Writing Creative Nonfiction for Children

Creative nonfiction for children is just a new term for an old writing skill. How to make informational text colorful and exciting for readers. Nonfiction is a popular choice for young readers, but to keep them reading requires some tricks of the trade. Many of the same writing techniques used in fiction writing can be used to make nonfiction articles or books more that just a lot of facts.

Employing these techniques can turn dry informational text into a story to be enjoyed by readers. Bare facts can be made more interesting by creating a mood, expressing emotions, clever use of dialogue or storytelling techniques like flashback.

Specific details are critical in nonfiction projects. Details help the reader to visualize the scene being described. Details add substance and interest to your book. The addition of quotes and anecdotes are another element to be used to add depth and dimension to the writing. Humorous stories will enrich and add interest to the text.

Fiction writers create scenes as they develop their stories. This same device works for writers of nonfiction as well. This is where the time honored cliche, "show don't tell", comes to play. Creating scenes moves the text forward smoothly and engages the reader, making it easy for them to visualize the events in the story.

A good lead is critical in all genres. This is especially true in nonfiction. A good lead might pose a compelling question or begin with a dramatic scene. An authentic scene could include small or memorable details a reader is not likely to know about the topic or person in the book. A good beginning is critical to the reader. Author and editor, James Cross Giblin, suggests starting with a dramatic factual scene. In his book "The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone", Giblin begins:

'Near the entrance to the long, high-ceilinged room stand two magnificent granite statues of Pharoah Amenophis III, who ruled Egypt about 1400 B.C. And beyond it, resting on a simple base, is a slab of black basalt, a volcanic rock.'

'Next to the statues and the head, the slab seems unimpres- sive at first glance. It is roughly the size of a tabletop- three feet nine inches long, two feet four and a half in. wide, and eleven inches thick. But many experts would say that this rather small piece of rock was more valuable than any of the larger objects in the room. For it is the famed Rosetta Stone, which gave nineteenth-century scholars their first key to the secrets of ancient Egypt.'

Revealing your characters (real ones, of course) that are integral to your creative nonfiction piece is another technique that is often used to breath life into your characters. Use information from research to reveal their personalities, mannerisms, appearances or pet peeves. This will keep the reader engaged and also bring your character to life for the reader. Here is where anecdotes can be helpful to illustrate character traits. How did your character react in a certain situation, what did they say, etc.?

Dialogue in creative nonfiction is used to convey accurate in- formation as well as to connect the reader to the person in the story. Any quotes that reveal a sense of humor in the subject are especially important when writing creative nonfiction for children.

The ending of your story or book should be used to sum up the book's content. This can be done in a serious manner or humorously depending always on the tone you want to convey and the topic of your piece. Any nonficton topic is bound to have changes and new developments in the future. This is especially an important element that should be made clear to the young reader.

The creative nonfiction author for children has the challenge of using their research to tell a story while presenting factual information to the reader in a way that will engage and inform the reader and be as exciting to read as any novel.

Happy Writing!!

Publishing Research Quarterly, Fall 91, Vol.7 Issue 3, p47, Giblin, James Cross