Two Genres, One Writer
How I approach writing fiction and nonfiction may surprise you & change your work in progress (as well as what you read)
I am not Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Antman, Wonder Woman. I am not two people who suddenly — in the dark of night — transform into FICTION WRITER! one day and MEMOIRIST! the next with a simple flip of my cape. (Although I do have a jaunty cape or two!)
No, I am but one soul with two passions: A love of writing fiction and nonfiction.
Because both call to me (like The Siren in Batman … and if you remember her and the batty TV show — NOT the movies — then you are my age).
I approach writing nonfiction and fiction in two very different creative ways that may not only surprise you but also help you tackle — and improve — your work in progress and future books.
Don’t get pigeonholed thinking you can — and should — only do one thing.
In fact, writing two genres has made me a SIGNIFICANTLY better writer in the other.
My advice to writers is to read.
My advice to readers is to read, too.
Yes, read the books, authors and genres you love, or those you aspire to write like or see your books next to on a bookstore shelf or library.
But also read anything and everything. Genres you may not typically enjoy. Authors you’ve never picked up before. Stories that challenge you. Characters that make you feel uncomfortable.
This not only makes you a better reader, it makes you a better writer.
How do I do it?
Let’s get started!
NONFICTION
I started my career as a memoirist. It seemed only natural.
I grew up writing stories about my family. I grew up loving humor writer Erma Bombeck, who had a column in our local newspaper (again, if you remember her, you’re about my age … FYI: Full circle moment here … I was invited to be the final keynote speaker this April at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop in Dayton alongside Anna Quindlen … dream come true!). Erma wrote about family, life as a mother, the suburbs — what she knew — and she could always make my mom or grandma smile or laugh after a long, hard week of work. Often, they would clip her column and put it on the refrigerator under a magnet of a spotted cow that read, “How Cow! I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!”
I thought, “If I could do be a writer like her, it would be the greatest job in the world.”
As an undergrad at Drury College (now University), I had a column in my college newspaper. While earning my master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern, my emphasis was in magazine writing and publishing (i.e., I preferred long-form journalism).
When I was thinking (for decades!) about what kind of book I wanted to write, I kept coming back to memoir. Write what you know, after all. And when I sat down to write — bleary-eyed at four in the morning before my “real job” started — this is how I approached writing that memoir … and still do:
Writing Memoir Is Like Packing for A Hike to the Highest Mountain Peak
Come again? You heard me. Memoir is not biography. Most of us are not Britney Spears or a former president. Memoir is not sharing your entire life, from birth to now. Great memoir is akin to looking at the mountain you are going to climb and thinking about what you will need to get you there. You can only take one backpack and fill that only with the essentials — the necessities — you absolutely need to get there, otherwise, you will get tired, weighted down, overworked, and you won’t make it. Memoir is taking the essential pieces of the story you are telling — not typically your entire life, but moments of your life — and unpacking it and then packing what is needed to get a reader to the mountaintop.
