Writing Nonfiction

I love to read nonfiction: how-to books, biographies, autobiographies, and true crime. How-to books give me information about topics I’m interested in and want to know more about. Some are better than others, but I have yet to read an informational book that hasn’t taught me at least one thing.

As for biographies, autobiographies, and true crime, I also learn from them, but what I’ve been trying to learn lately, is the craft of writing nonfiction. A well-written nonfiction book seems effortless, although I know better than that. A lot of work goes into producing nonfiction, and maybe that’s one reason I don’t write more of it.

If I think about all the research and interviewing that takes place, it’s enough to make my head spin. I had to do a lot of research when I wrote The Internment of Japanese Americans: The Constitutional Threat Fifty Years Later for the University of Utah’s Journal of Contemporary Law. I spent months reading books, articles, and court cases (the topic was interesting to me, however, because my parents were interned in the relocation camps during World War II).

I’m talking about digging and digging and digging even more to find those interesting and colorful nuggets of information. After finding those nuggets, it was about discovering whether or not they were true or legend. Items get lost, minds fade, and every avenue must be explored to find the truth, if it exists. The truth may be different for each person who experienced the event because of bias or perception.

So how do you know what to write? Whose truth do you tell? How much can you leave out? How much should you put in? What is the actual story you want to write?

One of the best how-to books on writing nonfiction that I’ve read is Writing for Story by Jon Franklin (see my review here). I used Mr. Franklin’s techniques when I wrote “Give Caring”, for the Voices of Caregiving book published by LaChance Publishing in 2008. Because the story was personal, I didn’t have to delve into deep research or conduct any interviews, but I had to find the story I wanted to tell. There were so many thoughts running through my brain, and I couldn’t focus on one thing. Once I narrowed my thoughts down, the story flowed.

I’m not saying that fiction requires less effort than nonfiction, because fiction writers also do research and conduct interviews. However, I enjoy writing fiction more because I can make things up to produce a better story. I can’t do that with nonfiction. Nonfiction is about truth, and about humanness and the emotions that come from being human.

Writing a nonfiction book about a topic that intrigues me is on my “one-day-before-I-die-to-do-list”. I hope it happens.