Fiction is fun, but there's a lot of excitement and adventure in writing the real world, too. This is a BIG topic, from straightforward how-to or information articles through letters, essays both humorous and thoughtful, memoir, travel writing, food writing, history, science, biography, and points beyond and between. If part of your aim in writing is to earn money, it is often easier (relatively easier… few writers live on Easy Street) to break into nonfiction, because the market is much bigger and broader than the fiction market, especially for nonfiction writers who are willing to track what is selling and learn to research and write new topics. If you are particularly interested in writing nonfiction for positive social, environmental, or political (etc.) change, also visit Writing for Change.
Calamity Jane—the real Martha Jane Cannary, a woman who forged her own trails.
If writing nonfiction interests you, you could not do yourself a bigger favor than to get Susan Tiberghien's book, One Year to a Writing Life— Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer's Craft if you don't already have it. This is, quite simply, the best overall broad-sweep writing book I have ever read or worked with. I have benefited tremendously from the exercises I have managed to do so far (some of which were incorporated into Susan's "Creative nonfiction" workshop at last year's annual IWWG conference). There are chapters I refer to again and again in my writer's journey.
I love Susan's writing. She writes crystal, deep and profound but so clear and simple you can see all the way down to the bottom. Both of her books that I've read are marvels of simple, elegant clarity. Because of Susan, I understand at a much deeper gut level the incredible leaps language and thought can take with the aid of elegant chains, bridges, and ladders built of image, simile, metaphor, and symbol, and I can work with those magical chains much more consciously and effectively.
Personal essays, memoir, travel essays, op-ed pieces, poetry and the prose poem, journals, and more are deepened and clarified by Susan's excellent observations, advice, examples, and exercises. Her chapter on rewriting is of great value. There are chapters of benefit to fiction writers, too, but nonfiction is Susan's own métier, the territory in which she shines brightest. Every writer should have this book, but that goes double if nonfiction is your primary focus.
Rhone, Geneva, Switzerland
Susan Tiberghien is also a marvelous teacher in person. She is an American who married a Frenchman and has spent much of her life in Geneva, Switzerland, where she is active in the Geneva Writer's Group. Fortunately for those of us in some areas of America, she makes periodic tours to the USA, where she teaches a number of workshops through the International Women's Writing Guild and other writers' groups. Check Susan's calendar to see if she's going to be anywhere in your vicinity, and move heaven and earth to be there if she is. If you have enough of a writers' community where you live, contact Susan through her website to see if she can work your community into one of her teaching trips. Choosing Susan's workshop as one of the ones I really wanted to focus on at the 2008 annual IWWG conference was a very smart move. If you cannot find a way to attend one of Susan's workshops, be grateful that the woman's inspiring style comes through so well in her writing and get the book forthwith, preferably from an independent bookstore.
Another good resource for the nonfiction writer is Eva Shaw's online Writeriffic
, which she teaches through ed2go Writeriffic class. Eva Shaw, Ph.D. is a dynamic teacher who has sold over a thousand magazine articles and written and ghostwritten over seventy published books. I was amazed at the amount of ground she managed to cover in twelve lessons over six weeks, while managing the little bits of individual advice and encouragement that can make a real difference in an online workshop setting. The exercises were interesting and edifying. People who put a lot into Writeriffic get a lot out of it.
Remember When, Alison Meyer, © Alison Mayer Photography
Images can be powerful tools for the memoirist. What images take you back?
Magazine articles are not my primary focus, but sometimes I turn that way, to try to make a little extra cash and to promote solar cooking. I've sent out three article queries and had one accepted and successfully sold that article with pictures, to Back Home magazine. I directly credit Writeriffic with a big share of the success of that query and the acceptance of the subsequent article. I did my best to do what Eva had said and it worked. I still use Eva's "bubble" method (a version of mind-mapping) on a fairly regular basis for setting up story or article ideas. I got a lot out of Writeriffic that is with me still.
From the responses in the online forum for my Writeriffic class, Eva has a special magic for people who have attempted to write in the past and stalled out or lost their focus. When it comes to writer's block, she's a real blockbuster. Writeriffic is also an excellent class if you are trying to sort out where in the big, wonderful world of writing you can best fit in (there is some useful basic fiction coverage, too, though nonfiction is Eva's métier). It can help if you know where you want to head but need to get sorted out on things like when and how to query or include a cover letter, how to write and edit a coherent article or story or letter that has that extra sparkle that will make an editor look twice. Eva also includes suggestions for how to find time for writing, and if you have other questions about how the business of writing things to get them published works, you will leave Writeriffic (if you participate fully in class and do the exercises) with a much better overview of what is involved in breaking into several areas of writing. If you study Eva herself, you will also learn a lot about successful self-promotion.
A small detail, well presented, can have great impact.
The second level Writeriffic class, which goes into greater depth for people seriously seeking publication, was definitely worth my time and the modest cost. For people headed in those directions, I'm sure the magazine article and travel writing classes that Dr. Shaw also teaches through ed2go are well worth considering. Her books Ghostwriting for Fun and Profit and Writing and Selling Magazine Articles give an overview of what is involved, if you are attracted to either area of writing. Writing the Nonfiction Book is another good one of Eva's, especially if your focus is topical nonfiction such as how-to, humor, articles on topical trends, informational books, etc. I like Eva's common sense approach and cut-to-the-chase style, and she has certainly made a successful writers' life for herself.
ed2go
offers a number of other online classes for writers, though I don't have personal experience with the other classes. They are reasonably priced though, and in many areas you can get a discounted rate if you register through your local college or university (still less than a hundred dollars for a 12-lesson, 6-week course through the University of Idaho where I live). I certainly feel I got good value from the two I participated in. If you try (or have tried) Writeriffic or one of the other ed2go writing classes, I'd be interested in hearing how it went for you.
Once you are capable of turning out polished pieces of writing, the search for markets begins.
Image: © Laura Werner
Small plant or big symbol?
One of the best-known market research tools is the big annual Writer's Market book which lists many writers' markets. Unfortunately, it takes so long to get a book like that into print that some entries are out of date by the time you get the book. Still, it can be handy if you like to be able to sit down with a print book, and used ones can be found quite cheaply sometimes. The information in them won't be up to date, but in many cases they will list urls for the publications, so you can sit back in your comfy chair with the book, mark the ones that interest you, and then go to publication's own website (most have them these days) to get the most current information. Writer's Market is so fat and full of information that it can be intimidating, but Writeriffic includes a great lesson in coming to terms with these monsters and using them to best advantage.
Writer's Market also has an online service you can subscribe to, but it's not free, although there is a "Deluxe" edition of the book that includes the print book and online service for a year all in one price. I've done that a couple of times, but it seems that there are always magazines I'd expect to find there that aren't there, or their search choices just aren't designed to draw some of the lines where I'd like to draw them or something (surely there is at least one girls' magazine on the face of the earth that might run at least an occasional science fiction story… girls are part of the future, too, and I loved science fiction when I was a teen!). For fiction, I get a lot more out of Duotrope (I do donate, but not as much as the Writer's Market service costs), but I don't know of a particularly good free resource of that type for a wide range of nonfiction.
A good writer can transport readers to places they may not be able to reach on their own.
Of course the other way to approach it is to read a lot of periodicals (which you can do at libraries or via recycling centers, if your budget is tight), pick ones you think would fit your style and areas of interest, and find their websites for more information. If you want to write whole books, look around in a bookstore and note which publishers publish the sorts of books you want to write and then go find those publishers online. Most publications and many publishers have some sort of submission guidelines up on the web these days, even if they don't yet take e-submissions. Be smart—if you want to write how-to articles, don't submit to a publication that only runs thoughtful essays or vice versa. Study your market carefully and write for it, or write and then look for a market that really is suitable for your work, but in either case send your little darlings off to places where they will at least have a shot at acceptance. Learning to accurately target and write for specific markets will increase your odds of publication in nonfiction.
If anyone knows of a free (or by donation) online market resource for nonfiction that is anything like as good as Duotrope is for fiction and poetry, please let me know about it so I can share it here. I'd also love to hear about writing resources that have helped you in significant ways, especially if you include some specifics about how it helped you. I can't promise to answer every message, but I will read them all and share resources that look like they would be helpful to other writers.
The world needs lots and lots and LOTS of write 'em cowgirls (and friends) in nonfiction, so I wish you every success.
Bonus Image Prompt
These artists each have an interpretation of "memory lane". What do you see in your mind's eye when you think of a trip down memory lane? Is there a road or street or lane or sidewalk or path that stands out in your memory? Urban? Rural? Are you walking? On a bike or riding in a car or truck or even on a horse or motorcycle? Is anyone with you? A friend, a relative, a pet? Where are you going to or coming from? Is it somewhere you went again and again or somewhere so special that one time through carved it deep in your memory for life? Spend a minute or two meditating on "memory lane" and then go for a write. You may find that you have several "memory lane" writes in you… we all travel many roads in life. (This might actually be a good themed anthology idea, if someone out there is looking for one, or a focus for tying a memoir together, if you find a lot of your life and memories involve lanes, paths, roadways, etc.)
Help Still Needed! Cowgirl Call to Action!
