Literature Forms

Your fingers are poised over the keyboard. Beautiful phrases flutter through your consciousness. What exactly are you going to write?

I know many of you have the itch to write. The premise of this blog is that millions of people have the urge to write. You know you do or you wouldn’t be reading this, right? All you need is a little nudge to get started, and perhaps a bigger nudge to finish what you’ve started.

If those poised fingers are starting to twitch at the very question of a topic, I can offer some help. Have you ever thought about the kinds of writing out there? At first, it might seem overwhelming, but we can break it down and chew on each piece at our leisure.

First, the obvious: fiction and non-fiction. Obvious, perhaps, but the boundaries can get blurry sometimes. A new category, creative non-fiction, has emerged recently. Jeff Shaara, for example, has taken the major facts and figures of history, like World War II and inserted fictional characters into very real situations. He sometimes puts conversations into the mouths of people like General Omar Bradley to make vivid things that would otherwise be boring.

The most basic requirement for non-fiction is FACTS. The content is supposed to be true. Nevertheless, much of the category is filled with opinions and conjecture. Among the flavors of non-fiction memoirs, biographies (auto- and otherwise) and true crime are popular. History, journalism, travel, descriptive, inspirational and how-to books fill the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

If you want to write non-fiction, it helps to actually know something. Of course, research will get you there, but you have to ask yourself, “What am I bringing to the party?”

If you struggle to answer that question, maybe you better think about writing fiction.

Across the broad sweep of fiction, you can find crime fiction (mostly mysteries), historical fiction, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, romance, literary fiction and poetry, among others. Each of these include an ever-expanding universe of sub-genres.

An important distinction is that fiction is essentially made up. That is, the plot and principal characters don’t actually exist. Depending on the form, readers reasonably expect the situation to fit in a real, or at least consistent universe. If the laws of physics don’t apply, you’d better have a good explanation.

Real people often make cameo appearances in fiction. This is easier to do in historical forms, because most of the people are dead and not in a position to complain. If you include real, living people in your mystery, and they’re doing bad things, they might not like you writing about them, even if what you say is true. 

Libel and slander are nasty words.

In future blogs, I’ll write more about each of these categories. You’ll have to decide for yourself where you feel comfortable.