As someone with a fair number of published books, I’m quite often asked for advice by writers just beginning on the slippery slope. Although all my published books are non-fiction, more than half of those who approach me want to write fiction.
After much study on the subject, and discussions with real novelists, I can now come up with some fundamental laws of fiction vs non-fiction.
Clegg’s First Law – fiction is easier to write than non-fiction. Authors of novels will squeal and argue about this, but it is definitely true. Many of us can sit down and start to write fiction and it just flows out. One of the novelists I know can write 9,000 words in a day. Non-fiction writing, on the other hand, requires a fair amount of effort in research, and you need to learn some basic techniques to be able to structure the book and get the information across accessibly.
However, before I get too many fiction writers frothing at the mouth, please bear in mind
Clegg’s Second Law – publishable non-fiction is easier to write than publishable fiction. As long as you’ve got a really interesting subject (one that interests other people, not just you), and you can put the information across passibly, you are there with non-fiction. You might not make a lot of money, but you may well get a publishing deal.
However, to write fiction that will be accepted by a publisher is much harder. Now it’s no longer enough to just let it flow (even though that may be how it finally comes out). You need to have a good grasp of how to build a character that will be appealing to a reader, how plots work (and particularly understanding the importance of conflict) and more. It’s really hard work for many people to write publishable fiction.
Of course, some people have it easy. They just have a natural feel for the skills required to produce great fiction and can just do it. But for most fiction authors there’s a lot more thinking and soul searching involved than there is with most non-fiction.
If you fancy writing fiction, the best book I’ve so far come across on those essential skills is Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. Maass isn’t a novelist, but he is a very successful agent of novelists, and knows what makes the kind of book that has a chance of breaking out and going big.
Of course, you may say ‘I don’t want to write a novel that goes big, I just want to write this story I have in mind.’ That’s fine, but if you want to get it published, then you may have to do it yourself through Lulu or the equivalent. If you want to go with a publisher (and many of us still do), then the kind of things Maass tells you will help a novel to ‘break out’ are the things you need to get a publisher excited. Clue – publishers don’t buy books that are mildly interesting or pleasant. They want to be thrilled and excited.
So there you have it. It’s easier to write fiction than non-fiction and it’s easier to write non-fiction than fiction. Shocking but true.
That’s an interesting way of putting it, Brian.
I guess you’re basing your first law on the idea that non-fiction requires research, fiction less so? There are counterarguments to that but I can see where you’re coming from there. (I know of one book shortlisted for A Wellknown Science Book Prize that was written in a matter of weeks, as the writer had most of it in their head already. Conversely, I know of some fiction writers that spend months researching the area/subject etc their novel is set in to ensure accuracy/believability.) Interesting to chew over…
Scott – there are exceptions in both cases. However to be able to write non-fiction off the top of your head, you usually have to have researched/worked in the area before. (Or be writing something labelled ‘non-fiction’ that is actually closer to fiction.)
Fiction writers will often research setting etc. (though many don’t) but that is often part of moving them into the second category (publishable fiction).
I concur with Clegg’s First Law and Clegg’s Second Law.
Although, on second thoughts, I don’t. I thought I agreed with Clegg’s first law, but mistook what you meant. Fiction is not so much easier to write than nonfiction, but more fun.
Nonfiction, sure, you have to have your facts, and you have to be able to write engagingly, and you have to tell a story. But fiction has so many other variables that non-fiction doesn’t, each one requiring mastery.
Plot
Nonfiction can have a plot, but it matters less if it doesn’t. I’ve just read a truly fantastic nonfiction book that’s completely plotless and utterly fantastic. Fiction can be plotless, too, but it requires a skill to carry off that almost no writer has.
Characters
Nonfiction has its characters readymade, for the most part. Fiction has to invent them, and it’s crucial that they convince the reader such that they empathise with them. Consider — a character in nonfiction might already be known to the reader … but an author of fiction has to get a stranger to care about an imaginary person, and not only that, somebody else’s imaginary person.
Dialogue
Great dialogue is easy to do badly, harder to do well, and rarely required in nonfiction.
Point-Of-View
This is an absolute pig to get right (as I know all too well) but as nonfiction is almost always done in the first person or the third-person omniscient, the problem hardly ever arises.
Action
Things happen to the characters. Dramatic things. This is true of nonfiction but to a lesser extent.
Sex
Vital for any fiction stronger than the teletubbies, but almost absent from nonfiction. I like writing about sex, and I believe I am good at it (the writing, anyway).
Mood
Setting the tone is even more crucial in fiction than nonfiction, as the author has to do all the work in creating the scene – in nonfiction the reader is likely to have more external referents.
Nonfiction writers baulk at writing fiction because of all these free parameters. I heard Roger Highfield on the radio being asked whether he’d try fiction, and he said he wouldn’t — far too difficult, given all these extra unknowns. I once asked Steve Jones at a party why he didn’t try a campus novel, as his journalism about the practice of science, and the ways of scientists, is very sharp and extremely funny. He said that his agent had asked him the same question – but he decided not to as he thought the prospect too hard.
Fifteen years after joining Nature, when I had had several nonfiction books and innumerable articles under my belt, I thought that I couldn’t call myself a writer until I’d had a serious attempt at fiction. I’m still trying to get something publishable (and therefore I still concur with Clegg’s Second Law) but if I succeed the effort will be worthwhile. I have no intention of returning to nonfiction. After a few years bashing away at fiction, it would seem just too boring.
Hmm, I’ve been writing fiction stories for fun, at least in the times before I started publishing stuff with equations in it, and I didn’t find it easy. Rspt the problem was the stories didn’t quite want what I want. I find non-fiction writing considerably easier because there I can start with a layout and fill in details.
Henry/Sabine – I think you possibly miss the point. Law #1 refers to just sitting down and letting it spew out, something that most people can do more easily with fiction than non-fiction. To write good (publishable) fiction you have to consider all that stuff wot Henry mentioned, but not just to sit down and write the sort of fiction that I suspect all too often gets submitted to slush piles.
Just as one example – Henry’s Action heading. Really the most important thing is not so much action as conflict. Story requires conflict. Otherwise you end up with a series of discriptions.
Elsie got up and put the kettle on. She enjoyed a nice cup of tea, then sat down and watched the TV. There was nothing much on. ’It’s always the way, thought Elsie. Always the way.’ Then she made another cup of tea.
This is fiction. But there’s no conflict, so it’s not really a story.
You make the point yourself, Henry. You comment under Dialogue ‘Great dialogue is easy to do badly, harder to do well, and rarely required in nonfiction.’ Leaving aside uncertainty as to how you do ‘great dialogue badly’, this underlies the point of the two laws. To do dialogue is easy. To do good/great dialogue is really hard work.
Law #1 refers to just sitting down and letting it spew out, something that most people can do more easily with fiction than non-fiction
Well, maybe. I’ve ‘spewed out’ 6000 words of nonfiction that made it to the final cut. And one can easily write thousands of words of fiction at a sitting, but it almost always requires serious reworking, often several times, before it meets the general satisfaction.
almost absent from nonfiction
Not from the book I just reviewed. My goodness, what a bizarre miscellany centred around that particular topic. I wonder if it will sell?