Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s not a story

“I don’t need to learn about plot structure because my story’s true.”

Someone said this to us recently. They were questioning their need to learn writing skills if they were writing non-fiction.

And boy, do you need to learn about narrative and plot structure – even if your story happens to be true.

In fact all the skills sometimes regarded as “fiction skills” are relevant to non-fiction. Okay, if you’re sticking to non-fiction, as opposed to “based on a true story” or “inspired by a true story”, you can’t make anything up.

You can’t “improve” the story with imagination. But you can improve the story with creativity - through the choices you make and how you order your information.

I recently critiqued a manuscript in which the writer clearly had an interesting story to tell. But she related it like dinner-party anecdote, in a long chronological stream that made no distinction between what was relevant and what was not.

She had events – but not a story. Even if you’ve lived those events, they’re still just that until you consider what the story is. Are you the observer? Is it your story or someone elses? Or perhaps it’s both, since even pure observers are changed by the events that unfold around them.
. Every narrative should build and draw us forward. Every story has conflict – whether it’s from within or without – or both. What are these, in the events you wish to relate?

How do you show them to us? Where do you begin telling the story? In the middle of the action, at the beginning or near the end? What point of view will you use? And above all,  how do you tell it so that it doesn’t sound like a letter home.

Present it in scenes. Recreate the events as they happened, so that your reader feels a part of them. Show us your characters through telling details and through their dialogue

Give us a story we can be part of. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it has to be dull and dreary.