Writing Articles About Bat Guano and Other Non-Fiction Subjects Can Be Fun — No Shit!

Writing creatively is easier when you stop thinking about it

If a story begins Once Upon a Time or In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, you know you’re reading fiction.

People and places that never were but might someday be. Like Superman and the planet Krypton or Sherlock Holmes and his ever-faithful companion and friend Doctor Watson.

Fiction takes you around the world or inside it while never leaving the couch or the hammock in your backyard.

It’s all about creating characters and settings that sound like, and even look like places you’ve been to, but aren’t really. It’s all make-believe.

FICTION VS NON-FICTION

Non-fiction is its fraternal twin. Similar enough to know they’re related but different in that the narrative is not designed to take you anywhere, except to a better understanding of a subject or person.

Non-fiction is informative — how to bake sourdough bread or tune a ’72 Camaro. It’s factual and rooted in the real world and usually doesn’t venture far from the facts or what one might call the truth.

It’s designed to take what’s here (information, ideas, concepts, and opinions) and bring it there (that hallowed place wherein all our thoughts and ruminations dwell, come together, and reform into something special).

But part of the DNA of Fiction lives within Non-fiction and must never be taken out or ignored.

A White Paper on the nutritional value of bat guano for tropical plant life needs to have that DNA front and center otherwise the result, like a recipe for the above-mentioned bread not closely followed — becomes something dry, tasteless, and easily forgotten.

Therefore, creative non-fiction is a slightly different version of what we read every day on our devices. It behooves all of us to make what we write in this category not sound like or feel like what we read every day otherwise like a single ounce of water caught in the massive stream falling over Niagara Falls, it will get lost before it ever gets noticed.

WRITING TO BE NOTICED

Fashion is one means of being noticed. But it is also a means for self-expression. Set aside the brush, paint, and canvass and put on a new outfit instead.

A hat with a plume. A pair of purple pumps or weathered jeans hung together by a few threads and gravity.

We are what we wear is not a philosophical statement so much as a factual one because our clothes often tell a tale. Who we are today because of who we were in days past.

That we wear an old Yankees baseball cap might speak to our being fans of the New York team or a reminder that our father always wore one and this is our way of staying connected to him.

When writing a non-fiction article strive to be noticed. But tastefully.

In a sense put on a bright red scarf with your jeans or a beret with your khaki shorts and accent the part of you — or in this case, the article, that you want to stand out.

Insert Humor

Humor is like salt, one of life’s little condiments that can be applied almost everywhere without a downside.

Even the bit above about bat guano is somewhat humorous, because we’re talking about bat shit and bat shit is funny.

Not fall down funny but funny enough to take a piece of a subject or of a person’s story and tilt it on its side or at an angle that one normally doesn’t get to see.

Seeing something differently or uniquely is essential to humor.

Example: if you’re writing about the subways in New York City, look for humor in the everyday.

For me, it would be a story of a train full of students at the 79th Street Station in Brooklyn as we waited to leave after a long day at school. It was winter. The cars were quiet and overheated. The student's eyes heavy and beginning to close.

No radios were on, no one was talking. Then suddenly we heard the loud clip-clop of heels banging against metal steps as someone raced upstairs to make the train. All eyes popped open; all attention went to the doors as we waited to see who was coming.

We knew it was a student, but the mystery still built up as we waited to see which student; what they looked like, would they make it before the doors closed.

Then with a rush of air and a brief cry an unlucky student slipped on a small patch of ice and slid rather than stepped into the car — like a ballplayer sliding into second base. All eyes were on her.

And just as suddenly, another student stood up and with arms waving outward shouted — safe!

In this case, an anecdote works better than a straightforward narrative about how it feels to ride the subways in New York.

WRITING TO BE LIKED

Writing to be liked is a non-starter. People often don’t read what they think they’ll like, they read what appears interesting, informative, and funny.

Like is a moving target. What someone liked on Monday is different than what they’ll like on Friday.

The week is already five days old. The job’s been tough. The boss was unruly. The lunches were cold and the sodas hot. What they want is to be distracted. To be whisked away. To get their attention ripped from the normal and placed firmly on the weird and unusual.

So, on that day, they’ll love your article about the man who ran the 100-yard dash in just over 10 seconds — backward!

Write something of interest, to you and potentially to a reader.

WRITING UPSIDE DOWN

I’m sure people have tried this and maybe it works. For me, it’s another way of saying — stop writing like anyone other than yourself.

Write as you talk. If you use your hands when you talk, love analogies, or like to slide in a joke, then let your writing reflect these same traits. This is who you are, and how you process the world around you.

Don’t Be a writer writing a story — just be you writing the story.

I made this point to a fellow writer recently when he asked me for some advice on a rewrite of a short story.

The story had great bones. It had a focus and a central character that worked well.

But I felt he was writing from a perspective or point of view not his own. So, the words felt one step removed from his story.

Like there’s this perfect writer’s voice out there and one just has to find it. Well, the perfect voice is our own and the closer we get to it, the better the result will be.

Non-fiction and Fiction are not the same in obvious ways — Superman is not a real person but Lincoln was. And writing a story about the latter should sound as interesting and exciting as writing about Clark Kent and how he helped save the world.

Real people aren’t any less heroes, super or otherwise.

And all subjects, traveling on the Starship Enterprise or the deck of HMS Bounty need to keep the reader interested, amused, amazed, intrigued, angered, or brought to tears.

Even satire or straight humor needs these qualities.

It’s our job as writers to bring them to the reader. To make every sentence interesting while staying within our own voice. Being funny, or being interesting or engaging is tedious because it takes too much effort and the readers pick up on this.

Watch the person at a party who seems to effortlessly engage with others without tap dancing or belting out Broadway tunes.

They do it by communicating through the words that come naturally to them. The words reflect their view of the world, their quirky perspective. Their penchant for using pithy metaphors that make others laugh.

A writer’s voice is the shortest distance between their mind and thoughts and the reader’s.

This is how we should all write.

I came across another article about creative non-fiction which is well worth the read.

The Internet is filled with content, much of it non-fiction, derivative and all of it trying hard to get somebody’s attention. The same stories, advice, and factoids being told again and again.

Be different. Be funny or quirky. But most of all, be yourself.