Create More Interest By Using Dialogue In Nonfiction

In fiction, we don't think twice about using dialogue between our characters. It seems the natural thing to do. But what about nonfiction essays and stories? Especially cretive nonfiction which is a true story told using fiction techniques.Fiction techniques? It stands to reason ,then, that you'd make use of dialogue.

Those who have been successful with Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies learn over time that the publisher does not like present tense, that the word limit is 1200 and that they do like dialogue within the true story. Why do you suppose they especially appreciate stories that include dialogue? They don't spell it out in the guidelines, but notice the stories in the Chicken Soup books and how many do use dialogue. It appears to be one of those unwritten rules. Personally, I think it makes a better story and that's why the ones with dialogue often get selected.

It's realistic. It's showing rather than telling. It's easy to relate to. It's far more intertesting than just being told that something happened by the narrator. Consider the following:

A.  Dana stopped at the sand dune. She shaded her eyes with her hand when the sun glinted on something metal sticking out of the sand. She reached out, then brushed away the sand.  She pulled out two golden plates. She turned to show her father what she'd found.

B. Dana stopped at the sand dune. "Dad, look! There's something buried in the sand." She dropped to her knees and scooped the sand with her hands until she'd uncovered two golden plates. "We've found it, Dad! The storm last night must have partly uncoverd the plates. Othewise, we'd never have found the treasure." 

Mr. Barnsworth leaned over to examine the two plates, a frown on his face. "Not so fast, Dana. We're not sure this is what we've been looking for. It could be something entirely different." 

"But Dad, they look just like the drawings. See the pattern around the edge. It's the same!" She jumped to her feet and did a little dance holding one plate in each hand. "We're rich!"

Example B did uses more words but it was more interesting, wasn't it? You could see clearly what Dana and her father were doing but also what they were feeling by the dialogue used. You could relate to a father and daughter on a beach.

One word of caution--don't overuse the dialogue technique. Sprinkle it throughout your nonfiction story.

When you write creative nonfiction, include dialogue in the story to make it more alive and draw your reader in. You also might impress an editor at Chicken Soup for the Soul or a similar type of anthology.

Craft A Travel Essay After A Trip

Here we are in Hamburg, Germany

If you like to travel, even if it's not far from home, take advantage of this time to write personal travel essays or nonfiction feature articles about the places you've been.You can go either way, but I prefer the personal essay as it gives me leeway to be a little more creative rather than just reporting the facts. Do it soon after you've returned home when the memories are fresh.

Ken and I have taken several trips to Europe and the UK as well as South Africa. Each time, I've kept a travel journal and have then written about our trips, the places we stayed, tourist attractions we visited and people we met. Several of the essays have been published in various magazines, newspapers, and in ezines. I've even written a few blog posts while we are on trips, not always easy to do with time issues.

I learned to put details in my journal as they will be helpful after I return home and start writing. It's amazing what small things you forget once you have gotten back to your home and normal routine. 

I try to add something about the people we meet while traveling as I think most of us like to read about people, especially those in other countries. But even in our own state or town or those we see and talk with in airports. 

Once, we were waiting for a flight in the Johannesburg, South Africa airport on our return trip. Two seats away from me was a young, college-age girl. After a few minutes, we got to talking. It turned out she was a K-State student (located in our town) and was from Topeka, an hour away from us. Yet, here we were--visiting with one another across a sea and on another continent. Small world? Yes, it is!

Hotels and food rank high on my list of things I pay attention to when we travel, so I include some of that in my travel pieces. Also, the feelings I have had when visiting impressive spots like the Normandy Beaches where D-Day took place in 1944.

Here we are in England with South African friends

I would urge you to start writing your travel piece as soon as you can before the memories fade and the details blow away like a child's lost balloon on a windy day. When you're dining in a magnificent restaurant, you think you'll never forget any of it, but you do. You remember highlights. That's why it is important to keep the details in your journal. You don't have to write paragraphs--make lists of things you want to remember. 

Me in Paris along the Seine River on a chilly March day

A few of the essays and articles I've written after trips can be found by clicking on the titles below.

A Morning in Peggy's Cove

Kissing The Blarney Stone  (scroll down the page for the story)

Grandpa's Town

Pub Fare in the UK and Ireland

A Hungarian Hotel in Germany

The essays above are all about trips to foreign countries, but places you visit in your own country provide lots of inspiration and information for travel articles. 

Make Friends With Other Writers

I think having other writers as your friends can only enhance the writing part of your life. Who else understands what it takes to craft a publishable piece of writing? What other friend knows the agony of rejection? Who else will empathize with occasional writers block or lack of inspiration?

Who rejoices more with you when you have writing success than your writer friends? Who do you turn to when you have a problem with your writing? Your writer friends. Who gives you pep talks when you're down about the way your writing life is going? Your writer friends. Who do you turn to for marketing advice? Your writer friends. Who do you ask to help you spread the word when you have a book to sell? Those same people.

Where do you find friends like this? One way is to join writing organizations and critique groups. When I first joined my state organization for authors, I didn't attend the annual conventions because there was always a conflict with K-State football games. I let going to the games with my husband take precedence, and I'm not one bit sorry about that, but I didn't get to know the other writers that attended convention on a regular basis. On years the game was played somewhere else that first weekend of October, I opted to go to the convention week-end. The first year, I felt like a real stranger, but as I attended more often, and then started teaching workshops there, I began acquiring a nice group of friends.

When I first joined my online critique group, the 20+ women in it were scattered around the globe and all strangers to me. It didn't take long for those women to become familiar people in my life and finally, good friends. I can whine to them when my writing life isn't going so well and I can blow my horn when I have been published. They don't consider it bragging. Instead, they are enthused at the news.

With the social media we have today, we make friends on facebook writing pages and other similar places. I have many friends made this way, people I've never met face to fact but still consider friends.

There are writers who prefer to be loners. They write alone, don't belong to writing groups of any kind and are, apparently, content with that. I much prefer having lots of writing friends. We share so much with each other.

Think about the place writing friends have in your life. What if they all suddenly vanished? I know I'd feel like something big was missing from my life. Nurture those friendships you have with other writers. They're like stars in the sky. There are many but each one is unique.

Why You Should Be Yourself When You Write

We are all different and we are all special. We are unique in that no two of us has exactly the same personality. Genes decide our physical attributes but our environment is mostly responsible for our personality. I say mostly because I do see a few personality traits passed down from generation to generation in my own family, and it probably happens in your family, too. 

Going on the premise that the kind of person we are depends on our life experiences, I will venture out on a limb and say this: As writers, we are individuals. Yes, we learn about writing from our English teachers who try to pound grammar and exposition into teen-aged minds. We also glean much about writing from the books and magazines we read. Much of that kind of learning is subconscious but our minds do register a lot when we read a book, even if it is strictly for pleasure. 

So, we have the background of learning in school, absorb from our own reading and certain inherited traits along with our life experiences. When you become a writer, all four work to create a writer who writes in his/her own style. It's what gives you the base for your writer's voice. Yours and mine are completely different. And should be! You shouldn't want to write like me, nor I you. 

Don't try to emulate a writer you love by attempting to write in exactly the same way. That writer is an individual and so are you. Be yourself. Be the writer that doesn't copy anyone else. Use your own voice, not another writer's voice. Finding your voice is simply another way of saying that your personality comes through in your writing and readers can recognize it when they read what you've written. 

All our life experiences work together to help us form our writing voice. It makes a difference as to whether you grew up on a farm or in a major city. It makes a difference if you grew up in an affluent suburb or a ghetto. It makes a difference if you grew up in one country and moved to another. It makes a difference if you quit school when you turned 16 or if you hold a PHD degree. It makes a difference if you grew up with four siblings or were an only child. It makes a difference if your parents were loving and nurturing or cold and distant in their parenting. 

It comes down to this. I'm me and you're you. But just as the little girl in the poster says, you're special and so am I. We all need to believe that as we journey on our writing path. We'll traverse much faster if we do because of our positive attitude. 

Being A Family Historian Is A Labor of Love

I submitted the following article to an editor in the Kansas City area several weeks ago. He did not respond which translates to most writers that the article was rejected. Monday, I received a check in the mail from said editor who had published my article in the June issue of The Best Times. The magazine, which is both print and online, is for seniors but my article is pertinent for all age groups.

I'm posting it below to once again nudge all of you to write those family stories. I can attest to the fact that the effort will be appreciated. I recently assembled a 167 page book of family stories and memories for my three younger brothers. All of them, and their wives, thanked me for the gift. Each one said it would be passed on to their own children and grandchildren in time to come. I had already written the stories. All I had to do was visit a copy center and purchase a 3 ring binder to put them in. That way, any future stories, can easily be added. 

Family Historian--A Labor Of Love

By Nancy Julien Kopp

I’m the Family Historian for both sides of our family. We didn’t hold an election that I won. The job fell naturally to me because I’m a writer and maybe because I am the eldest of four.  It might also be the fact that I care deeply that our history be passed on to future generations.

    

You needn’t be a professional writer to take on this important task. All that’s necessary is the desire to preserve the family stories and the ability to string words together. Write it like you’d tell it sitting around the dining room table after a Sunday dinner.

   

You don’t need to be chronological. Start anywhere. Tell a story and put it in a notebook. Then write another. Soon, your notebook will become fat with stories about your grandparents, your mother and father, your siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. Also stories about yourself.

    

A good place to trigger memories of your family tales is in old photo albums. Dig them out, dust them off and leaf through. Memories will flood back. If you’re lucky, there will be names and dates on some or all of the pictures. If not, guess at the time period. You’ll come close. Family bibles often have personal records in them that can serve as memory triggers for the stories that abound about your relatives.

    

Interview the older members of your family, even neighbors who lived nearby. Some folks get so enthused they end up doing research at the library or online to learn more about relatives in the distant past. They find out when Great-Grandpa came to America through ships’ records, or where someone lived by checking the census records. But the Family Historian needn’t go that far. Use your own knowledge and what you learn from other relatives to write the stories. You’ll still have plenty.

    

Someone might say that their family never did anything important enough to write about. I bet they did, because the everyday things are meaningful to those who care about the people involved.

    

For example, my father’s grandmother lived in Chicago but never learned a word of English. She spoke nothing but French. She made lace, then used it to fashion elegant baby clothing which she sold to a famed Chicago department store. It’s something I’d like my children and grandchildren to know.

   My maternal grandfather started work at age nine in a coal mine. He never finished school and spent the remainder of his working years in the mines. My mother walked to the mine after school and waited for his shift to end. They’d walk home together and talk over the day.

    

Two stories from two sides of my family, but I refuse to let them fade away. Consider this labor of love for your grandchildren. Write the funny things, the scary ones, and even

the very sad. It’s your family history and deserves to live on. What a legacy for you to leave!

Writers Generate Sales With Regular Submissions

The best way to generate sales of whatever you write is to submit your work on a regular basis. More than once, I've mentioned the Ferris wheel of submissions numerous times, mostly because it's a good illustration of what we need to do as writers to see our work published. Keep the seats filled and moving!

If you submit your work for publication once or twice a year, you're asking for disappointment. The odds are that you'll be rejected. But, if you submit five times a month, chances are that one will be accepted. Maybe more! That could depend on how savvy you are at matching your work to the right kind of publication. 

Writers have files filled with stories or essays they've written. Some have never been submitted while others have made the rounds but been rejected one or more times. Go through your files periodically to see what you might submit to a different publication or to assess the need for revisions before submitting again. Make good use of those pieces you've written and filed away. They get pretty dusty if you don't shake them a little every now and then.

A few weeks ago, I noted an article in my files that I thought might work in a senior newspaper that has purchased several pieces from me in the past. I had two versions, short and long. I sent the short one and later wondered if I should have sent the more detailed article on being your family historian. Never heard a word from the editor but, yesterday, I received a nice check in the mail from him. Shaking off the dust on an old story and submitting it does work.

Beginning writers tend to work very hard on a story, study the markets and choose one to submit to. They read the guidelines and send their work to the editor. Then they sit back and wait. Often, the wait seems interminable! If they sit around for results and do no more writing, they are wasting valuable time. A starred (*) rule in the submission process is to submit, then start working on a new writing project. Keep submitting but also keep writing. 

Writing is like the Ferris wheel above. We want to keep those seats filled with submissions at all times. When a story sells, a seat is emptied. What do you do? Fill it again with a new submission. You can't sell it if you don't send it!

Wishy-Washy Or Passionate? Your Choice

This is a repeat post; one that was very popular about 2 1/2 years ago. The content is just as relevant today as it was then. Even if you've read it before, it might be enough to spark a bit of inspiration. i hope so. 

Wishy-washy or passionate? Which one describes your writing life? I've heard more than one person expound on wanting to be a writer. They talk about it and take a half-hearted stab at it, then give up when they don't see immediate results.

A star athlete became a star because passion for his sport burned within. The basketball player who doesn't have that intensity is the guy who spends the game on the bench. The writer who doesn't harbor those intense feelings is one who will not have a long list of publications behind his/her name.

How do you get that passion? Can't buy it. Can't steal it from anyone else. Can't wish it into fruition. You have to love something a great deal to spark that depth of feeling. You have to want more than the glory of being a successful writer. You need to write for the love of writing. Those who love beautiful prose when they read are ones who will try to equal it in their own writing.

I held my desire to write in check for many years. I waited until my children were independent adults, and as I've said many times here, that probably was not the smart thing to do. I wish I had followed my desire earlier, but that's water over the damn now. Still, the embers glowed within me all those years and when I finally got started writing the stories and essays I'd often thought about, it burst into a flame that still burns within me nearly twenty years later.

Does having a passion for writing insure you'll be a successful writer? No, it doesn't. What it does promise is that you'll continue writing and most likely will continue to be a better writer. If the passion is alive and well, the writer will take all the other steps to grow in his/her chosen field.

If you don't have that passion now, does it mean you should quit? I don't think so. Maybe if you keep working at it, the spark will ignite when you least expect it. Give it some more time.