I love a good ‘how to’ book.

I don’t mean an instruction manual. I’m not talking about How to Fix Your Drain or A Dummy’s Guide to HTML.

I’m talking about a fiction book that explains how to do something. It’s often a job—how a job works, what the skills are you need, how to apply them, the tricks and insights to making it happen. But it can be other things. I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in high school and what I liked most was the motorcycle maintenace (I don’t remember any of the zen). It was just interesting. It was super readable (that’s what separates it from an instructional how-to book).

Normally an entire work of fiction isn’t how-to. Usually it just comes through in the story. The story relies on the how-to to inject realism and creates this extra component that makes the book fun. Not only is this an interesting story, but this is actually how you would do this. I’m learning something!

So an example:

• Part of Your World by Abby Jiminez – In the midst of the romcom fun, we learn about Daniel’s various income streams, which include an Airbnb property and woodworking. This novel doesn’t go super deep into the how-to, but we learn what works and doesn’t work for the Airbnb, what hospitality looks like, the value of ratings, etc. We also learn about woodworking, how he sees something in a piece of wood, how he does some of the work to create a piece or fix damage. Again, not ridiculous detail (I would have loved more), but enough to make it ring true.

And I don’t even know if it needs to be true. It just needs to feel true. Being true certainly helps, but who’s to say if it’s real?

• Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe – Margo gets on OnlyFans and learns the ins and outs of the platform. Not simply how to take a nude pic, but how to build an audience, create a brand, do cross-promotion, etc. There’s a whole lesson in how OnlyFans works that grounds the story in reality.

I don’t know if Margo’s approach to OnlyFans works. I don’t really care. It seems plausible. Her ‘rate your dick as a Pokemon character’ offering is ridiculously funny, but then we get two or three of them and they’re hilarious and just plausible enough to work.

This how to approach might be some of the appeal in post-apocalyptic fiction. Sometimes seeing how exactly a post-crash system works to keep a family fed is just fascinating.

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – How do you create a video game? And beyond the coding, which would be a nightmare to read, how do you come up with the ideas behind the game? This novel does a masterful job of taking you into that works and seeing how a video game creator ticks.
• The Martian and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – The best example of this is probably The Martian, which is basically a book about engineering survival on Mars. How to grow potatoes on a harsh, alien planet. And it’s fascinating. Project Hail Mary is good at it too, diving into some really complex science, but still making it so you can follow along.

Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing how people live—how someone survives on a meager budget or how they make food (J. Ryan Stradal seems to be really good at this).

As I keep thinking about it, examples are everywhere. But it’s something that almost always capitavtes me in good fiction. Show me how to.