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Or, do you know a good writer? I am considering beginning the long process of writing a non-fiction work.....

I would appreciate any advice, books to read, tips, etc.


I have talked with James Frey, he gave me LOTS of good pointers....

I can't help you there. Unless your book is about run-on sentences attacking spacemen with hyphens and periods while they are visiting an alien planet. Wait..you said non-fiction.

What is your book about if you don't mind me asking?

I write, but my non work stuff is all fiction. I have worked on non fiction before, but its been projects and professional, solely.

There are many categories of non fiction. It really depends what you are looking at.

I start from the end, and work my way back in sectins before I peice it all togehter, but again, I write non fiction

With the reference to James Frey this makes me wonder if this is a joke.

best way to write is to get your first draft done quick then revise revise revise

Drem wrote:best way to write is to get your first draft done quick then revise revise revise

+1. Just get it written down, even if you know its gonna be bad, just need the idea down on paper, so you can see what is what.

No Joke, I am not sure what exactly I will write about. I have several topics/ideas, I figure I will brainstorm the topics I could write about and then narrow it down and begin research, etc.

Outline for yourself what main points you want to cover so you don't get off track or forget important segments. Then just as Mofish and Drem said, get it all down even if it's badly constructed. You'll probably wind up editing it 5-6 times before you're happy with flow, sentence structure, etc.

I write, but its all pretty much fiction.

I write like noone will ever read it. My bf is writing a book atm.

I help my mother publish children's books, but thats an entirely different story.

What help do you need though? Publisher contacts? Creativity help? Stucturing the book?

boybutter wrote:Or, do you know a good writer? I am considering beginning the long process of writing a non-fiction work.....

I would appreciate any advice, books to read, tips, etc.


I have talked with James Frey, he gave me LOTS of good pointers....

I've written technical documentation/manuals in the past, and all the usual corporate bullshit that goes along with it

like others have said, initially write a broad outline of what you want to cover in each section/chapter

research the broad ideas, then flesh out the minor details to cover

95% of good writing is smooth transitions and segues into different material

heh...James Frey is an excellent writer! he'd be THE one to ask for pointers. maybe not nonfiction...

thanks guys, maybe I will PM some of you when I get something substantial on paper.

Just get a notebook and write everything that comes to your mind. Write, write, and write some more until you feel confident enough to begin your story. This is when you feel as if you have written out all the random crap from your mind. Also, be aware of other works. Be careful not to take ideas from other stories you may have admired in the past. Another thing you should do is research on anything you don't understand before you write it into your story to avoid looking like an idiot. Also, I would suggest "Elements of Style" and Stephen King's, "On Writing." Both are excellent books. One more thing I wanted to mention is that you shoud always keep a thesaurus and a dictionary handy when writing a story for obvious reasons.


There. When you are finished with some of your story, I would love to take a look at it.

Write a few drafts then if it looks anything like something Cormac McCarthy would write, burn it.

ha! I don't know who Cormac McCarthy is but I will look him up.

I write to the Penthouse forums. Does that count? If it does, then the key to writing is embellishment.

YES! That counts. That is creative writing at its best. Let me read some!!

p.s unless yer just a pussy cracking a joke and pretending you actually write to penthouse

Gargamellow wrote:YES! That counts. That is creative writing at its best. Let me read some!!

p.s unless yer just a pussy cracking a joke and pretending you actually write to penthouse

Actually, when I was in college, a bunch of us got a bet going to see who can get publish in Penthouse. Even though I wrote about 25 letters to them, I never got published. The guy who won got published 4 times.

Do you still have what you wrote? I love erotica.

Gargamellow wrote:Do you still have what you wrote? I love erotica.

Sorry I don't.

That's too bad.