The document provides guidance on key elements of non-fiction writing, including scene and exposition, dialogue, structure, and voice. It discusses showing rather than telling through action in scenes. Direct, summarized, and indirect dialogue are described. Structure is not limited to chronology and can include reflective or circular forms. Authentic voice and specificity of details are emphasized. Critique groups are recommended for revision.

1. Elements of non-fiction
All share characteristics with other forms of writing

2. Scene & Exposition
• You’ve heard this before: Show, don’t tell
• In this case, we are talking about showing action
rather than recounting it
• This has a special challenge in non-fiction and
memoir in particular

3. Read this:
I was at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, listening
as a woman named Lesley talked about her
housekeeper, an immigrant to Australia who
earlier that day had cleaned the bathroom
countertops with a bottle of very expensive acne
medication: “She’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner
and can’t read or write a word of English, but other
than that she’s marvellous.” —David Sedaris,
“Stepping Out,” New Yorker

4. Now read this:
Lesley pushed back her shirtsleeve, and as she reached for an olive I
noticed a rubber bracelet on her left wrist. “Is that a watch?” I asked.
“No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your computer, and it
tracks your physical activity.”
I leaned closer, and as she tapped the thickest part of it a number of
glowing dots rose to the surface and danced back and forth. “It’s like a
pedometer,” she continued. “But updated, and better. The goal is to
take ten thousand steps per day, and, once you do, it vibrates.” (Ibid)

5. Scenes happen in real time
• Scenes happen in real time, through action and
dialogue
• Exposition summarizes action and dialogue
• Scenes slow the writing down
• Exposition—summary—condenses and speeds it up
• So you want to choose wisely and make sure the
impactful elements are conveyed through scene, and
not summarized

6. Dialogue
• Dialogue in non-fiction is technically expressed in the
same way it is in fiction
• With dialogue tags:
“No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your
computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”
(Sedaris, ibid)

7. Types of Dialogue
• Direct
• Summarized
• Indirect
As with scene versus exposition, choices about
dialogue should be intentional

8. Direct Dialogue
• “No,” she told me. “It’s a Fitbit. You synch it with your
computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”
• Used for direct action
• Non-expository
• Can convey more than the actual words said
• Can show the reader the character of the person
speaking.

9. Summarized
I was at an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, listening
as a woman named Lesley talked about her
housekeeper, an immigrant to Australia who
earlier that day had cleaned the bathroom
countertops with a bottle of very expensive acne
medication…
(Sedaris)

10. Summarized Dialogue
• Condensed
• Part of the narrative
• Helps move action along
• Should not be used to gloss over important
exchanges in a story

11. Indirect
We saw David in Arundel picking up a dead squirrel
with his grabbers,” the neighbors told Hugh. “We
saw him outside Steyning rolling a tire down the
side of the road”; “ . . . in Pulborough dislodging a
pair of Y-fronts from a tree branch.”
(Sedaris)

12. Indirect
• Reported by someone other than the narrator
• Creates the feel of direct exchange
• Similar attributes to summarized exchanges, as in
shouldn’t be used to convey important information.

13. All Together
• Using all three methods of dialogue creates
variety in the text
• Eliminates long pages of direct indented dialogue
• Combines the telling and showing of human
interaction

14. Mechanics
• Direct dialogue uses quotation marks.
• Each speaker uses a new paragraph
• Quotation marks within punctuation
• Use basic talking verbs for dialogue tags (said,
says); dialogue tags should be invisible.

15. Structure
• Structure simply means how you choose to tell the
story, how you choose to order the elements
• In non-fiction, it can be tempting to simply tell the
story in chronological order
• But this isn’t your only option

16. Double narratives
The collie wakes me up about three times a night,
summoning me from a great distance as I row my
boat through a dim, complicated dream. She’s on
the shoreline, barking. Wake up. She’s staring at
me with her head slightly tipped to the side, long
nose, gazing eyes, toenails clenched to get a
purchase on the wood floor. We used to call her
the face of love.
—Joann Beard, “Fourth State of Matter”

17. Second narrative thread
They’re speaking in physics, so I’m left out of the
conversation. Chris apologetically erases one of the
pictures I’ve drawn on the blackboard and replaces it
with a curving blue arrow surrounded by radiating
chalk waves of green.
“If it’s plasma, make it in red,” I suggest. We’re all
smoking semi-illegally in the journal office with the
door closed and the window open. We’re having a
plasma party.
(Beard)

18. Reflective & Circular
Structure
• In which the author doesn’t lead us from a
beginning to an end in chronological order, but,
rather, circles around the topic, always returning to
its central point.

19. Under the Influence
My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles
food--compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling. I use the past tense not because he ever
quit drinking but because he quit living. That is how the story ends for my father, age sixty-four,
heart bursting, body cooling, slumped and forsaken on the linoleum of my brother's
trailer. The story continues for my brother, my sister, my mother, and me, and will continue as
long as memory holds.
In the perennial present of memory, I slip into the garage or barn to see my father tipping back the
flat green bottles of wine, the brown cylinders of whiskey, the cans of beer disguised in paper
bags. His Adam's apple bobs, the liquid gurgles, he wipes the sandy-haired back of a hand
over his lips, and then, his bloodshot gaze bumping into me, he stashes the bottle or can
inside his jacket, under the workbench, between two bales of hay, and we both pretend the
moment has not occurred.
—Scott Russell Sanders

20. Unified vignettes
• Creative non-fiction is often very successful not by
sticking to a strict chronology, but by bringing
together several different scenes connected by
reflection or theme

21. These are just a few
examples
But the form is only limited by how you decide to tell
the story, how you choose to frame it, so play
around
It can be helpful, too, to visualize your story a bit as
a shape as a way of thinking about how you want
to ultimately shape the story itself.
For example: a circle!

22. Voice
• Another way of thinking about voice, is to think about
the tone of your story
• Is it happy, sarcastic, confused: does the voice of the
story match the mind of the narrator at the time the
story took place?
• Or, is it an adult voice telling the story that belonged to
a child when it happened?
• Strive for authenticity of voice, the voice that makes
sense for the story itself

23. POV
• Point of view in non-fiction works as it does in fiction:
• First person
• Second Person
• Third Person
• Consistency is key
• First-person is the most common in memoir, but if you
have a reason to use another POV, go for it.

24. Specificity
• Details are a cornerstone of all strong writing
• Use concrete words to show the people in the
story, the environment of the story
• In journalism, we call this “naming the dog.”
By which I mean: Sally, a 14-year-old white and
brown cocker spaniel with a tendency to drool
when she slept is more concrete than saying “My
dog.”

25. Use Critique
• The feedback on these elements, as well as the
elements of reflection and research can help you
during the revision process
• Trying to pay attention to all these elements while
writing makes for tough inspiration
• But systematically looking at each element of non-fiction
when revising will make for a stronger final
draft

26. Critique Groups
Group 1
Zoe
Andrew
Maria
Margie
Group 2
Ryan
Marisa
Cris
Deanna
Group 3 Group 4
Ana Stina Johanna
Nick Brantlee
Charlie Felicia
Melinda Rosario

27. First steps
• Divide into your groups
• Exchange your first drafts
• Each person take a few minutes and tell your group
what you’re writing about for your memoir piece
• Feel free to let each other know your current
challenges and questions, where you are with the
piece, so they can keep that in mind when reading
• Make sure you leave a copy with me before you leave.