Jun 4, 2014 / Intermediate

Storytelling for Nonfiction Writers: Three Tools to Consider

No matter what topic you write about, engaging your readers should always be among your top priorities. Here are three storytelling tricks we can learn from fiction writers.

Cropped <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dtron/4542207521/">notebook image</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dtron/">Daniel</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>)

Fiction writers know that stories are always more engaging that mere accounts, reports, and statements. That’s why they devote so much of their time to crafting the right pace, structure, tone, and level of detail for the stories they wish to tell.

It’s easy to forget we’re telling a story when we write a nonfiction post. That’s why thinking about fiction can be so helpful for bloggers of all stripes: it forces you to remember you’re a storyteller first.

No matter what your next post is about — a chapter of your memoir, a rant about politics, a movie review, a travel journal, or a frittata recipe — building it around a central narrative will help you hook your readers. While it might take practice before you find the narrative mode you’re most comfortable in, here are three storytelling tricks that will get you started as you hone your craft.

The thick of things

In real life as in reading, first impressions count. As writers, we often feel the need to explain everything, to make sure everything’s clear — but often do so at the expense of getting to the action. Consider these two opening sentences. Which story are you more likely to continue reading?

Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway was an upper-class married woman in London. She was hosting a big party that night and was a bit stressed about it, since her servant, Lucy, still had many things to do. She decided, then, that it would make the most sense to get the flowers herself.

Or this one:

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach.

Yes; I’m cheating. Clearly, we’re not all Virginia Woolf (the second sentence is the one with which she opens her novel Mrs. Dalloway). But what she does here is something we can all try to remember in our own writing. It’s okay to tease your readers and even to confuse them a bit (who’s Lucy? Who’s Rumplemeyer? Why are the doors taken off the hinges?) when you start a new post, as long as you give them some fun, dynamic action to chew on.

The telling detail

The basic building blocks of stories are almost always the same — someone loves someone else; someone wants something they can’t get; someone wishes to go home (or someplace else) but can’t find the way. How do writers tackle this inescapable repetition? They own the story on the level of the detail — the atoms that create specific people, places, and emotions with language.

It’s important to note that “details” don’t necessarily equal an endless series of adjectives and adverbs: verbs and nouns can be just as specific as modifiers.

Look how much depth is given a secondary character (in Vladimir Nabokov’s Spring in Fialta) in one mid-length sentence:

Her fiancĂ© was a guardsman on leave from the front, a handsome heavy fellow, incredibly well-bred and stolid, who weighed every word on the scales of the most exact common sense and spoke in a velvety baritone, which grew even smoother when he addressed her […].

For nonfiction bloggers, details are just as important — they allow your readers to imagine your reality (or whatever reality you’re writing about) as a rich, three-dimensional space, and help your review, your recipe, your rant stand out from the crowd. It’s easy to forget others can’t see the world through our eyes; adding enough detail helps them approximate your own, specific perspective.

Lean, mean language machines

Fiction writers know that it takes a fraction of a second to lose the reader’s attention. A plodding description, a dialog that doesn’t get to the point soon enough: it’s that easy to make a reader zone out.

The answer to that danger? Become your own most ruthless editor. “Cutting away the fat” doesn’t mean you can’t write long posts, use rich language, or develop complicated ideas. The two authors quoted in this post — Woolf and Nabokov — would laugh at that notion. It means that what stays in stays in for a reason.

Does this mean you have to belabor every last sentence, sit on drafts for days on end, and obsess over commas until you can’t keep your eyes open? Of course not. Not all posts require the same level of editing, and not all posts (or all blogs, for that matter) demand the same level of polish. Sometimes the value you obtain through spontaneity and looseness trumps anything you can get with another edit.

Just try to read your post through another reader’s eyes. If something feels superfluous, it probably is — and the backspace button is there for a reason. As long as you don’t forget the “Publish” button along the way, there’s no reason not to use it.

Has a piece of fiction writing ever inspired your nonfiction blogging? We’d love to hear more tips if you have them!

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  3. I love Mrs Dalloway! Virginia Woolf was a great writer. Good to see you’re still spinning words. Lost track of you after OD decided to close shop. Glad I found you. HLB

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  5. Excellent tips! Thanks for sharing. I am just at the beginning of my blog and I feel it is difficult sometimes to “not write for yourself” so these tips come handy.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Great summary of (almost) every novel in the world! ‘someone loves someone else; someone wants something they can’t get; someone wishes to go home (or someplace else) but can’t find the way.’
    Great advice! ‘cutting away the fat’, that’s the hardest part for me, (I love my words! all of them!) but I’m trying. How much to say/insinuate/leave for later/never say at all… and all those adverbs and adjectives that need to be axed! Food for thought… and thank goodness for beta readers, and friends, and critique groups, and posts like yours that make us think ‘outside of our own box’…

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  10. I am incorporating Scheherazade from 1001 Nights into my true story of eloping with an Egyptian Muslim man I met on the internet during a mid life crisis. The basis for the story is the binder of email printouts I saved of our correspondence, I am segmenting the story into episodes with one email each, wrapped with a fun account of my fantasy life with Scheherazade as my housemate.

    Join the fun on my “Joyride to Egypt” at:

    Ep. 13, Joyride To Egypt: Difficult Answers

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  12. Great post. I like to take into account two of George Orwell’s “writing rules”: never use a long word where a short one will do and if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

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  13. This is an excellent post and one I’ve saved for future reference. Obviously these tips can apply to both fiction and nonfiction, but I do believe us nonfiction writers have unique challenges.

    For me, the first and second tips are the most apt. I have to constantly remind myself to avoid “explainitis” – or that dry paragraph you compulsively find yourself writing, like you’re beginning a user manual.

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  18. Great advice! Neal Stephenson’s passionate explanations of the scientific interests and motivations of his characters really helped me see how engaging non-fiction writing could be

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Couldn’t agree more! Great tips for budding writers like myself! Thanks for the insight! đŸ™‚
    Could you please read through my blog and let me know your reviews
    rinaakameow.wordpress.com
    I am a fiction writer đŸ™‚

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  20. I like to write simply to flex my imagination muscles. But these tips will help the poor souls who might actually read what I put. Thanks

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  21. I was JUST asking for feedback concerning these very specific points. I’d love it if you tackled this subject in future articles with more tips and additional advice!

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  23. Yes, great advice. Fascinated with the three building blocks I’d never heard before (not a fiction writer). Will keep them in mind reading others from now on.

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  25. Having just published my first blog today, this was a lucky post to find and get a bit of practical inspiration from. I would welcome some comments on my first blog to get some feedback on my maniacal moan on The Maniacal Monocle
    Yay! This app on iPhone is so bad it puts you off commenting!

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  26. This is an ingenious post! I’m new to blogging so this is spot on for me..thank you.
    Having no research behind me, I just jumped in head first, this has helped tremendously

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  27. I am gonna share!! I love fiction actually, and while I am not an author, I would love to become one someday with something really good! Lol….wouldn’t we all! I am participating with The Daily Post writing excercises….they are really a lot of fun. Sharing! Sandy

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