Fiction versus Nonfiction?

The pronounced divide between these has diminished. At its best, nonfiction sparkles because it incorporates characterization and drama, while writers like Jonathan Franzen, Margaret George, Daisy Godwin, David Liss, and Donna Tartt wow readers with facts they never knew they were dying to know. How do they do it?

Tip: At its best, fiction so cleverly disguises a little nonfiction that readers barely notice.

So what is this nonfiction that needs to be there, but needs to be disguised?

~ Background and backstory.

Every character lives somewhere and has a certain education, political slant, and life before the Inciting Incident. Readers might not need to know all that but certainly need to know some. 

~ World-building.

Much contemporary fiction derives its power by recreating Tudor England, the Italian Renaissance, or the Vietnam War; or by inventing new planets, species, or social systems.

~ General information.

Contemporary readers often enjoy leaving a novel knowing more about chromosomes, knitting, the transgender experience, hockey, or life on the tundra.

The good news is that you can “teach” a bit of what you’d like to—perhaps the original motive underlying the novel—by thinking about how, and when, you do that. No part of your novel should resemble a lengthy nonfiction lapse readers never signed on for. So try these:

*** Watch your sentence structure.

Basically, the more complex the information, then the greater the necessity of shortening and varying sentences. Work to divide concepts into accessible mouthfuls, so your readers don’t have to. Alternate sentence length. Your goal isn’t showing off what you know, but condensing and simplifying.

*** Be concrete.

Whether with literal details or symbolic comparisons, frequently introduce one or more of the five senses.What does an RNA strand resemble? How does a touchdown sound?

*** Check your organization.

That’s the beauty of computers. You can swiftly try a sentence in six different locations.

*** Provide something to hang on to.

Hang the abstract or strange on a rack that’s both familiar and substantial.

*** Balance edification with suspense and emotion. 

A moment of high tension or heartbreaking loss is a great time for a fact or two. Just never let it feel like a “teachable moment.” 

Do it with a plot.

When to “Tell”

The answer isn’t “never.” Whether to “show” or “tell” is situation-specific. Although definitions of “telling” are vague and varied, many novelists still fear this “writing crime.” Yet view “telling” as frustrating your readers, and you can differentiate “bad telling” from “good.” After all, “telling” makes up half the word for sharing a story.

Storytelling unites “showing” and “telling.” Readers want the juicy parts in scene—without commentary from the narrator. As Anton Chekhov put it, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” So in certain instances you really shouldn’t “tell”:

~ Judgments.

Rather than “telling” readers that the dog is “ugly,” describe the skinny, flea-covered mongrel that’s lost most of his hair. Let readers decide what’s “ugly.”

~ Belaboring what’s obvious or repeating what you already “showed.”

            Is the character panting? Don’t add that she’s also “breathing heavily.”

~ Summarizing the fun parts.

If we’ve waited for three hundred pages to see if they’ll go to bed, please don’t say, “She turned off the light, and they both had the time of their lives.” “Show” us their pleasure with a voyeuristic but tasteful peek inside the bedroom.

~ Oversimplifying emotions.

Avoid abstractions like “angry,” “sad,” or “ecstatic.” Use body language. Use metaphor. Reflect the complex, inconsistent, and fleeting nature of feelings.

But in other instances, readers want “good telling”:

* For worldbuilding.

Whether fantasy, sci fi, or bankrupt Detroit, describe the setting where the action occurs. Sometimes it takes too many words to imply a social structure, moral code, time period, or atmosphere. If so, just explain.

* For transition

Svelte, sophistication transitions are simply lovely. But every so often you need to be clear and causal. Because readers need to understand.

* For voice.

Terror of “telling” would eliminate sentences like this one:  “Her correspondence had been like the pumping of a heart into a severed artery, wild and incessant at first, then slowing down with a kind of muscular reluctance to a stream that became a trickle and finally ceased; the heart had stopped.” -- Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Tip: Storytelling boils down to knowing when to “show” and “when” to “tell.”

How else can you deliver the whole story at the fastest pace with the most fun possible?

Building the “Building” Where Your Characters Live

Writers often associate worldbuilding with science fiction, and bildungsroman with coming of age. But isn’t every novel world at least partially imaginary—composed of details about the environment that the author must somehow communicate? And doesn’t every protagonist with an arc advance from inadequacy to greater strength?

The building you have to build reveals what your protagonist faces and why. And if you want readers beyond your loved ones, exploring that building must be fun.

Tip: Secrets are the most fun when one discovers them one snippet at a time.

The secret to successful worldbuilding and backstory? Hint just enough to incite curiosity. Was it murder? Now hold back. Is the protagonist a coward? What must the protagonist unlearn to make it in the metropolis? Will the last human perish?

It’s all in the timing. At a writer’s conference, grinning merrily, Don Maass stunned his audience by saying, “Once you’re seventy percent of the way through your novel, go ahead and have all the backstory you want.”

He’s right, of course. Then how do you build the building until then? By taking a stroll in your reader’s shoes. Aside from the plot, what do you absolutely need to know?

If you’re thinking like a reader, that’s quite a question. Don’t shrug it off. Probe. Deeply and honestly. Want some additional tricks for suggesting and keeping secrets?

~ List at least ten things you intend to hide.

Plan where to insert them, insinuating early, then failing to dish the dirt till the last possible moment. This focuses a first draft or adds tension to a later one.

~ Compose an elaborate backstory.

Writing it out can restrain the impulse to dump all of it into your novel. Drizzle small details, always integrating the past with current conflict. Tease.

~ Explain the whole world.

Add everything. In the first few chapters. All at once. Now? Slash and burn. If you omit everything you possibly can, you might have just exactly enough.

Eventually readers should see the entire building—because you built it one secret, one brick, one shadow of a brick at a time. Getting to know this building? Really, really fun.