So before a family adopts, one honest hour could change a life, his and theirs.

The Explain Plan

Same three moves as always, new trip. When your purpose is to inform or to explain, the Plan it move is the Tour.

The Mayor's Power Plan

Pick it. Choose the idea worth explaining, and the reader who needs it.
Plan it. Map your stops before you go.
Pour it on. Write, and keep pouring: more detail at every stop the reader needs it.

The Tour

Plan the route, and the reader can follow it with their own two hands.

Name where we are going: your topic, in one sentence.
The stops, in order: your steps or facts, at least three.
What to notice at each stop: one more line for each.
Leave them knowing the way: an ending that hands over the skill.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on something our writer learned over a season at the animal shelter: why so many adopted pets get returned, for a reader who assumes the families just did not care.

Pick it. Why adopted pets get returned, explained honestly, for a reader who thinks it is simple. It is not simple, and I have three kinds of knowing to prove it: what the shelter manager told me, the numbers on the shelter's own fact sheet, and what I watched happen with one dog all summer.

Plan it.

Where we are going Pets get returned far more often than most people think, and the reasons are rarely that the family stopped caring. Here are the three that come up again and again.
The stops, in order 1. Behavior the family was not prepared for, like chewing or barking. 2. A mismatch between the pet's needs and the family's real schedule, like a high-energy dog in a household with no time to walk it. 3. Money and life changes, like a move or a medical cost nobody planned for.
What to notice at each The manager told me most returns for behavior come in the first two weeks, before any training has had a chance to work. The shelter's fact sheet listed unmet exercise needs as a leading cause, which matched what I saw. And I watched one boxer mix get returned twice, once for chewing and once for a schedule that never had room for his walks.
Leave them knowing the way Three causes, one pattern: the family almost always meant well and simply did not know what they were signing up for. Now you can explain to someone why a shelter asks so many questions before it lets a pet go home.

Pour it on. When I write this out, I keep the stops exactly and I add what the notes left out: the exact line the manager used, the number from the fact sheet, the blue marker on the return board. But I never rearrange, and I always say where each piece came from. On a tour built from more than one source, the reader is trusting me to tell them which view is the expert's, which is the data's, and which is mine.

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