Respect the Truth

First rule of nonfiction writing

I took part in a workshop called “How to Write a Nonfiction Book” last weekend, hosted by the San Gabriel Writers’ League, a writing group I belong to. Two other members and I were asked to share our writing journeys, including our failures and successes. Like many such judgements, we each define our own ideas of success. I’ve had plenty of what I consider failures but also a few deeply satisfying successes. As I prepared for my presentation, I added a list of suggestions for writing nonfiction I hoped would be helpful for both new and seasoned nonfiction writers. Some of the tips might be familiar but still useful reminders. The number one suggestion I proposed for writing nonfiction was to respect truth and honesty.

I remember learning once that there are three fundamental purposes for literature: to inform, to entertain, or to persuade. The other presenters at the workshop write standard nonfiction, the kind most people think of when hearing the term. The most universal understanding of nonfiction is simply writing that’s true; its only purpose is to inform. One of my fellow presenters was a former psychology professor who writes child development textbooks for Sage Publications, a major academic publisher. The other is a retired banking official who wrote a book for teens about managing money that’s been translated into Spanish to reach a broader audience. Both books are perfect examples of writing that informs, and both subject matter experts do an excellent job of educating their audiences about their specialties. But educating readers is not the only purpose of nonfiction.

There’s another genre of nonfiction called creative nonfiction, which began to appear in the 1950s and 60s and has grown in popularity over the last few decades. Lee Gutkind, the author of The Art of Creative Nonfiction is generally credited with defining the genre. The point of creative nonfiction is to tell a true story while using the creative elements of fiction: good scene and character development, natural dialogue, tension, sensory detail, and a story arc that presents a challenge and eventually, a satisfying resolution of tension.

Creative elements can make nonfiction as entertaining as fiction by appealing to a reader’s emotions. One example is Rebecca Skloot’s, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. While reading this highly engaging and deeply researched book of nonfiction about the Lacks family, I was shocked to discover I’d propagated and manipulated the HeLa cells described in Skloot’s book for several years when I worked in a research lab in the 90s. Who knew?

Memoir is another form of creative nonfiction and is more specifically called narrative nonfiction because it tells a story. A memoir often combines all three purposes of literature to inform, entertain, and persuade. Some of my favorite memoirs are heartbreaking, heartwarming, or hilarious, sometimes all three. I laughed out loud while reading well-crafted memoirs by Jenny Lawson, Trevor Noah, and Tina Fey, for instance. Noah’s Born a Crime also educated me with an inside look at the apartheid regime of South Africa in his youth. His book’s structure inspired my own for my first memoir, Mother of My Invention.

Some nonfiction also persuades, or makes appeals to readers, either directly or indirectly, to act on a universal problem. Think I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai, among a host of others. Yousafzai’s story encourages readers to support educational opportunities for girls and women and fight sex inequality. Similarly, Tara Westover’s Educated persuades readers to value education as a means of empowerment. If you’ve ever been a newspaper subscriber, you’re familiar with the standard op-ed feature, sometimes written by columnists, but just as often by other readers of the publication. Their primary purpose is to persuade.

All these purposes of literature can be demonstrated in contemporary memoirs but should not limit them. Almost no memoirist begins to write by thinking, “I’m going to inform my audience about teen pregnancy.” Yet I think my upcoming memoir Subject to Change: What Teaching Teen Moms Taught Me does just that. I wanted to tell the true story of a transformative experience learning to teach science to teen moms in my mid-fifties. In the process, it seemed necessary to include current teen pregnancy statistics and explain the risks to my students if they failed to get an adequate education. Some of the stories of science projects gone wrong are humorously entertaining—most of them at my expense. I also hope my story persuades readers to remain open to learning and personal growth at any age.

A writer’s reasons for writing go deeper than these three basic purposes, however. In my presentation last weekend, I suggested that writers in the audience think deeply about why they write. Everyone has unique reasons. Many seek publication or desire to be paid for their work, which is fair; writing is hard. Most have a passion for a subject or story they feel needs to be told. Some want to leave a legacy for family and friends. I’d like to propose there are other, more universal reasons.

Humans are social animals. Making connections through shared emotions or experiences gives us a sense of belonging. The stories we tell encourage readers to see their place in the human family. No matter what our differences are, we all belong. We all have purpose and inherent value. Readers immerse themselves in books to see themselves there, to see how others overcome similar challenges. They trust nonfiction to reveal truths they can relate to.

Standard nonfiction treats facts as the only version of truth, but there are other ways to understand it. Memoir demands a faithful depiction of universal human truth as the author sees it, truth as they experienced it. I don’t see the telling of my truth as a one-way transaction, however. Instead, it’s an invitation for others to join in an exchange of ideas. I think nonfiction writers have a unique opportunity to begin significant conversations, and respecting their readers’ trust is critical. My next post will address additional tips for nonfiction writers, but this is the first and most important piece of advice I shared with the workshop audience last weekend: tell your stories as honestly as you can.