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Katina M. Woodruff: Author of One Stop Write Shop
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Sunday, June 8, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Writing it Real: For all Nonfiction Book Writers
Writing Nonfiction:
Facts, Fiction and Memory
By: Katina Marie Woodruff
January 28, 2008
What is nonfiction?
1). Nonfiction is a when you write about a person, event, or place that is true in form. Writing that is not imagined or made up.
2). Creative nonfiction, a new term that came into the genre of nonfiction a while back, to be honest it has been around so long that I can’t remember when it was first used.
Creative nonfiction is writing that takes the form of "creative writing," such as real life short stories, nonfiction essays, etc..
Creative nonfiction is not: Journal articles, technical writing, or movie reviews & other forms of nonfiction writing.
The difference between nonfiction and fiction writing may not be as far stretched as one may think; there are some very important rules to follow when writing about a person’s life, or about an event that has really happened.
“I knew that already,” Kia my cat said to me.
Looking down at the shiny coat of my one-year-old calico cat, I replied, “Sure you did. But, did you know that telling a true story can also have some imagined events, or details?” With this, Kia rolled over and I knew she had no idea what I was talking about. So, I decided to tell her.
Kia took hold of the telephone cord and started smacking it with her paw. Then she looked up at me and said with a grin, “What do you mean you can’t remember? You are the writer of this article, a nonfiction one at that. Shouldn't’t you know the facts, before you begin writing?”
“Now, now Kia my sweet kitty, I will get to what I am trying to convey shortly. Stop eating my slippers and just pay attention.” Kia resumed playing with the black cord and I tried to be patient with her, after all, she was just a cat.
I know what you are thinking right at this very minute. I am writing an article about “non-fiction writing,” while at the same time I am making up a conversation between a person (me) and my cat (Kia). This of course is defiantly FICTION, cats cannot talk, and I don’t think I have lost my mind, (yet) anyway.
I could not take the paragraph above and post it as a scene out of a nonfiction book, UNLESS of course I was using it to explain something, or as an example. If I did use it as a factual event, I am guessing that a visit to the nearest psychiatrist would be in order.
New writers are often confused about what they can and cannot do when writing a nonfiction book, after all, truth is stranger than fiction, as it has been way over said for the past decade (or longer!)
What I hope to share with new writers of nonfiction is one of the most important issues that a nonfiction writer, memoirist, bibliography, or autobiography must face in these “FACT CHECKING” days that we are currently residing in.
Quiz: What is nonfiction?
The Truth (speculator)
Real (To the best of your knowledge)
Fact (Verifiable with a certain amount of accuracy)
Memory (Vague, misguided, construed, missing, wrong, imagined, Dreamed, lost, obscured, absent, right/wrong, uncertain/certain/gossip, etc.
Nonfiction is
Real writing that comes primarily from true accounts of ones life or the life of another; it can also encompass an actual event, or historic ordeal. Nonfiction is not 100% factual. This does not mean the writer has to lie about something when they cannot recall, or find the information to verify as FACT! This is important please keep reading.
Real to life-
Must ring true to readers, sound believable, this includes the time it took place (location), characterization, place, time, POV, all these elements must ring true, (things that are believable) and sometimes issues which are highly speculator such as being an eye witness to a UFO, or Swamp Monster?
Was your experience real?
If you were at great grand fathers old light house by the shore of England and you did think that you saw this 25 foot swamp monster, and if the town ridiculed you for telling “stories” as they said, this story could be classified as a Nonfiction story, as long as what you are writing did in deed happen.
The possible swamp monster sighted is speculator. There is no way to prove either way whether or not it was a real thing or imagination, folk tale and being alone on a beach after dusk. If this were a real life experience, one with a mysterious sea creature or a UFO encounter, than you could write about it as the "truth, the whole truth and nothing but, the truth."
Do not tell readers, I captured a 25-foot swamp monster and the town gave me the key to the city afterward if this DID NOT REALLY OCCUR.
Readers have a way of obtaining records, interviewing your family, friends, and those past employment bosses who may like to spill the dirt, long after you were canned from stealing all of the calculators in the office! If you represent yourself in your memoir as the most God fearing, honest man or woman on the face of the Earth, and yet, are found to have a prison record that you kept out of your life story, this may just come back to bite you where no one should be bitten!
This does not mean that you have to spill your guts in your book about each and every flaw every made in your life for your "story to read true," it just means that you should not be so open about being the ideal citizen all of your life, when in fact you were banned from the local Wal-Mart store for trying to steal tropical fish.
Now, I know what you may be thinking right about now, who in the world would mention something as crazy as this in their memoir? I'll tell you who, (Me) Yes, I was banned from a department store for life in fact after being arrested for trying to steal tropical fish. I can't remember being in the store, and yet I felt it was my responsibility to let my readers know, yea being under the influence of a narcotic substance (whether prescribed or taken for pleasure) posses for some UN characteristic traits in a person, manage stealing (a live animal!) Is it embarrassing, why YES.
Does it matter?
Nope, no, not-a!
The most important element of a nonfiction story is TRUTH.
If you cannot remember an event happening, and yet you have the records to show the event did in fact occur, you can write about it. What you cannot do is MAKE UP DETAILS for the sole purpose of entertaining your audience.
"I remember sitting in an office, and later I found out that the office where I sat in was no office at all, (not the type of office I remembered anyway. I was sitting in a Sheriffs office waiting on Dennis to come and bail me out again and this time, I was worried if we were ever making it as a couple because the drugs had taken total control over my life. That is the truth!
You owe it to the readers and to yourself to write what you can remember, and for all the areas of your life you cannot remember, let the readers know you cannot remember the ordeal with certainty BUT you know that it did happened on such a date and how this event untimely changed the course of your life.
IF you did not get a speeding ticket as you wrote about, the one of 150mph in a Hyundai (a car that can barley reach 80 on its first day off of the assemble line, must less at the rate of speed mention in chapter 4, paragraph 3, line 2 of your new NONFICTION BOOK that OPRAH now wishes to list in her book club.
Remember James Frey Folks.
Who wants to be on the Oprah Whimprey Show watched by millions of people to apologize?
“Not me!”
Memory
Most important yet, unforgiving in terms of fact and fiction
Never rely solely on memory, it will trick you and lead you straight to the common please courthouse for a top dollar lawsuit!
If you are uncertain as to being arrested for 9 hours instead of the 9 months mentioned in your book, “James, this is a big no no!”
Than just tell the readers:
“I was suffering from a drug-induced black out and to be totally honest I can’t remember a damn thing folks.”
No matter how much fact checking nonfiction writer does to prevent falsifications, there will be misinformed bits of information thought to be (pure facts), there will be characterizations of people who are combinations of more than one character, whether intentional or unintentional it happens, and it's allowed.
If your father was born on the same year in the same house as your mother, this makes for an interesting tid-bit of information. However, if they were 10 years a part in age and you mention the same year in the same house. You will loose any and all credibility as a writer.
Memory Flaws
I remember what my mother used to tell me as a child, “No one trusts a liar. Might as well just spit it out.
Hmm, now that I think about it, I am not sure who told me this.
See how easy memory can “make us believe things that are incorrect?”
See what I did after my sudden lapse in memory.I let the readers know that I could be wrong about the information given. The people who are going to read your book have a very common trait, “they are human” and they are not beyond making an error.
RE CAP
Nonfiction is:
Truth— At least your side of it anyway
Fact— To the best of our knowledge
Figurative- Based on evidence, such as interviews, and other documentation that can be classified as factual.
Publishers, Editors and the new trend
for accepting memoirs/autobiographies and any other nonfiction piece.
**Fact Checking**
Fact checking has become a top-priority for publishers of autobiography writing, memoir and other nonfiction type article.
Best advice is to be as honest as possible, interview people in your life before writing certain events and for gosh sakes do not tell readers you were in prison for 25 years if you weren't.
Thanks for reading,
Good luck,
Sincerely,
Katina Woodruff
Author of To Persevere
Against all Odds
A memoir of survival
In the editing stages
Online Writing Community - One Stop Write Shop: publish writing free!
Facts, Fiction and Memory
By: Katina Marie Woodruff
January 28, 2008
What is nonfiction?
1). Nonfiction is a when you write about a person, event, or place that is true in form. Writing that is not imagined or made up.
2). Creative nonfiction, a new term that came into the genre of nonfiction a while back, to be honest it has been around so long that I can’t remember when it was first used.
Creative nonfiction is writing that takes the form of "creative writing," such as real life short stories, nonfiction essays, etc..
Creative nonfiction is not: Journal articles, technical writing, or movie reviews & other forms of nonfiction writing.
The difference between nonfiction and fiction writing may not be as far stretched as one may think; there are some very important rules to follow when writing about a person’s life, or about an event that has really happened.
“I knew that already,” Kia my cat said to me.
Looking down at the shiny coat of my one-year-old calico cat, I replied, “Sure you did. But, did you know that telling a true story can also have some imagined events, or details?” With this, Kia rolled over and I knew she had no idea what I was talking about. So, I decided to tell her.
Kia took hold of the telephone cord and started smacking it with her paw. Then she looked up at me and said with a grin, “What do you mean you can’t remember? You are the writer of this article, a nonfiction one at that. Shouldn't’t you know the facts, before you begin writing?”
“Now, now Kia my sweet kitty, I will get to what I am trying to convey shortly. Stop eating my slippers and just pay attention.” Kia resumed playing with the black cord and I tried to be patient with her, after all, she was just a cat.
I know what you are thinking right at this very minute. I am writing an article about “non-fiction writing,” while at the same time I am making up a conversation between a person (me) and my cat (Kia). This of course is defiantly FICTION, cats cannot talk, and I don’t think I have lost my mind, (yet) anyway.
I could not take the paragraph above and post it as a scene out of a nonfiction book, UNLESS of course I was using it to explain something, or as an example. If I did use it as a factual event, I am guessing that a visit to the nearest psychiatrist would be in order.
New writers are often confused about what they can and cannot do when writing a nonfiction book, after all, truth is stranger than fiction, as it has been way over said for the past decade (or longer!)
What I hope to share with new writers of nonfiction is one of the most important issues that a nonfiction writer, memoirist, bibliography, or autobiography must face in these “FACT CHECKING” days that we are currently residing in.
Quiz: What is nonfiction?
The Truth (speculator)
Real (To the best of your knowledge)
Fact (Verifiable with a certain amount of accuracy)
Memory (Vague, misguided, construed, missing, wrong, imagined, Dreamed, lost, obscured, absent, right/wrong, uncertain/certain/gossip, etc.
Nonfiction is
Real writing that comes primarily from true accounts of ones life or the life of another; it can also encompass an actual event, or historic ordeal. Nonfiction is not 100% factual. This does not mean the writer has to lie about something when they cannot recall, or find the information to verify as FACT! This is important please keep reading.
Real to life-
Must ring true to readers, sound believable, this includes the time it took place (location), characterization, place, time, POV, all these elements must ring true, (things that are believable) and sometimes issues which are highly speculator such as being an eye witness to a UFO, or Swamp Monster?
Was your experience real?
If you were at great grand fathers old light house by the shore of England and you did think that you saw this 25 foot swamp monster, and if the town ridiculed you for telling “stories” as they said, this story could be classified as a Nonfiction story, as long as what you are writing did in deed happen.
The possible swamp monster sighted is speculator. There is no way to prove either way whether or not it was a real thing or imagination, folk tale and being alone on a beach after dusk. If this were a real life experience, one with a mysterious sea creature or a UFO encounter, than you could write about it as the "truth, the whole truth and nothing but, the truth."
Do not tell readers, I captured a 25-foot swamp monster and the town gave me the key to the city afterward if this DID NOT REALLY OCCUR.
Readers have a way of obtaining records, interviewing your family, friends, and those past employment bosses who may like to spill the dirt, long after you were canned from stealing all of the calculators in the office! If you represent yourself in your memoir as the most God fearing, honest man or woman on the face of the Earth, and yet, are found to have a prison record that you kept out of your life story, this may just come back to bite you where no one should be bitten!
This does not mean that you have to spill your guts in your book about each and every flaw every made in your life for your "story to read true," it just means that you should not be so open about being the ideal citizen all of your life, when in fact you were banned from the local Wal-Mart store for trying to steal tropical fish.
Now, I know what you may be thinking right about now, who in the world would mention something as crazy as this in their memoir? I'll tell you who, (Me) Yes, I was banned from a department store for life in fact after being arrested for trying to steal tropical fish. I can't remember being in the store, and yet I felt it was my responsibility to let my readers know, yea being under the influence of a narcotic substance (whether prescribed or taken for pleasure) posses for some UN characteristic traits in a person, manage stealing (a live animal!) Is it embarrassing, why YES.
Does it matter?
Nope, no, not-a!
The most important element of a nonfiction story is TRUTH.
If you cannot remember an event happening, and yet you have the records to show the event did in fact occur, you can write about it. What you cannot do is MAKE UP DETAILS for the sole purpose of entertaining your audience.
"I remember sitting in an office, and later I found out that the office where I sat in was no office at all, (not the type of office I remembered anyway. I was sitting in a Sheriffs office waiting on Dennis to come and bail me out again and this time, I was worried if we were ever making it as a couple because the drugs had taken total control over my life. That is the truth!
You owe it to the readers and to yourself to write what you can remember, and for all the areas of your life you cannot remember, let the readers know you cannot remember the ordeal with certainty BUT you know that it did happened on such a date and how this event untimely changed the course of your life.
IF you did not get a speeding ticket as you wrote about, the one of 150mph in a Hyundai (a car that can barley reach 80 on its first day off of the assemble line, must less at the rate of speed mention in chapter 4, paragraph 3, line 2 of your new NONFICTION BOOK that OPRAH now wishes to list in her book club.
Remember James Frey Folks.
Who wants to be on the Oprah Whimprey Show watched by millions of people to apologize?
“Not me!”
Memory
Most important yet, unforgiving in terms of fact and fiction
Never rely solely on memory, it will trick you and lead you straight to the common please courthouse for a top dollar lawsuit!
If you are uncertain as to being arrested for 9 hours instead of the 9 months mentioned in your book, “James, this is a big no no!”
Than just tell the readers:
“I was suffering from a drug-induced black out and to be totally honest I can’t remember a damn thing folks.”
No matter how much fact checking nonfiction writer does to prevent falsifications, there will be misinformed bits of information thought to be (pure facts), there will be characterizations of people who are combinations of more than one character, whether intentional or unintentional it happens, and it's allowed.
If your father was born on the same year in the same house as your mother, this makes for an interesting tid-bit of information. However, if they were 10 years a part in age and you mention the same year in the same house. You will loose any and all credibility as a writer.
Memory Flaws
I remember what my mother used to tell me as a child, “No one trusts a liar. Might as well just spit it out.
Hmm, now that I think about it, I am not sure who told me this.
See how easy memory can “make us believe things that are incorrect?”
See what I did after my sudden lapse in memory.I let the readers know that I could be wrong about the information given. The people who are going to read your book have a very common trait, “they are human” and they are not beyond making an error.
RE CAP
Nonfiction is:
Truth— At least your side of it anyway
Fact— To the best of our knowledge
Figurative- Based on evidence, such as interviews, and other documentation that can be classified as factual.
Publishers, Editors and the new trend
for accepting memoirs/autobiographies and any other nonfiction piece.
**Fact Checking**
Fact checking has become a top-priority for publishers of autobiography writing, memoir and other nonfiction type article.
Best advice is to be as honest as possible, interview people in your life before writing certain events and for gosh sakes do not tell readers you were in prison for 25 years if you weren't.
Thanks for reading,
Good luck,
Sincerely,
Katina Woodruff
Author of To Persevere
Against all Odds
A memoir of survival
In the editing stages
Online Writing Community - One Stop Write Shop: publish writing free!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
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March 20, 2008 http://www.onestopwriteshop.com
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to have this fee waived.)
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April 28, 2008 Deadline for all entries
Check the website for more information in the Members Forum
after March 13, 2008.
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