Creative Nonfiction: From the Inside Out

Nieman Storyboard (‏@niemanstory) tweeted this:
The masterful David Grann (@DavidGrann) takes us inside his reporting & writing process on "The Yankee Comandante."

Finding a Focus

Awash in detail? Have a notion for a story?

See what others have to say about zeroing in on what your piece is about in this rerun of a Poynter chat about finding your focus.

http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/writing-tools/141685/live-chat-today-practical-tips-for-finding-a-focus-when-writing/

Advice for Unfolding Your Story

niemanstory Nieman Storyboard

How do you unfold a story that keeps the reader going?http://bit.ly/id0nzu

The 4x6 Scene

The hallmark of creative nonfiction is the scene. Any fool journalist can give you anecdote. James V. Smith Jr. in The Writer's Little Helper advocates listing each scene in your story on a 4x6 index card. These cards can be shuffled around to decide how to you tell your story.

• On each card, jot down what happens in the scene--action, players, and setting.
• State the purpose of the scene: (1) move the story line ahead; (2) introduce or develop character(s); (3) introduce or worse a problem; (4) solve a problem; (5) set up later scenes; (6) create atmosphere or develop setting; or (7) present information or data.
  
• Identify a singular element to highlight: action, conflict, imagery, invention, irony, dialogue, or suspense.

Later in the book, Smith explains the last bullet item, calling it the ACIIIDS test. It's his contention that each scene should contain all these elements, with one dominating.

Action--the level of movement or activity ("impending," "incidental," "overt," "urgent," "frenetic").
Conflict--the level of argument or contention ("tension" to "fatal").
Imagery--the level of visual cues ("suggested" to "determinate").
Invention--the level of creativity in a scene ("cheap trick," "blink-blink," wondrous smile," "expletive," "WOW!").
Irony--the level of wit, or sense of humor, in a scene (from "subtle" to "take your breath away").
Dialogue--the level of conversation ("internal" to "imbroglio").
Suspense--ranging from "invisible" to "nail-biter."

Truth vs. Accuracy

Can a statement be accurate but not true?

In clearing one of the many paper-burdened horizontal surfaces in my house, I opened my February-March 2005 issue of Copy Editor, a newsletter I have loved for many years as an editor. In the column where readers send in questions, someone inquires about the "strict difference" between the words accurate and true.

The answer, provided by Barbara Wallraff, captures a point vital to writing narrative nonfiction. In the movie Absence of Malice, a reporter writes a page-one story about a businessman. The information was accurate, but she presented it in such a way that led readers to jump to the wrong conclusions. This treatment qualifies as "accurate but not true." Wallraff continues with another example. Say that two police officers stopped at her house and asked if she wanted to buy tickets to their annual party. It would be accurate to say that "Police officers questioned Wallraff at her home." But that statement would not be true. Wallraff concludes, "An accurate statement is factually correct; a true statement, besides being accurate, should mean what it seems to mean."