NON-FICTION VERSUS TECHNICAL WRITING
Sometimes, people have confused the two. Turns out, they’re completely different styles. Since I’ve written both, I can speak from experience. I did technical writing as a profession for a decade. I’ve also written a number of non-fiction stories.
NON-FICTION
Oh…kay. When you think about it, both non-fiction and technical writing are “technically” non-fiction. So, what’s the difference? When it comes to just non-fiction writing, in this case, we’re usually talking about a non-fiction story of some kind. That could be an autobiography, a memoir, history, philosophy, news or something that’s not made up. Something told in story format that’s not fiction.
TECHNICAL WRITING
Now, as for technical or tech-writing. What is it? It’s usually instructions, raw information, something that isn’t in a story format. Directions how to get from point A to B. Instructions on how to put together a piece of furniture. Procedures on how to fly a plane. How to use a piece of software.
DIFFERENCES
Okay, both are non-fiction, per se, but in one, a story is still being told where in the other, instructions are being conveyed. There’s a huge difference in the style of the telling (or showing, if you want to go there).
NON-FICTION STORYTELLING
In non-fiction storytelling, there are characters, there’s a goal (sort of a plot), and there’s a story flow. The writing had this flow from A to B and it’s up to the writer to make it interesting and to keep the reader engaged. This is where a lot of non-fiction books fail. The writer’s, at least to me, go too much for the literary and overdo minor details, description, mood, so as to paint a vivid picture. They bog down in details that have little to do with the main gist of the story. That’s one reason I rarely read non-fiction, besides that I like to spend my reading time being entertained rather than getting educated. Don’t get me wrong. I like to learn, but pick and choose. I’ll often pick up a book and go right to the section I’m interested in, rather than slog through all the background.
In summary, in non-fiction writing, all the elements of fiction are there except it’s true and there are certain restrictions and barriers that cannot be crossed without losing the integrity of the story, such as certain emotions and feelings the writer cannot know without being the person (unless it’s second hand information).
The point is, in this type of writing, there are potential feelings, emotions, actions and descriptions.
TECHNICAL WRITING PROCESS
In the technical writing process, there’s no emotion, no philosophy, no personal pronouns! This is neutral prose with the whole purpose of conveying information. Period. There is no other purpose. There is no story, no plot, no entertainment. There are instructions to show you, the reader, how to get from point A to B and that’s it.
EXAMPLES
NON-FICTION STORYTELLING
Nicola Tesla was a man of electricity. However, he had a stiff competitor in Thomas Edison. They were at loggerheads over which had the best method of a national electrical distribution grid. In the end, Edison won.
TECHNICAL WRITING
Take the new blade, face it forward in the bottom clamp. Rake your finger over the teeth gently, to make sure the teeth are facing down. Once this is assured, set the bottom end of the blade into the bottom clamp and tighten the knob. Make sure it’s standing straight up through the hole in the table.
Now, thread the blade through the pilot hole in the wood piece and clamp the other end of the blade to the upper clamp. Make sure enough of the blade sticks through the clamp to ensure a good grab. Then tighten the upper clamp.
Finally, lock the tensioner and fleck the blade with a finger to make sure it’s tight.
Turn on the saw.
SUMMARY
Notice the differences now? There are two types of non-fiction. Story and technical.
There is another type, such as in textbooks. In this case, what you might have is a mixture of the two styles. It might start with the story part, then when it gets down and dirty, the style may shift to the technical side.
There are, of course varieties.
Use them wisely, Grasshopper!
Happy writing!
MIXING POVS FOR EFFECT
BACKGROUND
As you all know, I only read third-person, past tense. I find any other POV unreadable. That includes first-person, omniscient, second-person and anything in present-tense, regardless of POV. I get especially annoyed at head-hopping.
Now, if you look at what’s out there in the marketplace, you’ll see POV is all over the map. Some of it sells, while some of it, especially omniscient, is usually relegated to the self-publishing crowd. Second-person is most often seen in song lyrics as it does not go well with fiction.
Some people are okay with first-person. I don’t like it because of the myopic viewpoint and all the I’s, me’s and my’s. That’s purely personal taste. On the other hand, for autobiographies or memoirs, to me, it’s the only way to go because it’s you. It’s your voice. On the other hand, if it’s an autobiography written by someone other than the person involved, well…it can’t very well be first-person, now can it? Then again, the creative person…
When it comes to fiction, I just don’t like first-person. Period. However, I can’t tell anyone not to write that way. I’m not you or them. I’m just not going to buy that book. When I teach about point of view, though, I don’t recommend it because it’s too limiting in scope. However, that’s up to you, the author and what you’re trying to accomplish. You can still write first-person if you want. Plenty of books sell like hotcakes in first. There you go.
Now, present-tense. This is something that drives me nuts! I hate it! Why? Ever since I first encountered it decades ago, before I even became a writer, it was something that just bugged me to no end. It made me feel like the author was trying to rush me. The author was trying to push me forward against my will. It was like, “Come on, let me show you.” “Come on, you got to see this!” From another aspect, the author was forcibly dragging me along in the story, whether I wanted to go or not.
People, I don’t like being rushed. I like to find out on my own and let the story carry me, not have the author push or pull me forward. Present tense feels forced, unnatural.
Once I became a writer and started learning the mechanics of the craft, it all clicked for me.
When I see a book in present-tense, I not only put it down, I almost throw it down!
Omniscient writing is another pet peeve. With omniscient, there is no point of view. Whoever happens to be speaking or acting is it, and there’s no one character driving the scene. “God” is driving everything and it’s impersonal. It’s all very telling and flat. This is one reason, I had such a hard time with Lord Of The Rings. The main characters (as in a cast of “thousands”) are whoever gets the most scene time. Often, the back blurb of the book names a key character or characters, but once you get deep into the book, you scratch your head and wonder where that character went. Often the main character just happens to be the one with the most paragraphs or dialogue or actions versus the one controlling the point of view.
Nowadays, what passes for omniscient, is really third person semi-deep which is just an orgy of head-hopping. It’s all over the place with a mix of omniscient, third person deep and no rudder, so to speak. It’s not truly omniscient and not truly pure third-person anything. It’s often whoever survives to the end.
MIXING POVS FOR EFFECT
One of my favorite authors just wrote another book in a series and I loved it. Now, over the past few novels, he’s let his outstanding and perfect third-person slip a little with brief bouts of minor head-hopping. It wasn’t enough to throw the book down, and the transitions were smooth enough that it didn’t jerk me out of the story. I wish he’d go back to the perfect no head-hopping, but this wasn’t too bothersome.
On the other hand, there were places he changed POV for specific effects.
Diary entries:
There were a few diary entries, written in first-person. Why? Well, why would you write a diary in third-person? If it’s you, you’re going to write in your own voice, right? It has to be in first-person.
Character Under the effects of a virus:
The individual is feeling the effects of a virus, so it’s present tense. I might have done it in past-tense, but the author used present-tense, which only worked because it was a short passage. By keeping this radical departure in POV short, it did not cause jarring with the rest of the story. Instead it emphasized the scene.
Background explanation of the story:
At the back of the book, something I’ll be doing for my Gold series, the voice changes to the author’s. This is author intrusion, first-person technical. The author explains the research and background of how the novel came about. Since the story has already ended, this isn’t jarring because the illusion has already been broken.
Now, if this was in the middle of the book, it would be a huge jarring error! However, it’s not because you, the reader, have already concluded the story. No harm, no foul.
SUMMARY
While I’m not a big fan of shifting POVs as a regular part of a story, using short snippets for effect, and I mean short snippets is okay.
If you’re doing something for effect, for a specific reason, it needs to be done so it isn’t jarring, so it doesn’t break the illusion and jerk the reader out of the story.
That’s the key.
Happy writing!
POINT OF VIEW (POV) – A DIFFERENT WAY TO LOOK AT IT
NOTE: I originally posted this article back in 2012. I’ll be presenting this at the Clark County library on Wednesday, 21 December 2016, so I thought it would be good to repost and revamp it for the event.
At a writer’s group meeting, a discussion came up about author intrusion. Our own Gregory Kompes came up with an article that he posted on the Henderson Writer’s Group Facebook page that explained it very well. It inspired me to beat this dead horse a bit more since I developed a presentation on POV and presented it to the group (in 2012). I was trying to think of a way to visualize POV for the audience rather than just give the explanations I’ve already gone over in several past articles.
How to do that?
Since we’d talked about the fantasy genre, it reminded me of a brainstorm I had during that year’s Las Vegas Writer’s Conference. The gist of it was that a good way to visualize POV would be with computer gaming. I know some of you out there have never seen a computer game. I won’t mention any names here, but even you might have grandchildren and have glanced over their shoulders. If not, ask them after reading this and you’ll figure it out.
The vast majority of computer games come in two styles. They’re first-person and third-person. Sound familiar? Can you apply that to POV?
In a first-person computer game, the camera shows everything through the eyes of the character you’re playing in the game. It’s as if you’re standing there. If a monster is behind a rock, you can’t see it. If there’s a room behind a door, or a hall, a cave or a deep chasm, you won’t know until you open that door.
You’re seeing everything through the eyes of the character. There’s a big difference though. In a computer game, there’s no feeling in the game itself. All of that feeling is still within you, the player. Therefore, the perspective of what’s seen is first-person as well as the thoughts (you the player).
Now how about third-person games? For some reason, which I don’t understand, they’re far more popular than first-person games. In a third-person game, the camera view is omniscient. The camera is above and behind the character, looking down over the character’s shoulder. Often, the player (you) can see ahead well before the character can actually see the dangers or treasures. The player can see that monster hiding behind a rock long before the character, they can often see what’s behind that door, or guess long before the character (depending on the style of game). The player can anticipate things that a first-person player cannot.
Does this compare to a third-person narrative in writing? It turns out, kind of. A third-person game compares to a limited omniscient POV at best (since the player can only know so much since they didn’t design the game), or at worst, massive author intrusion! Yeah, that’s right, the author, or God, knows all ahead of time and can spoil things for the reader by dropping clues and spoiling the fun. Like a first-person game, it’s third-person perspective only and not thought, which is what’s needed for first or third-person narrative in a story. Big difference.
When people hear me ranting about how much I hate first-person fiction yet I love first-person computer games, they wonder why. Now you have the explanation. As you can see, there is no comparison. There’s a big difference between these apples and oranges!
After thinking about this more carefully, I realized the visualization for my POV presentation was flawed and at first I thought it wouldn’t work. After I thought about it, I realized I still could visualize it using cameras. When I created my presentation, I was able to use cameras to visualize first and third and even second-person. However, the thought processes had to be explained.
In first-person, the viewfinder of the camera is through the eyes of the character. The character controls where the camera points. All the thoughts and feelings are conveyed through that camera viewfinder and the character aims the camera and controls all the thoughts and feelings. This is characterized by “I” and “me” and “my” words.
In third-person, the camera sits above the scene at an isometric/panoptic view. It’s controlled by the POV character. However, he or she isn’t looking through the viewfinder. They’re merely the focus of the camera. It can be aiming anywhere within the area as long as it’s somewhere the POV character can physically be part of. The scene is controlled by the thoughts and feelings of the POV character as well with words such as “he” and “she” and character names.
I also go into head-hopping, omniscient, author intrusion and tenses.
Whether I explained it well or not, my slide presentation is more explicit. When I presented it to the group a few years ago, I got plenty of positive feedback for the visualization.
We’ll see how well it goes tomorrow night.
Happy writing!
USING CONTRACTIONS
I’ve probably talked about this in pieces before, but I want to consolidate it all into one article for you.
Contractions.
Though there are no specific rules in fiction, there are some general guidelines one should follow for the use of contractions for consistency.
IN SPEECH-DIALOGUE
Most native English speakers use contractions. We do it without thinking. It’s a way to abbreviate words, it’s slang, sort of, a shorthand way of getting to the point. It applies to a certain class of words.
On the other hand, those not native to the language tend to not use contractions as much, or not at all. They’re not used to the quirks and idioms of our tongue. It depends on how immersed they were in their language course, what environment they learned in, how fast they were on the uptake and a whole host of other factors.
IN NARRATIVE
In narrative, generally, contractions are not used. Everything is spelled out. Why? Narrative is NOT dialogue, it’s NOT speech. It’s narrative, description, it’s the other part of the story. It’s not supposed to be as spoken. You don’t use shortcuts like that. It’s not the correct style because it’s not the conversational part of the story.
DISTINCTIONS
When do and don’t you use contractions in dialogue?
Generally, what I do is use contractions for native speakers when they’re speaking in their native tongue, regardless of the language.
That’s right. It doesn’t matter if it’s English. They can be speaking German for all I care. If they’re speaking German, even if that language doesn’t use contractions, they’re using the German equivalent of contractions, whatever they may be.
Get it?
Think about it. You of course, aren’t going to have two Germans chatting back and forth in German because you’re writing in English for an English speaking audience. You’re going to tell the reader they’re speaking German but they’re going to be speaking English. However, to make them speak comfortably and make it sound native, they’re going to speak English as if it were German, which means it’s going to sound natural, which would include contractions. See?
Now, let’s look at it from the other side. Say they’re Germans speaking English. They have an accent, but speak acceptable English. However, it’s not their native tongue. They would likely speak without contractions, using every word instead of our shorthand because it’s awkward to them. Also, this is your way of distinguishing their speech from ours. It gives them a distinctive voice instead of trying to give them an accent in every sentence, or too much of one, which can be annoying. Overdone, it can be distracting.
In my writing, non-native speakers don’t use contractions. Period.
Now, as for a native speaker not using contractions?
There are circumstances when you want to emphasize something. For instance, “I will not go there!” That’s instead of “I won’t go there.”
The will not being emphasized.
As for narrative, I don’t use contractions at all in narrative. Period.
Now, in autobiographical narrative, which is conversational, you can use contractions because it’s you talking. The same for first-person POV. Why? It’s conversational. It’s coming from the POV character telling the story. In doing so, you or the POV character are telling the story in conversational English.
You may now get that these contraction rules apply to third-person POV.
SUMMARY
By keeping contractions where they belong, you keep your prose clean.
Happy writing!
GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT
You’d think this goes without saying.
You’d be wrong.
I have two examples. In the telling (yeah, I’m going to tell, not show…sort of), I’ll allude to the guilty parties but will not slander those particular people by stating their names.
FICTION IS A MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD, RIGHT?
Well…ah, yeah, it is. The story you’re telling is made up. It’s a huge lie you’re hoping people will like so you can become world renown and people will pay for it, right?
Even though it’s a big lie, it’s a known big lie. However, that doesn’t mean there should be no realism to it. That doesn’t mean you have free reign to throw out all rules of reality and make your story so ridiculously unbelievable that even a kid can’t believe it.
There has to be a basis of reality to any story. There has to be some foundation in physics, hard science and factual thingies to make your big lie believable or your reader is going to put it down. I know I certainly would.
KNOWLEDGE EXPERTS
There are a lot of people smarter than you. It goes without saying. When you write something you know, you’re bound to get most of the factual thingies correct, or close enough for guv’mint work, as I like to say. When it comes to fine details, there’s nothing wrong with going vague. There’s also nothing wrong with throwing in little known real facts that only experts would know. That comes with research.
However, there are always going to be people with technical expertise, people who’re super-duper experts in any field that you’re writing about. They’ll catch you on all those real facts you get wrong.
If you don’t do your research, you can trip up and lose respect right off. Most readers probably won’t even notice, but those select few may slam you with bad reviews. For those that read reviews, especially the bad ones, they may or may not think twice about reading more of your work.
Knowledge or technical experts are the ones you have to satisfy, at least to the best of your ability, when you add in details, minor and major. You need to get them right!
So, that means don’t take anything for granted. If you generalize, make sure you accurately generalize, and if you use little known facts, make sure they’re accurate little known facts. Also make sure you use them in context!
WHY BOTHER?
I’ll give the perfect example based on a book I just proofread. Keeping things vague so not to slam the author, who’s actually a decent author in some ways, this story took on a personal issue with me when he/she got some (okay, a bunch of) facts wrong that I have direct personal knowledge of. To an average reader, these “facts” might go unnoticed. They might even be accurate to them because they’re the popular stereotype. However, to those of us who’ve dealt with this kind of ignorance many times in the past, the lack of knowledge, whether from sheer lack of research or bias was inexcusable.
This author is setting his or herself up to polarize themselves at the expense of sloppy work. There’s no reason for it when a bit more effort could avoid a huge issue in the future.
The second example is a very highly regarded and popular author. He just came out with a new novel. I read it and loved it. When I turned in my review, I, as usual, checked the negative reviews to see why people didn’t like it. Instead of the usual stupid stuff like the Kindle wasn’t working correct, I was shocked to see how many substantial one and two star reviews were there, plus all the people that replied to the reviews! Apparently the author didn’t do his research on a multitude of issues, none of which I picked up on because I had no expertise in those areas. However, these technical experts did, and the author lost a significant number of fans because of it.
There was no reason for this if the author had just gone to the right people. He’s big enough to have the resources to do just that. No “Any errors are my own” excuse in the book is going to compensate for that. By the way, there is no such statement in the book to begin with. This author doesn’t bother.
WE CAN’T ALL BE EXPERTS BUT…
We can’t all be experts in everything we write about and nobody expects us to. The whole point of this is that we do our best, and make an effort to get the facts as good as we can. If we’re not sure, leave them vague. If we’re really going way out there, so to speak, that can’t be helped, but we need to find some way to make our story as believable as possible. The best way is to make the little things as accurate as possible.
Get names correct.
Get places correct.
Get lore correct.
Get hardware correct.
Get effects correct (such as weapon use).
Get religion correct.
Get history correct.
Get the science correct…well…as correct as you can within context.
Get the context correct.
This is only part of the list, but it gives you an idea of what to do.
The quality you put into creating your big lie will show and be appreciated by your readers.
Happy writing!
LA DE DA – YOUR CHARACTER ISN’T PERFECT!
Okay, check this out. Say, you write a story. The main character starts from a horrible place, but that’s brushed over (this here is a red flag). When the action starts, this character goes through life and everything works perfectly for him or her. You reach the end of the story and the character turns down an offer to say…become president. Yeah, things went that well.
Others critique the story, say it isn’t realistic because there’s no conflict. You change it and give other characters the conflict. The main character saves the day for everyone else, thinking this is the drama.
No ceegar!
You shop this story around and can’t understand why nobody will touch it.
Folks, the above scenario is real.
CONFLICT
People are drawn to a story because the main character isn’t perfect, just like them…just like you! Sure, maybe you want your heroes to be able to do stuff you can’t, but you don’t want them to have everything go exactly as planned, have everything fall in place.
How boring is that?
You need conflict! The character or characters need some reason to be on that page. It’s not just an autobiography of a fake character. It’s a story, for crying out loud! It’s entertainment. It something to draw your interest. That’s done with conflict.
NOBODY’S PERFECT
Everyone has flaws, quirks, makes mistakes. That’s part of life, exaggerated reality/unreality. Even superheroes have flaws and weaknesses. I don’t need to list the nemeses/weaknesses of each superhero, but fans will know. Something will be their Achilles heel. There has to be or they’re immortal and there’d be no reason to have them do anything. They’re always going to win with ease.
Real-life fictional characters have flaws like all humans. When you draw your characters, they need to have real-life flaws as well. When they go against their adversaries, whether they’re going to inevitably win or not, you need to make the conclusion nail biting, or as nail biting as you can.
DRAMA
There has to be drama along with the conflict to make the story interesting. The story needs some goal to surmount, a reason for the reader to be there, spending money on that book, taking their time to believe in that name on the front cover. It’s your job to give it to them. If you bore them with no peaks and valleys of conflict, no reason to compel them to turn the pages, you’ve let them down.
When a character does everything perfectly, and the reader knows it, there’s no reason to move on.
If the character isn’t perfect, the reader has no idea if the hero can pull off the next scene. They’re more likely to read and find out if things work out, or if the story pulls them into some other direction.
That, folks, makes the story interesting.
Don’t disappoint them with bla bla bla, everything’s perfect!
Don’t make your fake “real” world even more unrealistic!
Happy writing!
WHAT DOES THE FIRST CHAPTER DO?
There’s talk about the first page and whether an agent will keep on reading if the first page kills the story. The same could be said for some readers. Then again, I’m not one that believes in that, necessarily. On the other hand, if I start reading, and the writing is terrible…say I can’t even get through the first paragraph, well…
This isn’t about that. By this point, we’re beyond that. Let’s say, you have the writing down, the first page is great, you’ve hooked the reader. What’re you going to do in the first chapter? What kind of groundwork are you going to lay for the rest of the story?
THE FIRST CHAPTER – THE START
I’m going into this discussion given that you may or may not have a prologue. The prologue, which I sometimes use, depending on the type of story, is the setup. Whether I choose to use one or not, Chapter 1, starts the main story, or should. Keep in mind that not all stories begin that way, but most do.
What does Chapter 1 do? What should it do?
The first chapter introduces the premise of the book. It sets the scene, it gets the ball rolling. There are several things that should happen. I bring this up because at my writer’s group meeting the other day, I read the first chapter of the third book in my Meleena’s Adventures series. My first chapter (I don’t use prologues in my fantasy series) was a bit lacking in certain things I didn’t see when I wrote it. It was one of those forest-through-the-trees moments that it took others to see.
INTRODUCE ONE OR MORE OF THE CHARACTERS
It goes without saying that Chapter 1 should introduce someone. This is where you should let the reader know who’s driving the story. Very often, especially with omniscient or multiple point of view stories, the first chapter might not introduce the main character at all. The author will start with some minor or one-off character. If it’s horror for instance, it will be the first victim. In a murder mystery, it will also be the first victim, or maybe even the killer. There’s nothing wrong with this. Why? Premise.
INTRODUCE THE PREMISE
Chapter 1 introduces the premise. This very important action scene should introduce the premise for the story. If the prologue hasn’t already done so, this is your chance. Regardless if the prologue is action, Chapter 1 should also be an action scene. It should introduce more of the premise for what is to follow. It should set up the rest, the foundation of the story.
KEEP BACKSTORY TO A MINIMUM
The last thing you want to do is bog your reader down with backstory and endless narration and exposition right off. If you make their eyes glaze over in the first few pages, they’re likely to put the book down and go to something else! Give out the minor details in small doses as the story moves along.
DON’T ASSUME
I was a bit guilty of this, at least my readers the other night thought so. If you have a series and are working on, say book three, each book should stand on their own. Don’t assume the reader has started with book one and knows what’s going on. When you start with Chapter 1, don’t lay down a bunch of stuff with no explanation and assume the reader already knows the background. If that reader makes it to the end of the chapter, they’re going to scratch their head and wonder if the whole book is like that. Would you put it down? I certainly would!
Once again, this returns to backstory. You want the reader to know what’s going on, but that doesn’t mean bog then down with details. Give a short introduction as if this is the first time they’ve ever read this series, but don’t overwhelm them with stuff right away, keeping in mind your fans that have read everything so far. By being brief, you not only satisfy the new readers, but you remind the old ones without boring them.
START WITH A BANG – COMPEL THEM TO GO TO CHATPER TWO
Of course, I say this about every chapter and scene. However, the first chapter sets the tone and the feel of the rest of the story. It also sets the pace. You have to rev up the reader and get them going. Don’t spark their interest and slap them to a halt before things even get fired up!
Chapter 1 gets you out of the gate and if you do it right, the reader will keep reading and reading and reading, right to the end.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 