GUIDE TO WRITING

NARRATIVE NONFICTION
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE PRACTICALITIES

4 KNOWING WHERE TO BEGIN WHEN

WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION
Danelle Morton

6 NONFICTION BY WOMEN IS NOT TAKEN

SERIOUSLY ENOUGH
Sarah Menkedick

8 WHAT MILLION-DOLLAR ENTREPRENEURS

TAUGHT ME ABOUT FREELANCE WRITING
Elaine Pofeldt

10 AN ESSAY PRIMER FOR ADULTS:

SIX ESSAY TYPES YOU SHOULD KNOW
Lorraine Berry

WRITING HISTORY

14 TWO IMPORTANT TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR

NONFICTION WRITING
Robert Kurson

16 WHY I WRITE GRAPHIC NONFICTION:

TEACHING HISTORY THROUGH COMICS
Jonathan Hennessey

21 APPROACHING A LOADED TOPIC AS A

NONFICTION WRITER
Gilbert King

23 MARK TWAIN’S NONFICTION Richard Russo

WRITING SOMEONE ELSE’S HISTORY

27 DAVID BOWIE’S BIOGRAPHER ON

HOW TO COVER AN ICON
Dylan Jones

30 BECOMING A BIOGRAPHER: HOW

TO TELL SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE STORY
James Atlas

32 MAKING HISTORY: CHARACTERS IN

NARRATIVE NONFICTION
Gary Krist

34 MISSING PIECES: HOW TO TELL SOMEONE

ELSE’S STORY WHEN MEMORY FAILS
Michael D. Lemonick

2 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

THE
PRACTICALITIES

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 3

KNOWING WHERE TO
BEGIN WHEN WRITING
NARRATIVE NONFICTION
by Danelle Morton

Many people have trouble

knowing where to start their
more about the dead. In a real
estate story, I described the
LIST THE
stories. The book I wrote with property: where it was and MOMENTS IN
my writing partner Cary Ten-
nis, Finishing School, is about
what made it so valuable that it
was worth fighting about. I’m
YOUR STORY
finishing your writing project, but working now on a story about THAT HAVE
to get across that finish line, we
often start by coaching people on
a man who went on a crime
spree who was undetected for
THE BIGGEST
how to begin. thirty years. I am starting at the EMOTIONAL
In my experience as a journal-
moment of his arrest, the modest
end of his wild life, and looking
AND
ist and author, a good begin-
ning contains two elements that
backward from there to recon- DRAMATIC
draw the reader in: the physical
struct his crimes.
IMPACT.
description that immerses the As you sit at your desk trying to
reader in a world of your creation, figure out where to start, list
but also a moment of high emo- the moments in your story that
tion, of loss or gain, of the sense have the biggest emotional and
of something ending or the begin- dramatic impact. Look for
ning of a quest for an answer. incidents that transform the life of
the central character, or a turning
I wrote a magazine story about
point that alters the course of the
eight young people who died in
story, and describe the world that
a squat fire. I started inside the
surrounds that event.
burning building and followed
the investigator as he discovered Gathering all these moments,

4 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

what screenwriters call the of view. These same criteria that perfect beginning that creates
beats of the story, can help you apply when you are writing about the world of your story and sets
determine where to begin. When yourself. the emotional tone for what is to
you review the list, you can decide come.
After you have made your list
the action that inspired the quest,
of the beats of the story, play
or defined the question that the
with them to understand which Danelle Morton is the coauthor of
main character must answer.
seems to be the most comfortable Finishing School.
A magazine profile often begins place to start. If you think some-
with the subject in the midst of thing is the ending, try it as the
taking action in a crisis, or in a beginning and tell the story in
familiar setting where he or she flashback to see if that frees you
can reflect on what has brought up as a writer. With an open and
them to this point. A beginning like playful approach, you become
this allows the writer to describe the master of your story, not one
the atmosphere, the elements who feels hopeless and confused
that make this moment dramatic, by this big question. Experiment L E A R N M OR E 
and establish the subject’s point with the sequence until you find

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 5

NONFICTION BY
WOMEN IS NOT TAKEN
SERIOUSLY ENOUGH
by Sarah Menkedick

At the Ohioana Book Festival in This reaction to the topic of moth- the one hand, of course men don’t
Columbus, Ohio, I was treated to erhood is nothing new; I’ve come want to read about motherhood,
the rare experience of watching to learn following the publication seeing as it’s a bodily experience
readers interact with my book. I of my first book that motherhood they’ll never have. On the other
sat at a small table in a conference is not seen as sufficiently serious, hand, many are thrilled to read
room at the Sheraton and observed sufficiently heady for literature. about trekking into the Alaskan
the audience of Midwestern book I’ve tried to tackle this myth in var- wild or running ultramarathons
nerds and bored, leisure-seeking ious ways, but I’ve also learned to or engaging in heroic combat mis-
families meander by. I began to shrug it off, and to love the women sions, even though these are bodily
detect patterns: Almost all men, who come up to me after read- experiences they will never have.
and certain women, would glance ings and say with gratitude, “I’ve
The bigger issue, I recognize
down at my book’s vibrant yellow- never read anything like this.” But
now as I work on my second
and-orange cover and then, upon at the Ohioana Festival I also had
book, is not so much motherhood
noticing the word “motherhood,” to reckon for the first time, in the
itself, but the nature and tone
immediately move on, sometimes flesh, with the fact that men see
of the writing. The Great Male
offering a conciliatory smile. my book as utterly irrelevant. On
Literary Work that is accepted and
venerated as serious has much
IT FEELS DICEY TO STATE in common with the lectures

“I WANT TO WRITE FOR WOMEN” students hear in universities, the

voiceovers on documentaries, the
AS AN EXPLICIT GOAL. speeches of politicians: Even if the
rhetoric is different, more finely
tuned, or outright rebellious, the
male authority is there. It bleeds
through the page like a dye. More
6 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION
and more, as I did research for my it, a new maxim. Women are so and their greats — might engen-
second book, reading bestselling often punished for talking about der new, groundbreaking pos-
works by male authors on mental or focusing on the “feminine,” or sibilities, not just for women
illness, I found myself recognizing even suggesting that women are writers but for everyone tired of the
and then rejecting this authority. different from men. Women old paradigms.
This is not to say I don’t appreciate writers are amply rewarded for
these books, their complex ideas, dealing with “serious” (read:
and their authors, but rather that male) themes in serious, or Sarah Menkedick is the author of
I started to feel a bit excluded by appropriately sardonic, tones. It Homing Instincts.
them; I longed for a type of voice, may be antithetical to the goal
a vision, that wasn’t in them and of the equal treatment of male
that in fact I could hardly even and female writers to state that
articulate. An alchemical mix of I’m aiming for a female audi-
Annie Dillard, Louise Erdrich, Ra- ence, but then again, it may be
chel Carson, Leslie Jamison, Sallie revolutionary: It may free women
Tisdale. A voice unafraid to speak up to write in ways that aren’t
to women and also to claim great defined by that Great Male Voice.
universal truths. Ways that speak to particular LEARN MORE 
fears, struggles, desires, experi-
It feels dicey to state “I want to ences that they have had as women,
write for women” as an explicit among women, in the world. Part
goal, potentially self-sabotaging of my goal with this book is to open
on both artistic and political lev- myself up to the possibility that
els, and yet at the same time there’s writing for women — as opposed
something revolutionary about to the established male elite

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 7

WHAT MILLION-DOLLAR
ENTREPRENEURS
TAUGHT ME ABOUT
FREELANCE WRITING
by Elaine Pofeldt

When I first went into business hold. With many of my customers a little inconvenient. After my
for myself as a freelance writer paying me late, my husband and I first year in business, I realized
in the fall of 2007, I didn’t really found ourselves in extended de- my life would be a lot easier with
know what I was getting into. bates about decisions like whether some income that came in steadily
At the time, I had four-year-old we could afford to buy the giant every month and took on my first
twins and a one-year old. My main economy size pack of diapers. It retainer client, then another.
motivation for starting a business was scary at times but eventually
I also realized I should specialize.
was to create more freedom to the economy started healing and
There are a lot of things that inter-
control my schedule than even a my business grew.
est me in life but I focus my writ-
very flexible full-time career as a
In October 2017, I passed the ing business on a few key areas,
magazine editor would allow.
ten-year mark in business. And such as entrepreneurship, careers,
Winning that freedom, however, although I think of myself as a and healthcare. It’s easier to come
meant taking on some new chal- writer first and a business owner up with fresh ideas for clients if
lenges. I needed to replace the second, I learned some valuable you know a subject well.
income and benefits from my lessons about entrepreneurship
Within that focus, I broadened
full-time corporate job at Fortune along the way.
the type of writing I did, branch-
Small Business magazine right
One is about the importance ing out from journalism to ghost-
away. When you have a family and
of cash flow. We live in a soci- writing essays and books, as well.
live near New York City, the cost of
ety where bills tend to be due I really enjoy working with my
living is pretty unforgiving.
monthly. You can’t just pay them ghostwriting clients, who are very
Not long after I went into business, when you have money coming in. smart, successful people who lack
the economy started to tank, and That makes the erratic payment the time to write. Even better,
the global financial meltdown took cycles most freelancers live with the work generally comes from

8 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

clients outside of the media more time to do other things they
industry, which gives me some love.
insulation from the financial
As a freelance writer, I’ve realized
turbulence there.
there’s a lot I can learn from entre-
It was ultimately my journal- preneurs who think like this. Last
ism work that led me to write year, in a push to outsource, I hired
The Million-Dollar, One-Person a bookkeeper to tackle work that
Business. The book looks at the was bogging me down. I recently
strategies used by entrepreneurs began working with my wonderful
in solo businesses and part- coach, Doug Wick, who is helping
nerships to get to $1 million in me to run a better business and
revenue. “scale up” my thinking.

The U.S. Census Bureau found Writing will always be what truly
that 35,584 “nonemployer firms”— inspires me at work. However,
those with no employees except running my freelance business
the owners — hit $1 million to more efficiently frees time I’d
$2.49 million a year in sales. When rather protect for things that mat-
I first came across these statistics ter to me — like spending an extra
as a reporter, I was very curious hour in the sun on a warm spring
about what the owners were ac- day with my kids.
tually doing. I found there were
people hitting this level of revenue
in businesses as varied as selling Elaine Pofeldt is the author of
organic honey, marketing day- The Million-Dollar, One-Person
books on Amazon, training peo- Business.
ple how to cook healthier food
in video courses, doing business
consulting, and investing in small
residential rental properties, to
name a few.

What was different about them

from the average business was
how they think. Instead of
getting lost in the minutia that LEARN MORE 
eat up many solo business
owners’ time, they look for ways
to extend what one person can do
in the most efficient way possible.
They do this by hiring contrac-
tors, outsourcing, and automating
routine work. That gives them

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 9

AN ESSAY PRIMER FOR
ADULTS: SIX ESSAY TYPES
YOU SHOULD KNOW
by Lorraine Berry

Perhaps you hear the word Frenchman Michel de Montaigne on whether the personal essay
“essay” and you flash back (1533-1592) with the invention of has reached its end point. That is,
to your school days. Most the essai, the name he gave to the have people shared every last as-
Americans learned something pieces he wrote. “Essay” is drawn pect of their lives? Jia Tolentino’s
called the “five-paragraph es- from the French verb essayer (to essay drew a number of responses.
say” in school. It comprises an try, to attempt), and referred to the I found an essay written by Vir-
introduction, a conclusion, and short pieces that Montaigne wrote ginia Woolf in 1905 where she
three paragraphs in-between of on various subjects. Rather than complained that too many people
exposition and analysis. Essay- declare himself such an expert were writing essays for the mul-
writing assignments were dry as that he could write treatises or titude of magazines of her day.
dust, with the emphasis seem- books on certain subjects, he wrote This need for content by today’s
ingly on making certain that the these shorter pieces in which he plethora of websites has made
points laid out in the introduction attempted to create meaning. writers feel that they are expected
had been proven by the time of the to reveal secrets to slake the
Since then, essays have become
conclusion, which was a means of demand.
ways for exploring any number of
reminding the reader of what they
subjects. In our current age, many But, just as readers have had
had just read.
people associate the essay with literary book choices ranging
But the essay is one of the most the “personal essay,” which are from “penny dreadfuls” to Nobel
protean of our ways of writing, pieces that expose some aspect of Prize-winning prose, so too are
and, in literature, the essay can self, whether a confessional about there a range of levels of literary
be a container for some of our a fault or a story about a relation- essays out there. And literary es-
greatest writers’ greatest work. ship. In the past year or so, a de- says bear as much resemblance
Most literary scholars credit bate among writers has centered to the five-paragraph essay as

10 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

simple arithmetic bears to calcu- and pieces — vignettes — of prose walking the streets of Atlantic
lus. But literary essays have some that are collected together to form City. The game takes place at an
recognizable structures, which an essay. They often resemble international singles champion-
describe their framework but not poetry, as the writing for a collage ship of Monopoly play, where it is
necessarily their content. I would essay tends to be lyrical. One of possible for two skilled players to
argue that just about anything can my favorite collage essays is Sher- play an entire game in fewer than
become content for an essay, and man Alexie’s “Captivity,” which fifteen minutes.
because of that, writers have un- appeared in First Indian on the
McPhee intersperses the his-
limited writing opportunities still Moon.
tory of America in the details, but
available. Here are some of those
also of how Atlantic City was the
structures along with some THE EXPERIMENTAL ESSAY
These essays seem to buck all planned “invention” as a railroad
examples of essays. All together,
known structures. One of the most terminus that would be a “bathing
these types of essays are known as
unusual of these essays is “The village.” In preliminary sketches,
“lyric” essays.
Body” by Jenny Boully. The pages the village was labeled an “Atlan-
THE LINEAR NARRATIVE ESSAY
of the essay are blank — except for tic city,” and the name stuck. In
This essay structure is self- the early 1930s, Charles B. Darrow
the footnotes, which are extensive.
explanatory. The story is told in took those early sketches of the
It turns out that the footnotes are
a straightforward narrative, and city and based a game board on it.
the entire essay. “The Body” is
is usually told in chronological
characterized as a lyrical essay. So, as McPhee lands on each
order. Sometimes, the essay con-
The last two forms of essay that property or group of properties,
tains flashbacks, but that doesn’t
I wish to discuss are the “her- he tells the story of each part
disrupt the forward motion of the
mit crab” essay and the “braided” of town. When McPhee’s piece
narrative. One essay that was of
essay, and here I’d like to offer lands him in jail, he uses it as an
interest around the time of the
more exploration of two particular opportunity to visit the city jail,
2017 “Great American Eclipse”
essays that serve as examples of which in 1972 seemed to be chock-
was Annie Dillard’s “Total
each. full of drug offenders. He also
Eclipse,” which is published in
documents the “facade” aspect
her collection, Teaching a Stone to
THE HERMIT CRAB ESSAY shared by resort towns. Once you
Talk.
In 1972, John McPhee wrote “The travel off the beach-side main drag,
THE TRIPTYCH ESSAY Search for Marvin Gardens,” and it you are in “the bulk of the city, and
Just as a triptych painting features was published in the New Yorker. it looks like Metz in 1919, Cologne
three panels, so too does a trip- He used the original game of in 1944. Nothing has actually
tych essay feature three separate “Monopoly” — the original exploded. It is not bomb damage. It
sections that are not continuous American version that was based is deep and complex decay. Roofs
with each other, but that may shed on the streets of Atlantic City, New are off. Bricks are scattered in the
light on the other two parts. See Jersey — and he used going around street.”
“Triptych” by Samina Najmi, the board as the frame for the es-
He walks these streets and sees
which was published in World say, making this a perfect example
long lines of people standing in
Literature Today. of a “hermit crab” essay.
line at the unemployment office.
THE COLLAGE ESSAY In the essay, McPhee plays a game Newspapers today tell us that we
This type of essay features bits of Monopoly, but he also recounts have an “opioid crisis,” but a multi-

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 11

plicity of signs urging addicts to get tine she experiences as of matter is still sneaks up on
help are present in Atlantic City in she cares for her aged, readers, and that knowledge
1973 (perhaps another reminder incontinent dog, the reader is devastates.
that something doesn’t become a braced in anticipation that the dog
I think it a shame that the essay’s
crisis until middle class white kids will die.
versatility is hidden from most
in the suburbs are dying).
But Beard plaits in three additional of us throughout our primary
McPhee walks through these stories: the scurry of squirrels that education. It’s only in special-
neighborhoods looking for the have taken over a room upstairs ized writing classes that the
one Monopoly property he can’t in her house after finding entry kaleidoscopic nature of the essay
find: Marvin Gardens. No one with through a loose board; the sepa- is taught, and after years of being
whom he speaks, those living in ration from her husband who has told that the five-paragraph model
their bombed-out neighborhoods, left her but who calls Beard a num- is the only acceptable way to write
has heard of it. It turns out that ber of times to ask her whether he nonfiction, some students find it
Marvin Gardens, “the ultimate out has done the right thing in leaving hard to work with all those choices.
wash of Monopoly, is a citadel and her; and the men she works with But if you’ve ignored collections of
sanctuary of the middle class.” It in the physics department, their essays because you can’t imagine
is a suburb within a suburb, what disparate personalities, and her that they contain interesting work,
we might now refer to as a “gated friendship with them. now is the time to give them an
community,” separated from the essai.
In the third paragraph of the
rest of Atlantic City and patrolled
essay, she provides a description
with a heavy police presence to
of the night sky that contains clues
keep the rest of the city out. Lorraine Berry writes for
of what is to come: “In the porch-
The Guardian, LitHub, and other
If you’ve been paying attention light the trees shiver, the squirrels
outlets.
while reading, you realize that turn over in their sleep. The Milky
McPhee has used his hermit Way is a long smear on the sky,
crab essay to write a critique of like something erased on a chalk-
capitalism. board.”

THE BRAIDED ESSAY The fourth state of matter is a

“The Fourth State of Matter,” by physics term that refers to plasma,
Jo Ann Beard is, I must confess, “the plasmapause, a place of
my favorite essay. It, too, was equilibrium, where the forces of
originally published in the New the Earth meet the forces of the
LEARN MORE 
Yorker in 1996. Beard offers a sun,” and Beard demonstrates how
braided essay — in which she tells her marriage and the dying dog
a number of stories that are all re- are metaphorical representations
lated to the time she spent on the of plasma. The reader will also be
editorial staff of a physics journal reminded of plasma’s more im-
at the University of Iowa. Over mediate meaning. Even though
the course of the essay, which Beard lays down clues like bread-
begins with Beard’s poignant crumbs throughout the essay, the
description of the daily rou- revelation of what the fourth state

12 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

WRITING HISTORY

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 13

TWO IMPORTANT TIPS
TO IMPROVE YOUR
NONFICTION WRITING
by Robert Kurson

Ever since writing my first book, telling me, and I can stop the tape rhythms — especially its rhythms.
Shadow Divers, I’ve used two at any moment to contemplate This causes me to catch mistakes I
strange tricks to improve my the information. Often, I hear might otherwise drift past.
writing. things for the first time when I’m
For years, these tricks served
hearing them for the second time.
First, I almost never pay others me reliably. But they were never
It’s a wonderful way to learn.
to transcribe the interviews I do better utilized than when I set out
during my research, but rather do The second trick is that I always to write my new nonfiction book,
them myself, painstakingly. It’s read aloud what I’ve written.
not that I’m cheap (I’ll buy you a Doing so makes me sound strange
beer if I meet you), it’s that typing to passersby (including my family, OFTEN, I HEAR
out the interview slows me down
and allows me to hear everything
and don’t get me started on what
this looks like in a coffee shop),
THINGS FOR
a subject is saying. And that’s but it confers a similar benefit to THE FIRST TIME
important. While conducting
interviews, part of my focus is on
transcribing my own interviews —
it slows me down. This is critical
WHEN I’M
formulating follow-up questions, to catching bad writing. If I read HEARING
or shifting gears based on the
subject’s answer, or processing
to myself silently, I find that my
brain sometimes skips over words,
THEM FOR THE
new information, any of which likely because I’m already familiar SECOND TIME.
might divert my attention and with what I wrote. By forcing my-
cause me to miss something self to read aloud, I cannot jump
important. At home, transcrib- over words or phrases, and I’m
ing slowly by myself, I can truly compelled to hear how the entirety
hear what my interview subject is of the writing sounds, including its

14 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey memories. Being an ordinary typ-
of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who ist made these stories extraordi-
Made Man’s First Journey to the nary.
Moon.
The same happened after I began
The story of Apollo 8 has it all: an writing. Reading paragraphs and
existential enemy (the Soviets); chapters aloud helped me make
a race against time; epic dan- certain I didn’t rush my descrip-
ger; close calls; a stunning and tions in order to keep pace with
unexpected broadcast heard by the action, a danger when lifting
nearly one-third of the world’s off in the first Saturn V rocket with
population; a single photograph, 160 million horsepower beneath
Earthrise, that remains perhaps you, as you travel aboard a space-
the most famous ever taken; and an craft moving at 25,000 miles per
ending powerful enough to unite a hour, while you’re seeing Earth
divided nation at the end of one of for the first time as a whole planet,
its most terrible years. It’s even a when you hear what these astro-
Christmas story. nauts chose to say to the world on
Christmas Eve (a decision NASA
From the moment I began
left entirely to them), as you dis-
transcribing my interviews with
cover how this journey changed
the three astronauts who flew
America, and the world.
on Apollo 8 — Frank Borman,
Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders — I In the end, my two tricks helped
struggled to sit still. Each of them me more than ever. Now, if you’ll
was a first-rate storyteller with excuse me, I must read this essay
excellent recall and an instinct aloud, and I don’t care who in this
for the tiny details that make a coffee shop looks at me weird for
story great. Often, as I played back doing it.
their descriptions, I found myself
thinking, “I’m listening to the
first three humans who ever left Robert Kurson is the author of
Earth, and the first three humans Rocket Men.
who ever arrived at the Moon, de-
scribe in their own words what it
was like to travel to another world,
to a place mankind has dreamed
of reaching for millennia.” Had I
not been forced to type out every
word they told me, I’m certain I
would have missed the nuance and
pauses and second thoughts that
LEARN MORE 
occur between stories, between

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 15

WHY I WRITE GRAPHIC
NONFICTION: TEACHING
HISTORY THROUGH COMICS
by Jonathan Hennessey

No one told me I had signed up to a work of graphic nonfiction. even impossible, to express with
compete in a “bake-off.” words alone.
Jacobson, like me, can’t draw his
It was the early 2000s. Sid way out of a wet paper bag. But So in adapting The 9/11
Jacobson, a gentleman who way he had long collaborated with Commission Report, Jacobson
back when had co-created “Richie illustrator Ernie Colón. Together, and Colón adhered closely to
Rich” and “Casper the Friendly they made sure their innovative these two peculiar advantages the
Ghost” for Harvey Comics (a work would silence any umbrage- form offers.
kiddie imprint at Marvel) was, taking stokers of outrage who
The opening sequence of their re-
like many longtime New York- would inevitably pop up to cry
sulting The 9/11 Report, published
ers, still processing what his city foul about their adaptation. For
in 2006 by Farrar, Straus, and
had been made to live through on nothing could be more predictable
Giroux imprint Hill and Wang, is
September 11th, 2001. than that sanctimonious droves
an arrestingly elegant, side-by-
would raise hell about anyone
Jacobson’s impulse was to respond side timeline of the four hijacked
daring to apply the juvenile form
to the atrocity professionally. That planes. The timeline depicts how
of comics to one of America’s
is, he felt driven to employ his long after takeoff each of the flight
darkest days.
creativity — specifically his gift for crews was violently overpowered;
creating comics — to help make how and to where the aircraft
But Jacobson knew what knee-
sense of the attack. changed course; and where each
jerk critics of the comics medium
was harrowingly made to crash.
He came around to the idea he did not. That is, comics have the
should adapt the findings of the ability to elevate reading to a This finely achieved use of words
National Commission on Terror- manifold, multi-layered experi- and pictures in combination is a
ist Attacks in the United States, ence; and to communicate with perfect example of what I mean
The 9/11 Commission Report, into visuals that which is ungainly, or when I call the comics reading ex-

16 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

perience multi-layered. In a comic Comics’ ability to bring the reader any human being I’ve met to delve
or graphic novel, our very reading both specific and general informa- meaningfully into the content of
faculties become twain. tion at the same time is somewhat two side-by-side paragraphs at
akin to watching a split-screen once.
When looking over The 9/11 Re-
television. But because com-
port’s timeline pages, we process How, then, would an author
ics images are static, and sound
the embedded caption text boxes represent the simultaneity of
and motion are merely implied,
in the same forward sequence 9/11’s hijacked planes using only
the experience transmits a more
as we do in a standard book. But prose?
comfortable, more cognitively
still, the eye-brain connection
attainable rate of information. Even a table or a timeline — with a
jumps ahead and forms a parallel
Unlike a split screen television, well- few graphic elements like arrows
sense of how the page as a whole is
designed comics are never muddling or lines or simple maps thrown in
designed — and what information
or overpowering. (Unless, for artistic — cannot quite rise to the occasion.
that design imparts.
and storytelling purposes, they are And indeed, in the print edition of
By illustrating a schematic of the meant to be). The 9/11 Commission Report, the
hijacked planes, Jacobson and authors have no recourse but to
Think about how a writer might
Colón’s comics timeline em- switch back and forth from detail-
proceed with a text-only account
phasizes the simultaneity of ing one flight, then another. This
of the hijacked planes’ progress.
the events on 9/11. That very is not like a split screen television.
Focusing on and interpreting text
simultaneity was challenging for It’s like a single screen television
demands much of our attention.
the public mind to apprehend, and broadcast switching between foot-
It is not in us, really, to read more
the media to report, on the day in age from multiple cameras.
than one word at a time. And it’s
question.
certainly beyond the ability of So that’s one way comics, at their
best, can do what text alone can-
JACOBSON AND COLÓN’S USE not. While retaining all the other
advantages of a book over other
OF COLOR AND EMPTY SPACE forms of media (allowing the
CUES OUR OWN MEMORIES reader to move at her own pace; to
put down the book and return to it
OF SHOCK, GRIEF, AND later; to more easily jump around
DISBELIEF. in chronology than one can in a
film or stage play), they can deliver
to the brain more than one “feed”
at the same time. One general, one
specific.

Then there is the matter of comics,

like other visual mediums, being
able to express feelings and ideas
that words cannot, or cannot as
effectively.

Let’s return to Jacobson and

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 17

Colón’s The 9/11 Report time- ture the same emotional state with In 2006, graphic nonfiction of this
line. In its faithful representation such sophisticated simplicity. type wasn’t exactly new. In the
of the events of that day, some 1930s and 1940s heyday of com-
With their The 9/11 Report,
planes meet their fatal, murderous ics, editors and creators had tried
Jacobson and Colón took a
impacts sooner than others. On the almost everything, including
somewhat impenetrable bureau-
comics page, this leaves stretches mostly stenographical history
cratic document and made it
of dark emptiness — stretches features, “true war,” and “true
accessible to tens of thousands
of dark emptiness that flank the crime” stories. Joe Sacco’s
who, otherwise, would not have
continuing accounts of the flights incisive Palestine memoir in com-
read it at all. Their much shorter
still airborne. ics had come out in 1996. And
and, by necessity, streamlined ad-
no one who’s read it can forget I
What does this device accom- aptation didn’t recklessly slash
Saw It: The Atomic Bombing of
plish? For one thing, it brings in away at the information in the 592-
Hiroshima, A Survivor’s True
color as an added tool with which page print edition that the federal
Story, Keiji Nakazawa’s manga
to express art and information. government panel issued. Instead,
from the early 1970s (which, in
(Text alone almost always lacks Jacobson and Colón respectfully
translation, reached American
this, of course). distilled the information. And
shores a decade on).
they did so in such a way that,
The graphical void of black ink
depending on the intent of the But what most interested
that follows each crashed plane
reader, The 9/11 Report can either American book publishers about
chillingly represents the finality of
stand on its own or serve as a finding The 9/11 Report? It kept rising,
death, the inexplicable absence of
aid for more granular details in the week after autumn week, on the
a further reality. One can imagine
original document. New York Times list of paperback
this trope imparts a wisp of what
it might have been like to be an
air traffic controller that morning, I HAD STUDIED FILM AND TV
watching radarscope blips disap-
pear without an explanation. PRODUCTION AS AN
Jacobson and Colón’s use of color
UNDERGRADUATE, AND HAD
and empty space cues our own ALSO BEEN WORKING IN
memories of shock, grief, and dis-
belief. This may serve as some
HOLLYWOOD FOR CLOSE
slight metaphorical gateway TO A DECADE.
to what the survivors of 9/11’s
thousands of victims felt that day,
and must surely have felt ever
since.

Great prose and poetry can,

naturally, attempt such depth
of communication as well. But
exceedingly few writers, using
only text, could ever hope to cap-

18 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

nonfiction. Enterprising edi- time travel. The representation were, we might have been too dis-
tors began wondering if graphic of different historical people and couraged to take a shot.
nonfiction could work at their historical periods led to the idea
At least I was savvy enough to
imprints. of adapting the United States
dive in to the book proposal — a
Constitution into a graphic novel.
Like multitudes with a love of handful of completed comics
storytelling, I had been writing This speaks to the bake-off pages that would serve as an “audi-
all my life. I had studied film and competition I alluded to at the top. tion tape” — bent on using the pre-
TV production as an undergradu- viously outlined advantages of the
Hill and Wang’s success with one
ate, and had also been working in comics medium for all they were
public domain government docu-
Hollywood for close to a decade. worth.
ment left them highly open to
(Not in any creative capacity,
the idea of returning to the well The dryness of the Constitution,
unless you count directing the
with another. Unlike The 9/11 its sometimes anachronistic lan-
extras in live action movie scenes
Report, a Constitution graphic guage (who’s up for “emoluments”
— or as they’re more respectfully
adaptation stood to be a perennial. here? Anyone? “Entail”? “Marque”
known in the industry, “back-
The Constitution, after all, affects and “reprisal,” perhaps?), and
ground artists” — as “creative.”) I
the reading public and the body abstract concepts like federal-
was growing ever more obsessed
politic even more than the findings ism, popular sovereignty, and the
with the idea of telling stories
on international terrorism. doctrine of incorporation pose
visually.
high hurdles for any would-be
Neither Aaron nor I had been
All this was bringing me back to adapter to jump. Inspiration was
published. And maybe we were a
comics. kind to me, though.
bit naïve not to have realized at the
All the most interesting and time that other writer-illustrator I went ahead depicting the
talented illustrators I had known teams (or just those damnably en- Constitution’s infamous Three-
growing up in New England had viable writer-illustrators) were Fifths Compromise by, in book
gravitated to the Rhode Island also being invited to try their hand proposal, positing slavery-era
School of Design. It was through at proving they could create an African Americans drawn as
RISD that I finally found a adaptation of the Constitution. dehumanized walking abstrac-
comics artist who “got” me and Had we known how low we were tions — their bodies vertically
whom I “got.” We were work- seeded in the competition, had we vivisected just past the spines.
ing on a dark twist on the idea of any idea how low the expectations Three-fifths of a person.

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 19

Similarly, Aaron and I drama- that they could learn so much on a the rest simply because they are
tized another injustice by doing topic with such emotional engage- dead old white men in the canon of
something with comics that would ment, ease, and with so fair, broad, a powerful patriarchy do so at their
be, with text alone, inelegant at and inclusive an approach. peril. The preponderance of origi-
best. We wanted to address the nalist judges on state and federal
We now live in a time where in-
perversion of drafting young benches means that the laws gov-
formation, especially information
people into the military and send- erning your most cherished and
about American history — and
ing them off to battle in foreign taken-for-granted freedoms de-
what this nation and the broader
lands when, at home, those same pend intimately on what the lives
civilization around it are supposed
young people stood disenfran- of those men, the Constitution,
to stand for — is increasingly
chised: unable to vote for the very and true American values really
weaponized. Political activists
individuals in high federal office mean.
are working every day to distort
who were exercising power over
and pervert the American history I am hopeful that readers will find
both international relations and
narrative in their own interests. that my latest book, Alexander
their very bodies (an injustice cor-
And with the latest global rise of Hamilton: The Graphic History
rected by the 26th Amendment).
authoritarian states, “We the Peo- of an American Founding Father
So we showed a young man head-
ple” have much to lose. Thumb- (which could never exist in the
ing behind the curtain of a voting
nail sketches about who the absence of the current craze),
booth only to find himself in Viet-
Founding Fathers were and what works hard to match illuminating
nam, staring down the barrel of a
they believed — and upon what research with the best that the
deadly NVA rocket attack.
specific ideology and philosophy comics form can alone do.
I’m not trying to say I possess the United States Constitution
some singular genius for using the was framed — can no longer cut it.
comics form to elucidate nonfic-
It’s wonderful that the smash Jonathan Hennessey is the author of
tional subjects. (As just one exam-
Broadway musical Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton.
ple, Nate Powell and John Lewis’s
other examples of what some have
achievement with the March se-
stylized as “Founder chic” have
ries speaks for itself.) But these
provoked so many Americans to
samples of using the medium for
learn more about U.S. history, es-
maximal visual interest and com-
pecially the Revolutionary War,
municative efficacy were what
the Early Republic periods, and
sold the book. It is my continuing
the too-often overlooked Critical
awareness of what’s possible to do
Period in between.
within the medium that keeps me
coming back to it.
But we should be careful about LEARN MORE 
I love how nonfiction graphic reducing history to entertainment,
novels can bring difficult — yet and allowing ourselves to inter-
critical — subjects to a wide act with television miniseries and
audience. And more than any- other forms of historical fiction
thing, I am beside-myself-gratified uncritically. And those who dis-
whenever a reader or critic writes miss learning more about Wash-
or tells me how stunned they were ington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and
20 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION
APPROACHING A
LOADED TOPIC AS A
NONFICTION WRITER
by Gilbert King

Like many authors whose books years of my life researching and husband, returned home from
have been published this year, writing a story about racism that Tampa, where he’d been having a
I’d been doing my best to meet is anything but simple, I found tryst with a young Congressional
my deadline in the midst of the reassurance in Coates’s words. aide from Washington, DC, on the
jaw-dropping 2016 presiden- They stayed with me, and ulti- night his wife was raped. Joe hast-
tial contest that put Donald J. mately became an epigraph of my ily met with five of the most pow-
Trump in the White House. In book, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. erful men in the county, and within
the immediate aftermath of the hours, McCall released the black
In December 1957, Blanche
election, television pundits and suspects. Arrested in their place
Bosanquet Knowles, a thirty-
newspaper correspondents strug- was a nineteen-year-old mentally
one-year-old mother of three
gled to make sense of things. disabled youth named Jesse
and wife of one of the most
Some, like Nate Cohn of the New Daniels, who bore one striking
powerful citrus growers in Lake
York Times, mined the polling difference from the other two
County Florida, was raped in her
data for answers and took to Twit- dozen men picked up by deputies
Okahumpka home by a man she
ter to proclaim, “[Hillary] Clin- days earlier.
described to law enforcement as
ton suffered her biggest losses in
a Negro “with bushy hair.” Within Jesse Daniels was white.
places where Obama was stron-
hours, the racist sheriff Willis Mc-
gest among white voters. It’s not a
Call had his deputies round up two With a flourish from a judge’s pen,
simple racism story.”
dozen young black men as sus- Jesse Daniels was railroaded to
In response to Cohn, author Ta- pects. Chattahoochee — Florida’s most
Nehisi Coates tweeted, “Racism notorious mental asylum — with-
But days later, something strange out a trial. There, he would spend
has never been a ‘simple’ story.
happened in Lake County — some- the next fourteen years of his life.
Ever.”
thing strange, that is, for Lake
Having spent the previous five County. Joe Knowles, Blanche’s Jesse’s claims of innocence fell

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 21

largely on deaf ears, with the death in 1995, indicated that al- because Odom was able to recount
exception of Mabel Norris Reese, though she was not able to prove for authorities a nearly identical
a reporter with the Mount Dora the conspiracy to frame Jesse version of the conversation
Topic, a weekly newspaper she Daniels in her lifetime, her repor- Blanche Knowles recounted in her
owned and ran with her husband, torial instincts in this anything- statement, investigators became
Paul. Mabel puzzled over the case. but-simple story of racism and convinced that it was Odom, and
“Why Daniels?” she wrote. “Why injustice had been correct. not Jesse Daniels, who had raped
did a white man suffer so, when it Blanche on that cool December
One puzzle that arose from
is the Negro that McCall hates?” night in 1957.
the abundance of investigative
Relentlessly reporting on the case sources from this case was that the This revelation pointed toward a
over more than a decade, Mabel evidence led to a shocking darker, more complicated and lay-
uncovered a criminal conspiracy revelation that I was never ered story about race than anything
by elected officials in Lake County able to unsnarl. Sam Wiley I could have invented. In order to
that would leave state and federal Odom, just twenty years old and railroad Jesse Daniels, the Lake
investigators astonished. White struggling with his conscience, as County Sheriff’s Department had
Jesse Daniels, she eventually sur- well as his impending execution to release Sam Wiley Odom, the
mised, had been framed for the for a similar rape in Lake County young black man they believed to
rape of Blanche Knowles to spare just weeks after the Knowles be guilty of raping an “important”
Joe Knowles the indignity of hav- attack, made a startling last-ditch white woman. This unfathomable
ing a wife who’d been “defiled” by effort to exonerate Jesse Daniels. act on the part of law enforcement
a black man. Odom told investigators that he in Jim Crow Florida set up an un-
was at the Knowles house on the seemly race between the sheriff’s
The story I told in Beneath a
night of the rape, and that a man department, the Ku Klux Klan, and
Ruthless Sun is further compli-
had paid $5,000 to have Blanche ultimately the State of Florida’s
cated by events that would have
killed. Odom’s claims were electric chair, “Old Sparky,” to dis-
been deemed too far-fetched if
ultimately dismissed as a last- pose of Odom before his involve-
you tried to introduce them in a
minute “hoax” to save his own ment in the Knowles rape could be
work of fiction. Nevertheless, I
life, and he was quickly sent to the revealed.
was led through this process by an
electric chair. But years later,
overabundance of primary sources Racism has never been a ‘simple’
investigators discovered the
and supporting materials. Numer- story. Ever.
“missing” transcript of a detailed
ous civil rights investigations
statement Blanche had given to Gilbert King is the author of
over the course of Sheriff Willis
the state attorney shortly after the Beneath a Ruthless Sun.
McCall’s twenty-eight-year reign
rape. In it, Blanche revealed that
in Lake County had resulted in
her attacker had indeed told her
thousands of pages in reports
that he’d been paid $5,000 to kill
from the FBI, the Department of
her.
Justice, the Florida Department of
Law Enforcement, and the Florida The FBI investigated, but with
legislature’s investigation into the Odom long dead, agents were
Jesse Daniels case added many unable to uncover any evi-
more. Everything I uncovered, dence supporting his allegation
LEARN MORE 
years after Mabel Norris Reese’s of a murder-for-hire plot. Yet
22 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION
MARK TWAIN’S NONFICTION
by Richard Russo

The novelist William Dean Fanshaw’s Funeral,” “The Story of So, are the events chronicled
Howells once famously remarked the Old Ram”—turn up in this vol- in Roughing It — which details
that his friend Mark Twain was ume as well. Classifying Twain’s Twain’s journey by stagecoach
not a writer who performed work into fiction or nonfiction to the Nevada territory, his stint
so much as a performer who there as a silver miner, and his
wrote. Perhaps surprisingly, this
astute observation also holds
ONCE ASKED apprenticeship to the newspa-
per trade — true? Once asked
true in Twain’s nonfiction, a THAT SAME that same question about one of
form that would seem to put less
of a premium on both invention
QUESTION his own stories, David Sedaris
replied, “They’re true enough,”
and performance. To read the ABOUT ONE and it’s easy to imagine Twain
passages from The Innocents
Abroad, Roughing It, A Tramp
OF HIS OWN saying the same thing about
his youthful adventures in the
Abroad, and Life on the Missis- STORIES, American West. We know he
sippi collected in this volume is
to understand that Twain didn’t
DAVID SEDARIS traveled to Europe and the Holy
Land as a correspondent, so it’s
lose much sleep over the idiosyn- REPLIED, not unreasonable to suppose that
cratic demands of fiction versus
nonfiction. Both offered numer-
“THEY’RE TRUE at least some of what he reports
in The Innocents Abroad actually
ous and varied opportunities to ENOUGH.” happened. I suspect, however, that
an inspired, indeed unparalleled, the literally true parts are those he
bullshitter. To be sure, many of the wasn’t able to improve on through
set pieces that are included in the is something we do for our own embellishment or outright
Everyman’s Library volume of The convenience; his convenience was invention. For Twain, “truth”
Complete Short Stories — “Buck to ignore ours. was not just elastic but indeed

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 23

designed to be stretched. He immigrant on the plains with his as the term is used today, as a
learned this lesson early on, pen if “the interests of the paper storyteller whose primary du-
writing for western newspapers. demanded it.” Thus the low bar of ties are to the narrative and its
He explains the job to great comic truth is established: true enough. audience. No story is likely to be
effect in Roughing It, where, as For him. For his editor. For the instructive if it isn’t entertaining,
a cub reporter, he wrote a story paper’s readership. and the best way to gauge whether
about a wagon full of immigrants it’s working or not is to watch it
attacked by Indians. At first, His approach to fiction was land with an actual audience, a
fearing that other reporters might basically the same. At the lesson Twain learned long before
recount the same story, he sticks beginning of the Adventures of he gave his first public lecture.
pretty close to the facts, despite Huckleberry Finn, Huck says that
his conviction that the story could readers may have heard of him In A Tramp Abroad he recounts his
be improved upon by straying if they’ve read The Adventures of first ride on a Mississippi steam-
from them. Later, though, when he Tom Sawyer, which “was made by boat as a ten-year-old boy. Falling
learns that the owner of the wagon Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the asleep, he has a terrifying dream
meant to continue his journey the truth, mainly. There were things that the boat is ablaze, and he
following morning (leaving no one which he stretched, but mainly rushes into the ladies’ salon, still
to contradict Twain’s account), he told the truth.” That first under the nightmare’s influence,
all bets are off. His next draft de- assertion, it’s worth remember- screaming “Fire!” The ladies there
scribes an Indian fight that “to this ing, was both the truth and a lie. knew better, of course, and they
day has no parallel in history.” This The book was actually “made” by advised him to return to his cabin
is Twain we’re talking about, so it’s Samuel Clemens, and the parts and dress, lest he catch cold. It’s a
likely that he also exaggerated the Mr. Clemens “stretched” were revealing memory. The humilia-
extent of his exaggerations, but the parts that needed stretch- tion of his story playing so badly,
still. Buoyed by praise from the ing, beginning with his own iden- his audience rejecting both the
paper’s editor, he expresses a tity as Mark Twain. Again, Twain tale and the teller, is still fresh in
willingness to murder every is not so much a writer, at least Twain’s mind twenty-five years

WRITERS, BY CONTRAST, ARE USED TO SILENCE.

THEIR APPLAUSE, IF THEY’RE LUCKY ENOUGH
TO GET ANY, COMES LONG AFTER THEIR
“PERFORMANCE” HAS CONCLUDED, IN THE
FORM OF REVIEWS.

24 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

later as he’s writing Tramp. Just as more than any applause.” Indeed, would’ve understood that people
telling is the reason he recalls the he’s so pleased by the reaction that who get conned are often complicit
episode in the first place. He’s in he can’t help but smile, which the in their own deception. Just as im-
Germany watching a production of crowd took as a cue to laugh, thus portant, he would have recognized
King Lear, where the actor playing ruining the moment. the paradox inherent in labeling
the title role “raged and wept and some stories “made up” (fiction)
Later in life, Twain’s relationship
howled” across the stage. Twain and others “true” (nonfiction).
with his audience would grow
admires the performance but feels Interestingly, audience often
more complex. In Life on the Mis-
sorry for the actor, who has to plays a role here, too. When you
sissippi, he admits that being a
wait until the end of the act for his claim that a story is invented —
river pilot was the best job he ever
applause. especially one as elaborate as
had, because the steamboat pilot
Twain’s were — people will natu-
has no master, whereas writers
Writers, by contrast, are used to rally suspect you of telling the
were “manacled servants of the
silence. Their applause, if they’re truth (Come on! You couldn’t have
public.” That said, no writer ever
lucky enough to get any, comes made that up!). Conversely, when
courted his audience more assidu-
long after their “performance” has you claim to be telling the truth,
ously nor drew more confidence
concluded, in the form of reviews. those same folks shift gears and
and pleasure from public adulation
True, authors who publish seri- suspect you of lying (Surely you
(Twain courted honorary degrees,
ally may to some degree interact embellished this!). Storytelling
too, and shamelessly.) Indeed, one
with their audience. When readers thrives in this fundamental para-
suspects that it was from his audi-
loved Sam Weller in an early in- dox and often resists any attempts
ence, as much as the work itself,
stallment of The Pickwick Papers, at clarification.
that Twain derived his sense of
Dickens was happy to expand his
accomplishment and well-being. “Mark Twain’s Nonfiction” first ap-
role as the novel progressed, but
peared as the introduction to Mark
that’s hardly akin to telling the It’s worth pointing out that the
Twain’s Collected Nonfiction: Vol-
same stories on stage night after world has changed since Twain
ume 2 (Everyman’s Library, 2016)
night, as Twain did on his public left it, and our attitudes towards
speaking tours. Each audience “truth” and “fiction” have become
provided him with valuable in- more rigorous and stern. Misla-
Richard Russo is the author of The
sight into what worked and why, bel your novel as a memoir (or al-
Destiny Thief.
allowing him to revise the material low your publisher to do so) and
accordingly. His first public lecture you’ll likely find yourself in a world
triumph near the end of Roughing of hurt. Twain was no great fan
It is described almost completely of fraud and deception, but like
in terms of the crowd’s appre- Melville he understood that the
ciation. The audience is with him world was steeped in both, and
from the start, he tells us, even the moreover he harbored more than
jokes he’d judged to be inferior far- a little admiration and affection
ing “royally.” Near the end, though, for its charlatans. Reading
the material grows more somber Huckleberry Finn I often wonder L E A R N M OR E 
and serious, and Twain tells us if I judge the King and the Duke
that the “absorbed hush” that fell more harshly than their creator
over the audience “gratified me intended. At the very least Twain
GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 25
WRITING SOMEONE
ELSE’S STORY

26 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

DAVID BOWIE’S
BIOGRAPHER ON HOW
TO COVER AN ICON
by Dylan Jones

In setting out to write a book Bowie biographer; see: Nile Rod- midway through the Noughties,
about David Bowie, I faced one gers, Mick Rock, Terry O’Neill, the books started to come out
predominant issue: coming up Rick Wakeman, etc. The next fifty on an almost six-monthly basis;
with different reasons for the are the people who think they just since his death there has been a
reader to read the book. If one is a have as much right as anyone else tsunami of Bowie books. Many of
Bowie aficionado, then one knows to bestow on the reader the pearls the books written about Bowie are
how high the bar is, one knows of wisdom they learnt at Bowie’s biographies of the metaphor that
where the bodies are buried. So knee. See: Tracey Emin, Blondie, we have come to know as “Bowie”;
why should someone read another Bono, a Streatham mini cab driver. I wanted to write about the man,
Bowie book? In order to involve The final fifty are the other people, the person himself. For this book,
the reader, I had to widen the net. the unknowns. These were the I focused on the many tall poppies
ones called Kevin, or Keith, the who knew and worked with David
Which is exactly what I did.
ones who were almost mentioned over the years. I also spoke to the
There are too many Bowie books in passing. “Have you spoken to raft of people who perhaps previ-
out there written by people who Kevin?” “Kevin? No. Should I?” In ously hadn’t had the opportunity
simply have an opinion about the end I spoke to people all over to tell their stories with as much
him; what was lacking was a book the world, in London, Paris, Milan, encouragement or fanfare, people
that was the result of many, many Miami, Los Angeles, New York, who had been involved with him
voices. Chicago, Arizona, Cardiff, Sussex, before he was a star, in his pomp,
Montreal, Essex, Sydney, Brixton, and during the long stretches of
I figured that a Bowie book of this Bromley, Beckenham, Cambridge, post-imperial fame. I’d like to
size and ambition needed to have Hay-on-Wye, Ipswich, even in thank them all — the musicians
at least 150 voices in it. The first parts of darkest Detroit. who worked with Bowie, the fam-
fifty are those people you include ily friends, professional friends,
in order to be taken seriously as a Since his enforced retirement childhood acquaintances, lovers,

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 27

actors, producers, directors, styl- Years. After his death, Bowie’s decade to make it in an indus-
ists, artists, curators, journalists, interviews started to take on a new try that he often thought was
photographers, promoters, art poignancy, something I started collectively conspiring against
directors, publishers, publicists, to see myself when I looked back him, little was left to chance, and
authors, designers, comedians, through my own interviews with the ruthlessness with which he
fans, bold face names, everyone. him. Things I’d skipped over, or assaulted his audience when he
took for granted at the time, now finally did become successful was
As a form of history, the oral
seemed strangely loaded, heavy only matched by the extraordi-
biography has the capacity to be
with meaning. They certainly nary quality of the material — and
more honest than others, and the
helped me frame this book. the stagecraft — that he used as
lack of subjectivity employed by
ammunition. Whereas in the ’60s
the editor should enable the truth David Bowie never forgot to con-
Bowie was always slightly behind
to shine though. But then who nect. Having struggled for a
the curve, as the ’70s clicked in,
ever remembers an event in pre-
cisely the same way? As Bertrand
Russell said, “When a man tells AS A FORM OF HISTORY, THE
you that he knows the exact truth
about anything you are safe in in-
ORAL BIOGRAPHY HAS THE
ferring that he is an inexact man.” CAPACITY TO BE MORE
Yet the recollections contained
here, many of which include minor
HONEST THAN OTHERS
contradictions, have produced a
fascinating prism of whatever the
truth actually is.

I was also adamant that I use only

firsthand quotes. All of the quotes
included are from David Bowie
himself, taken from the seven
formal interviews I conducted
with him over the years, along
with some quotes from an in-
terview commissioned for i-D
back in 1987 when I was still the
editor (and for which I wrote many
of the questions), used with the
kind permission of Tricia Jones
(who conducted the interview).
I also included one quote from a
BBC radio series, Bowie Verbatim,
another from a speech Bowie gave
to the Berklee College of Music in
1999, and one from Hugh Thom-
son’s interview with him for Five
28 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION
he inched ahead of it, peering at coupled with an innate charm, personae and his records like a
the future through a Manichean and — after that first unsuccessful bomb-squad technician, deciding
viewfinder. He showed that what decade — an often unerring sense which color wire to snip, petri-
he was doing was not a trend, but of timing. fied that a mistake would end his
rather a direction, one that would seemingly inexorable righteous
Bowie also deployed his curiosity
change on a whim, or indeed with passage. In reality, he just mixed
as an analytical torch, repurposing
the wind. He excelled at the art things up as he went, using bits
in completely original ways, rarely
of individualism, rarely tacking and pieces he’d collected along the
embarrassed to claim something
toward the center, and relentlessly way. I hope this book goes some
as his own. In that first, forma-
moving forward. way to describing exactly how he
tive decade of his career, Bowie’s
did this, with his art, his music,
In this age when there is in- work bore a relation to many fore-
and with the people he collected
discriminate access to almost bears, and it was only with “Space
around him, some of whom he kept
everything, it would have been Oddity” that he showed that he
for life.
difficult for Bowie to operate so had a mind of his own, and genuine
successfully, but back in the ’70s human purpose. (Having said that,
he was a divining rod, his own at the time, “Space Oddity” was Dylan Jones is the author of
as well as ours. His immense considered to be something of a David Bowie.
talent was often bewildering. But novelty record, and it could have
then, he’d learned how to use what simply been regarded in the years
“little” talent (his term) he had afterward as nothing more impor-
to its fullest effect. Bowie often tant than “Rock Me Amadeus” by
said that God’s cruelest gift was Falco, for instance, a novelty tie-in
bestowing only a modicum of from a different era.)
talent on a person. He exploited
what he had in a way that was all There are many who think
consuming. He was a fascinat- that Bowie was unrelentingly
LEARN MORE 
ing fusion of ambition and craft, calculating, carefully building his

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 29

BECOMING A BIOGRAPHER:
HOW TO TELL SOMEONE
ELSE’S LIFE STORY
by James Atlas

A crabby novelist who’d got- biographer of James Joyce, that Book Review that he had been
ten a bad review once quipped, it occurred to me that this might considered the most promising
“Whoever grew up wanting to be a be the genre for me. His massive poet of his generation, only to burn
literary critic?” The same could be 700-page book had everything: a himself out with amphetamines
said, I suppose, of wanting to be a (nonfictional) protagonist, vivid and alcohol, dying of a heart
biographer. When you’re fourteen, ancillary characters, a moving attack in the corridor of a crummy
if you’ve thought about the future story line, terrific writing, liter- midtown Manhattan hotel at the
at all, the odds are more likely that ary criticism, and more. It also age of fifty-two. What a precau-
you have your heart set on being had facts. I found this reassur- tionary tale about the dangers of
a pole vaulter, a fireman, maybe ing. I loved reading novels, but the creative life.
these days an entrepreneur, even there was something disconcert-
I persuaded the American Poetry
— should you be so unfortunate as ing about them — they were made
Review to let me write an essay
to have literary inclinations — a up. (Of course, that was the whole
about Schwartz, and from that
poet. But how many adolescents point.) I couldn’t trust them to de-
managed to get a contract from the
even know what a biography is? liver the goods on reality. “Why
publishing house Farrar, Straus,
not say what really happened?”
I certainly didn’t, though I knew and Giroux (for three thousand
wrote Robert Lowell. Exactly.
I wanted to be a writer, and — dollars) to write his biography
being a strange boy who read I had been fascinated by the work … whatever that was. I would
Partisan Review for fun — I was — and by what I knew about the life have to read a few to find out. My
already considering literary critic — of the poet Delmore Schwartz apprenticeship was served un-
as a possible vocation. It wasn’t ever since I was in high school. der the strict, lovingly oppres-
until I was in my early twenties I’d read a few of his lyric poems sive critic Dwight Macdonald,
and had the good fortune to study in anthologies, and knew from a who was Delmore’s literary editor
with Richard Ellmann, the great tribute in the New York Times and had taken an interest in my

30 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

project; but I also read closely interviewing people. They combed empathy. You are going to spend
Leon Edel’s five-volume biography through old periodicals and more time in the company of this
of Henry James, George Painter’s newspapers. They were diggers. person, whether dead or alive, than
Proust, and Michael Holroyd’s epic And they were avid about the with your children or your spouse:
Lytton Strachey. They were very past, hungry for knowledge about Your subject will exasperate
different books, inflected by their vanished worlds. And they had you, bore you, wear you out with
authors’ distinctive voices, but discipline, what the Germans unreasonable demands. Yet
they clearly revealed a mania call sitzfleisch — literally, sitting- through all these trials, you must
for detail; they were drawn to down flesh, the capacity to sit at understand and forgive. What
the challenge of reproducing your desk for long hours over a is harder in life than that? Ask a
events and scenes, reconstructing period of years that could some- biographer. Nothing.
historical and sociological back- times stretch beyond a decade.
ground, animating character (My biography of Saul Bellow took
through the assemblage of facts eleven years, with interruptions James Aatlas is the author of
— not just to accumulate them, of various kinds.) So you needed The Shadow in the Garden.
but to make them work in concert, patience, too; you needed to take
producing an illusion of reality (or the long view, to postpone grati-
was it reality itself ?): a story that fication — to see the writing of a
had the narrative sweep of fiction biography as the project of a
but was true. lifetime.

Biographers, then, were obsessive But spending so much time in

researchers; they collected docu- the company of someone else re-
ments and letters, ransacked li- quires the most important quality
LEARN MORE 
brary archives, traveled the world that a biographer must possess:

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 31

MAKING HISTORY:
CHARACTERS IN
NARRATIVE NONFICTION
by Gary Krist

History that downplays individual ist”), I’ve seen the task from both had no qualms about inventing
experience — that focuses exclu- perspectives, and I can tell you freely — details, dialogue, scenes
sively on movements, economic that the narrative historian has, — whenever the historical record
forces, social developments, and in some ways, the harder job. Yes, was lacking, but the new school of
the like — can be worthwhile and we don’t face the yawning terror of narrative history insists on higher
enlightening, but it’s never going standards of scholarship. In other
to make very compelling reading
for non-specialists. People are in-
PEOPLE ARE words, we can’t just make it up.

terested in people, so they like to INTERESTED So when deciding on what

see how the larger forces of his-
tory shape — and are shaped by —
IN PEOPLE characters to focus on in my books,
I look for people who (A), were at
recognizable, specific persons with the center of the important issues
stories all their own. As a narrative of the day, (B), were complex and
historian, I therefore face a lot of interesting in their own right, and
the same challenges that a novel- (C), were also well documented
ist does. I’ve got to find characters the totally blank page every morn- in the historical record. That last
whose life histories will allow me ing (that daily existential crisis), criterion is important. Memoirs,
to express what needs expressing, but we also don’t have the luxury letters, newspaper interviews,
and who are in and of themselves of creating elements from whole diaries — any kind of account in
fascinating to read about. cloth to add dimension to a dull- which a participant in the drama
ish character or enliven a flagging tells what happened in human,
As a former fiction writer (or, plot. We can only draw on the raw on-the-ground terms — are critical
as Walter Isaacson teasingly material offered up by the his- for me, since they give me the con-
called me in the New York Times torical record. Of course, many crete details I need to bring people
a few years ago, a “lapsed novel- popular historians of the past and events to life. (Incidentally,

32 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

since a lot of my main characters
are colorful types who frequently
comprehensive archive. And as
highly visible public figures, they
ACCOUNTS
wound up in court, transcripts were covered extensively (in ARE ONLY AS
of trial testimony have been
particularly useful.)
McPherson’s case, one might say
“obsessively”) by the local press in
TRUSTWORTHY
Naturally, all of these documents
their lifetimes. AS THE
can be as unreliable as any other So narrative historians have PEOPLE WHO
sources in the record. Accounts
are only as trustworthy as the
definite limits on what they can do,
particularly when telling stories
GIVE THEM,
people who give them, after all, so that involve people for whom the AFTER ALL.
I find myself constantly having to historical record is skimpy or in-
judge how much to believe in any complete. That’s why I sometimes
given source. Often I’ll talk about have to take a pass on a book idea
this decision-making process in that might seem irresistible at first
the end-notes to my books, which glance. If the material isn’t there
I see as a kind of running commen- to give the characters and events
tary on how I used the historical the kind of texture and dimension
record to create the book, for those required, the idea won’t work, no
who are interested in seeing how matter how interesting the story
the sausage is made. may be in outline. Fortunately,
though — thanks to the hard work
The three criteria I mentioned
of archivists who keep developing
were important considerations
more sophisticated ways of cata-
when I chose the main characters
loguing and searching their collec-
around whom to base The Mirage
tions — the amount of raw material
Factory. William Mulholland,
available just keeps growing. It’s
D.W. Griffith, and Aimee Semple
up to the narrative historian to
McPherson were all central to
choose wisely.
the story I wanted to tell, repre-
senting the three forces — which
you might shorthand as Water,
Gary Krist is the author of
Celluloid, and Spirituality — that
The Mirage Factory.
allowed Los Angeles to grow up
in a place where no big city has
any right to be. They’re also in-
triguing, multidimensional people
with character flaws as big as their
talents. And they were all
extremely well documented in
the historical record. All three
wrote autobiographies of a sort
(although Mulholland’s was very LEARN MORE 

short). Each left behind a fairly

GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION 33
MISSING PIECES:
HOW TO TELL SOMEONE
ELSE’S STORY WHEN
MEMORY FAILS
by Michael D. Lemonick

Forty-plus years ago, I was a would have no idea who you were a science journalist. That’s why
freshman in college, taking — and the same was true if you Aline Johnson spoke to me about
Intro to Psychology. We did a unit came back a third or a fourth or a her sister, Lonni Sue: She wanted
on memory, and the classic case tenth time. me to write about her. I had
study was that of a patient known written a bit about neuroscience,
His case launched the modern
only as “H. M.” In the early 1950s, and even about H. M., but only in a
science of memory (that’s why he
he had had his hippocampus and dispassionate, factual way.
was in all the textbooks), and it
other tissues in the brain’s medial
haunted me ever afterward. What Suddenly, I was being offered the
temporal lobes surgically removed
could it possibly be like to exist in chance to write about someone
in an attempt to treat his severe,
such a bizarre state of mind? How with the same, awful condition
unrelenting epileptic seizures. It
could a person even function? in a narrative — and I knew very
was in that moment that the seeds
well, thanks largely to the late,
of my book, The Perpetual Now,
H. M.’s tragedy made such a pow- brilliant Oliver Sacks, that this
were planted.
erful impression on me that when was a far more compelling way
an old acquaintance from middle into the dizzyingly complex world
Before the operation, nobody
school stopped me on the street in of neuroscience. (Aline Johnson
really knew what the hippocam-
2012 and told me that her sister’s had approached Sacks himself,
pus was for. Afterward, it was
hippocampus had been destroyed who had already written about
horrifyingly clear: It’s the central
by a viral infection of the brain, amnesia victim Clive Wearing for
organ of memory. From that time
I said to myself, “Just like H. M.” The New Yorker, but he was busy
onward, H. M. could no longer
She didn’t have to tell me what this with other projects.)
form new memories. If you met
implied.
him and had a conversation (his The advantage of narrative — as
language was unimpaired), then In the intervening years since Sacks, and Rebecca Skloot, and
left the room and returned, he that freshman class, I had become Mary Roach, and Richard Preston,

34 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION

John McPhee, and other authors I needed all of these people, not and events that had shaped my life
who have written compelling just to create a portrait of Lonni — and, worse yet, the inability to
books about science know well — is Sue from a number of perspectives, start from scratch and rebuild my
that it seduces the reader. By com- but to reconstruct a life she herself identity — would rob me of my very
ing to care about vividly re-created can no longer remember, except self. In fact, the working title of the
characters in dramatic situations, in the vaguest of ways (she knows book was originally The Woman
they persuade readers who might she used to fly planes, for example Who Lost Her Self.
not otherwise be interested in but has no memory of her ten-year
Now I know better. Lonni Sue
science that they’re interested marriage, which ended before she
Johnson has indeed lost most
after all. Far too many people think moved to Cooperstown).
of her memories of the past, and
science literacy is probably good
can’t form new memories in any
for them, but is too complicated
and boring to swallow. A well- FAR TOO meaningful sense. But she is just
as warm and funny and quick-wit-
crafted science narrative is like a
spoonful of sugar. MANY PEOPLE ted and generally as delightful as

This has always been important,

THINK SCIENCE my interviewees tell me she was
before she developed profound
since science underlies much LITERACY IS amnesia. The memories are gone,
of modern life, and because an
informed public can help guide ra-
PROBABLY but the woman herself is still fully
present. I’m extraordinarily lucky
tional public policy about science, GOOD that I was allowed into her life.
medicine, and the environment.
It’s suddenly and unexpectedly
FOR THEM,
even more important now that the BUT IS TOO Michael D. Lemonick is tha author of
country is being led by people who
treat scientific truth as just an-
COMPLICATED The Perpetual Now.

other set of alternate facts. AND BORING

Aline and her mother, Maggi TO SWALLOW.
Johnson, who died in 2015 at the
age of ninety-seven, welcomed
me into their lives, and into Lonni
Sue’s as well. They also put me in Three years of interviews with
touch with people who had known Lonni Sue’s friends, family mem-
and loved Lonni Sue during her bers, and colleagues, and espe-
L E A R N M OR E 
childhood: her early adulthood as cially with Lonni Sue herself,
an increasingly successful com- were not only fascinating and
mercial artist in New York; her heart-wrenching for me. They
years in Connecticut, where she were also transformative. For
developed a passion for flying decades, I’d been haunted by the
small planes; and finally, with her idea of H. M.’s condition. I was
friends in Cooperstown, New York, convinced that if something like
where she was living when viral that ever happened to me, the
encephalitis invaded her brain. inability to remember the people
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36 GUIDE TO WRITING NARRATIVE NONFICTION