✏️🛠️ 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

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 audience on a journey. A writer is like a bridge builder creating a new crossing between two shores.

Shifting your brain from writing mode to checking mode means asking the bridge builder to step aside for a moment and inviting in a bridge inspector.

Writing requires credulity and openness toward things that are new. In contrast, the checker looks for confirmation in sources that already exist. A narrative nonfiction writer will seek out intriguing characters, drama and anecdotes that are larger than li…