When someone writes fiction, the first hurdle toward success is to convince the reader to suspend his or her disbelief and accept the plausibility of the premise or situation. To some extent, you can overcome that first hurdle when you label your work "nonfiction." You're already announcing to the reader that, "This happened. It's true." (Or at least, it's the truth from your viewpoint — but that's another topic for another column.)
Anyone can write nonfiction. Just relive your day in prose and you've written nonfiction. Would flashquake's readers be interested in that account? It isn't likely, unless something extraordinary happened to you today.
The type of nonfiction we publish is known as "personal essay," or "creative nonfiction." We're not interested in "how-to" articles on different aspects of writing, nor are we interested in that funny thing your toddler said or did this morning.
Just as fiction has its genres, nonfiction has its niches. Some publications welcome how-to articles. Some publications like to publish cute anecdotes, or opinion pieces about our foreign policy. We don't.
The first hurdle for nonfiction is slightly different — making sure your writing is relevant for the market you're submitting to. For flashquake, we're looking for nonfiction that meets three criteria for our readers:
Pique — and sustain — the reader's interest.
Open with a solid hook, move through your story by showing us what happened with natural dialogue, precise descriptions and a logical ordering of events, building toward an ending that provides closure. Keep them reading until the very end, and then, make them glad they did.Connect with the reader on a human level.
Show us what you see and hear. Tell us how it made you feel, and why. What was your internal dialogue? Provide analogies or metaphors to help give your reader context.Give the reader something he/she can apply to his/her own life.
What lesson did you learn from what happened? How did it affect you? What was changed? Is there some advice you can offer the reader should he or she find themselves in this situation?
I can hear you now: "So that's all there is to it, huh? If I do all these things, you'll publish my work?" Well, not quite. First and foremost, you need to have something interesting to say. You need to write clearly, with a mastery of language and the elements of style.
And finally, as the venerable William Zinsser put it, "A writer raises the craft to an art by imposing an interesting shape or organizing idea on it."
Now that is sure to get you published!