Nonfiction means that our stories are as true and accurate as possible. Readers expect - demand - diligence.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Both types of books - fiction and nonfiction - are a search for story. As a writer and a reader, there's nothing I crave more than a good story!
Writing a nonfiction story is like cracking a safe. It seems impossible at the beginning, but once you're in, you're in.
The primary goal of the so-called nonfiction text is to relay the facts of an event - the facts about a person, the facts of history - which is not why I turned to this genre.
People respect nonfiction but they read novels.
But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story.
Nonfiction is both easier and harder to write than fiction. It's easier because the facts are already laid out before you, and there is already a narrative arc. What makes it harder is that you are not free to use your imagination and creativity to fill in any missing gaps within the story.
Fiction is harder for me than nonfiction - more gratifying, as a result, when it succeeds.
Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a reliable if not scenic route, we have delivered. Technique is optional.
I never really understood the idea that nonfiction ought to be this dispensary of data that we have at the moment.
I don't do nonfiction anymore. Eventually, you just feel constrained by the facts. You want to go where the words take you, and people's actual lives don't always conform. And you can't know them that well.