Telling the Story: How to Write and Sell Narrative Nonfiction - Softcover

Rubie, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060535288 ISBN 13: 9780060535285

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2003

Synopsis

A comprehensive guide to creating narrative nonfiction explains how to create factual accounts with style and creative flair, discussing the process of research, writing, and editing material that has the potential for commercial success, and offers practical advice on how to get a work published. Original. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

A former Fleet Street, BBC and Independent Television News journalist, Peter Rubie's vast writing experience includes stints writing and editing for daily newspapers, published novels and numerous non-fiction books, including four books on writing and publishing. A respected agent and industry veteran, Peter heads the NYU Summer Pubilshing Institute Book Section and regularly lectures and teaches on publishing and writing at universities and colleges around the country. His books include The Writer's Market FAQs, How to Tell a Story, and The Elements of Storytelling.

From Booklist:

Narrative nonfiction is the new name for what used to be called the nonfiction novel, but it has evolved a bit from Capote's In Cold Blood (1966), which was clearly structured like a novel, to any of a variety of nonfiction accounts that employ a storytelling style. In this helpful book, Rubie, a veteran literary agent, discusses the tricks of this relatively new trade. Writing a work of nonfiction that reads like a novel brings with it a host of new questions. Does dialogue have to be 100 percent accurate? How far can the author go in inventing the thoughts and motivations of his or her characters? How much "dramatic license" is too much? Rubie also addresses selling a work of narrative nonfiction: finding an agent, writing the book proposal, marketing the book. This is a fairly traditional how-to-be-a-writer book in that it discusses all the usual things--plot, character, dialogue, the mechanics of getting published--but it addresses them all through the special lens of narrative nonfiction. Fresh and definitely useful. David Pitt
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060535288
• ISBN 13: 9780060535285
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304