Elements of non-fiction

All share characteristics with other forms of writing

Scene & Exposition

• You’ve heard this before: Show, don’t tell

• In this case, we are talking about showing action rather than recounting it

• This has a special challenge in non-fiction and memoir in particular

Read this:

I was at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, listening as a woman named Lesley talked about her housekeeper, an immigrant to Australia who earlier that day had cleaned the bathroom countertops with a bottle of very expensive acne medication: “She’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner and can’t read or write a word of English, but other than that she’s marvellous.” —David Sedaris, “Stepping Out,” New Yorker

Now read this:

Lesley pushed back her shirtsleeve, and as she reached for an olive I noticed a rubber bracelet on her left wrist. “Is that a watch?” I asked.

“No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”

I leaned closer, and as she tapped the thickest part of it a number of glowing dots rose to the surface and danced back and forth. “It’s like a pedometer,” she continued. “But updated, and better. The goal is to take ten thousand steps per day, and, once you do, it vibrates.” (Ibid)

Scenes happen in real time

• Scenes happen in real time, through action and dialogue

• Exposition summarizes action and dialogue

• Scenes slow the writing down

• Exposition—summary—condenses and speeds it up

• So you want to choose wisely and make sure the impactful elements are conveyed through scene, and not summarized

Dialogue

• Dialogue in non-fiction is technically expressed in the same way it is in fiction

• With dialogue tags:

“No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”

(Sedaris, ibid)

Types of Dialogue

• Direct

• Summarized

• Indirect

As with scene versus exposition, choices about dialogue should be intentional

Direct Dialogue

• “No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”

• Used for direct action

• Non-expository

• Can convey more than the actual words said

• Can show the reader the character of the person speaking.

Summarized

I was at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, listening as a woman named Lesley talked about her housekeeper, an immigrant to Australia who earlier that day had cleaned the bathroom countertops with a bottle of very expensive acne medication…

(Sedaris)

Summarized Dialogue

• Condensed

• Part of the narrative

• Helps move action along

• Should not be used to gloss over important exchanges in a story

Indirect

We saw David in Arundel picking up a dead squirrel with his grabbers,” the neighbors told Hugh. “We saw him outside Steyning rolling a tire down the side of the road”; “ . . . in Pulborough dislodging a pair of Y-fronts from a tree branch.”

(Sedaris)

Indirect

• Reported by someone other than the narrator

• Creates the feel of direct exchange

• Similar attributes to summarized exchanges, as in shouldn’t be used to convey important information.

All Together

• Using all three methods of dialogue creates variety in the text

• Eliminates long pages of direct indented dialogue

• Combines the telling and showing of human interaction

Mechanics

• Direct dialogue uses quotation marks.

• Each speaker uses a new paragraph

• Quotation marks within punctuation

• Use basic talking verbs for dialogue tags (said, says); dialogue tags should be invisible.

Structure

• Structure simply means how you choose to tell the story, how you choose to order the elements

• In non-fiction, it can be tempting to simply tell the story in chronological order

• But this isn’t your only option

Double narratives

The collie wakes me up about three times a night, summoning me from a great distance as I row my boat through a dim, complicated dream. She’s on the shoreline, barking. Wake up. She’s staring at me with her head slightly tipped to the side, long nose, gazing eyes, toenails clenched to get a purchase on the wood floor. We used to call her the face of love.

—Joann Beard, “Fourth State of Matter”

Second narrative thread

They’re speaking in physics, so I’m left out of the conversation. Chris apologetically erases one of the pictures I’ve drawn on the blackboard and replaces it with a curving blue arrow surrounded by radiating chalk waves of green.

“If it’s plasma, make it in red,” I suggest. We’re all smoking semi-illegally in the journal office with the door closed and the window open. We’re having a plasma party.

(Beard)

Reflective & Circular Structure

• In which the author doesn’t lead us from a beginning to an end in chronological order, but, rather, circles around the topic, always returning to its central point.

Under the Influence

My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food--compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling. I use the past tense not because he ever quit drinking but because he quit living. That is how the story ends for my father, age sixty-four, heart bursting, body cooling, slumped and forsaken on the linoleum of my brother's trailer. The story continues for my brother, my sister, my mother, and me, and will continue as long as memory holds.

In the perennial present of memory, I slip into the garage or barn to see my father tipping back the flat green bottles of wine, the brown cylinders of whiskey, the cans of beer disguised in paper bags. His Adam's apple bobs, the liquid gurgles, he wipes the sandy-haired back of a hand over his lips, and then, his bloodshot gaze bumping into me, he stashes the bottle or can inside his jacket, under the workbench, between two bales of hay, and we both pretend the moment has not occurred.

—Scott Russell Sanders

Unified vignettes

• Creative non-fiction is often very successful not by sticking to a strict chronology, but by bringing together several different scenes connected by reflection or theme

These are just a few examples

But the form is only limited by how you decide to tell the story, how you choose to frame it, so play around

It can be helpful, too, to visualize your story a bit as a shape as a way of thinking about how you want to ultimately shape the story itself.

For example: a circle!

Voice

• Another way of thinking about voice, is to think about the tone of your story

• Is it happy, sarcastic, confused: does the voice of the story match the mind of the narrator at the time the story took place?

• Or, is it an adult voice telling the story that belonged to a child when it happened?

• Strive for authenticity of voice, the voice that makes sense for the story itself

POV

• Point of view in non-fiction works as it does in fiction:

• First person

• Second Person

• Third Person

• Consistency is key

• First-person is the most common in memoir, but if you have a reason to use another POV, go for it.

Specificity

• Details are a cornerstone of all strong writing

• Use concrete words to show the people in the story, the environment of the story

• In journalism, we call this “naming the dog.”

By which I mean: Sally, a 14-year-old white and brown cocker spaniel with a tendency to drool when she slept is more concrete than saying “My dog.”

Use Critique

• The feedback on these elements, as well as the elements of reflection and research can help you during the revision process

• Trying to pay attention to all these elements while writing makes for tough inspiration

• But systematically looking at each element of non-fiction when revising will make for a stronger final draft

Critique Groups

Group 1

Zoe

Andrew

Maria

Margie

Group 2

Ryan

Marisa

Cris

Deanna

Group 3 Group 4

Ana Stina Johanna

Nick Brantlee

Charlie Felicia

Melinda Rosario

First steps

• Divide into your groups

• Exchange your first drafts

• Each person take a few minutes and tell your group what you’re writing about for your memoir piece

• Feel free to let each other know your current challenges and questions, where you are with the piece, so they can keep that in mind when reading

• Make sure you leave a copy with me before you leave.