The Challenge of Non-fiction

Two of my trusted Beta readers pointed to one of the characters in my WIP and wondered if this character was “needed.” When writing a fictional story— every character must have a function that advances the premise, or at the very least provides comic relief. If neither is the case, toss the bums out, much as it hurts. The story will be meaner and leaner and far stronger.

Fiction writers have two options with unnecessary characters—eliminate, or re-write to make them essential. I have chosen, this time, to do the latter. I had a good reason for this side character, but I failed to convey it properly. I’m going to fix this. Besides, I make a better booster than an assassin.

But those who write non-fiction don’t have this luxury. They are, in effect, historians. Mentioning people who don’t wind up being pivotal, or even interesting in themselves, is still something that they must do in places where the very presence of these people must be accounted for posterity.

Here lies the challenge— make the gray types seem interesting. Find a way to connect the dots somehow, even when the connections are flimsy. Make it stick the way a fictional story would, even as you write about real people and events.

I used to think non-fiction stories were easier to write. After all, the story is already there. A writer just has to do some research. This always felt like school homework, something I did with ease though never liked. Then the writer must have the organizational and verbal skills to produce coherency. Non-fiction that reads like a textbook is not wanted these days. It must be written so young readers will not put it down, same as fiction.

As I augment and change my fictional person, I marvel what I would have done if she and the story had had a reality outside my mind.

And I take off my virtual hat to all great non-fiction.

Let’s Re-name Middle Grade Novels

DF: “You look so happy, almost glowing.”

Me: “Well, I have a reason. I just finished the first draft of my very first middle grade novel. I didn’t know I could write anything of that length and take it to the finish line.”

DF: (after a long silence, looking perplexed) “Why would you write a so-so novel? Why not write a good one?”

A few years ago I had this very conversation with a dear friend who, one will rightly surmise, is not a writer. She could not fathom such joy at having completed something of middle-grade when one should have at least attempted a finer grade.

I have since seen this confusion in places and people I thought knew this publishing industry term. Is middle grade meant for middle school? (No, middle school years are 6-8 grade, or 11-14 year olds.) Is middle grade just the younger end of young adult? (Not really, though overlap is natural in literature.) Is middle grade the same as chapter books? (Fifty years ago it would have been. Now chapter books are shorter, meant for second and third graders, and precede the reading of novels. But middle grade novels often have chapters, as do novels for all ages.)

And the worst of all- are middle grade novels just the not-so-good, genre formula fiction, sold in the supermarket? (Well, some qualify. But this is not what “MG = middle grade,” as a category in publishing, refers to. Not even a little.)

The short answer is that middle grade books are aimed at ages 8-12, or grades 3-6, once “the middle grades” when elementary school went from first to eighth grade.

And middle grade novels are the first real novels children will read. The Newbery committee honors the finest children’s literary middle grade novels. They can be as short as 20,000 words and as long as 80,000, Harry Potter and other outliers on both ends not withstanding.

My published novel for middle grades is at the shorter end of this spectrum. The first draft I finished that day went on to have many revisions, and, after being published, it even won and award. The Moonbeam Children's Book Awards called the category “Pre-Teen.” Not a mention of “middle grade.” Awards are for good books, not so-so ones.

I like pre-teen. I think the choice of wording is perfect: descriptive, informative, and less likely to be misunderstood.

To GLOSSARY or Not to GLOSSARY

On a kid-lit chat board a writer asked for input on whether a glossary is advisable when writing fiction set in another time or place.

Good experienced writers chimed in, and most were in favor. I was in the minority.

I have nothing against glossaries. Some of my best friends are… er, working on and with them. Most of us, who spent many years in school reading non fiction, are comfortable with them. A good friend is working on an academic project that will yield the definitive glossary to a fourteenth century poem. Let me tell you, it’s a lot of work. Glossaries have my respect.



Glossaries freed us from having to remember a definition after looking it up in a separate book the first time. There was always the Glossary of Terms, in the trusty back of these textbooks. Isn’t it an advantage if literary fiction for children looks more like a textbook, now with the New Common Core standards for Language Arts curriculums?

But that is my reservation. They give a book a textbook feel. Glossaries interrupt pleasure reading. They should rarely be used in trade fiction.

It’s much more challenging to find a way to make the paragraphs vivid, complete, and comprehendible without the easy and neat use of a glossary.

My fun example:

“She left the Shtetl* and never looked back. Her Bubbe** might cry a bisel,*** but she didn’t give bupkes.****”

*Shtetl= a segregated Jewish quarter, typical of European cities and towns until the mid 20^th C.

**Bubbe= Grandmother
***Bisl= a little bit
****Bupkes= trivial, little, not much (literally Polish for “beans.”)

 

All right, the example is flavorful. The equivalent- “She left her childhood home in the Jewish quarter and never looked back. Her grandma might cry a little, but she didn’t give beans” does not have the exact same feel. But the first isn’t fun to read unless Yiddish is your second language.

 

I had thought about this long and hard when writing The Voice of Thunder, set in another time and place but written for American young readers. I managed to use a little Hebrew and work the English meaning in as seamlessly as I could. I felt I had succeeded when Kirkus referred to the book’s “readable style.” Mazal Tov*- Success!

 

;=) *Mazal Tov= Hebrew for “Congratulations!” (Literally “good luck.”)