NF4NF

By Janie Reinart

 

With a hoot, a holler,and a howdy do, a lovely dinner started the festivities at the Nonfiction for New Folks Conference (NF4NF) in Fredericksburg,Texas.  

Pat Miller

At this four day event, our own GROGer, Pat Miller lassoed us up tight in southern hospitality. 

Now here comes the excitin' part. Pat created, hosted, and presented at the conference with her stellar faculty.

Peggy Thomas

NF4NF had it all covered, from the esteemed author of the Anatomy of Nonfiction, Peggy Thomas to the entertaining singing Zoologist, Lucas Miller!

Lucas Miller, Steve Swinburne, Damon Dean

Now you can just start to get a kinda pretty picture up inside your head about the sixteen main power sessions we had. 

We commenced to havin' a whole heap of fun with critique groups, an ice cream social (peach pecan),Texas BBQ, line dancing, prize drawings,and an assignment while exploring Fredericksburg.

Here are some golden nuggets from the faculty: 

Pat Miller: "Use layered text such as charts, tables, graphs, timelines, diagrams, and text boxes in your nonfiction writing."  

Peggy Thomas:
"Infuse an image system into your story." Peggy subtly wove in agricultural words in her book, Farmer George.

Kristen Fulton: Recommends having three primary sources, two secondary sources and one other source like the internet.

Steve Swinburne

Steve Swinburne: "Devise a photo want list for your story. Think ahead. Scout locations. So shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. Digital has made life easy." 

Kelly Loughman: "If you've got the hook, you've got the book." Know thy publisher. Make sure your story is a good fit.

 

Kristi Holl

Kristi Holl: Assess where you are in your writing career. Keep track of how you are using your time. "Time is like a walk-in closet. If you keep pushing things in and not taking things out, it will explode."

Lucas Miller: Your story/song should "be compelling and entertaining with an emotional impact to make an enjoyable experience with science."

The Hill Country University Center, built in 2010, is home base.

This is what Arlene C. Graziano, a conference attendee had to say about the conference, 

"Informational, entertaining, inspiring, and approachable presenters spoke, sang, counseled and chatted. (A few danced, but that's another story.) Pat welcomed us with great food, facts, and fun."

Pat, we all are a fixin' to say,"Thank you, Ma'am, for a boot scootin', rip roarin' great time."

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Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Must a Writer Choose? by Pat Miller

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Unlike being engaged or voting in a primary, writers don’t have to choose just one. In fact, writing fiction can well equip one to write nonfiction. On the flip side, writing fiction can give nonfiction writers freer rein with their creativity.

Here’s how it works. Fiction writers can craft true books that use a story arc, character development, and dialogue to explain historical, scientific, or biographical topics. The difference is that everything is true. Creating characters solely from imagination exercises the part of a nonfiction writer’s brain that is the source of the lyrical language that can make nonfiction compelling.

Since there are so many of us fiction writers, let’s examine other benefits of writing true books. Nonfiction success can counteract the many rejections of one’s fiction. In Anatomy of Nonfiction: Writing True Stories for Children, Peggy Thomas states you are eight times more likely to be published in nonfiction than fiction. That means 1/8^th the rejection letters, 1/8^th the pity parties, and 8 times the confidence in one’s abilities! That confidence can help sustain the fiction writer who persists in the bruising submission process.

Bonus--you get a head start with nonfiction. According to biographer Jean Fritz, “[Writing nonfiction] is not a matter of coaxing up a story, but of perceiving the story line that’s already there.” If you're one who delves into your imaginary characters so deeply that you know their secrets, their songs, and all their uncles, then you are a natural for researching real facts about real people. Instead of plumbing your imagination, you will search through resources that are both interesting and addictive.  And unlike fiction, you will have experts, librarians, and enthusiasts who will eagerly help you on your quest.

From Peggy Thomas: “Nonfiction is a simple beast, really. In its most basic form it consists of a skeleton of accurate information, the flesh and blood of story, the heart of the writer, and the muscle of marketing.” If you write fiction, you already have three of these four tools in your toolbox.

Peggy continues, “Your job as a nonfiction writer is to raise your antenna and tune in to the true 

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 stories that exist around you.” Unlike rubbing the genie lamp of imagination, hoping a story will wispily appear, the writer of true stories has merely to practice alertness to find things to write about—even topics already on the shelf. “A subject may have been written about, but not by you—not with your ideas, and not from your perspective.”

When you write fiction, you do your research between your own two ears. Since nonfiction happens here on our planet, lots of evidence and details are readily available. There are primary sources like journals, legal records, manuals, and letters. There are museums and restored habitations, aquariums, zoos, galleries, newspaper morgues, recordings, and online resources. These provide settings, characters, dialogue, and problems that you don’t have to imagine. And there are passionate experts only too willing to help you flesh out or vet your stories.

So you don’t have to choose. You can do both. If you write nonfiction, or are considering it, I have two suggestions:

1. Read Peggy Thomas’s Anatomy of Nonfiction. I read every page while working on my first biography. I credit her inspiration and practical techniques for its acceptance by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for publication in 2016.

2. Participate in the NF 4 NF Nonfiction for Children’s Writers Conference on October 9 – 12. Peggy Thomas will present three of the 16 sessions and offers critiques. Peggy’s sessions include “The Heart and Voice of Your Story”, “Research Techniques That Get to the Facts”, and “Biographies: Making Friends with Strangers”. Be sure to bring your copy of Anatomy of Nonfiction to be autographed.

Learn more about the stellar faculty, the schedule, location, and social events at the site. Register today—Early Bird rate ends September 1.

BREATHING LIFE INTO BIOGRAPHIES, From: ANATOMY OF NONFICTION By Margery Facklam and Peggy Thomas. Post by Sherri Jones Rivers

             "The best biographies are the ones that peek into the heart and soul of their subjects." 
                     -------Candace Fleming--------






Are you a snoop? Do you like to know about people's lives? Do you wonder what it would have been like to fly the first airplane, invent the telephone, or be the first African-American Supreme Court Judge? If so, you may have the disease called "Acute Biography Writing Syndrome."


It's been said, "All history is gossip."  Of course, you want to make sure you have your "gossip" properly fact-checked, rechecked, and cited. There are countless biographies on the market, but what makes a strong one? I'm sharing an overview of the ideas put forth by this mother-daughter team that have helped me in crafting my biographies:




                                          STRONG BIOGRAPHIES


** The authors state a good biographer seeks some arrangement or pattern in his subject's life. He will make connections between the events, hold back some of the facts, and foreshadow others. When you focus on a pattern or an outstanding characteristic, you are more apt to leave out information that's not important to the flow of your story. Save some of that for Back Matter, or Author Notes, or Sidebars.


** Sometimes, they say, a biography will tend to focus on a certain aspect of a person's life that people don't know about. That singular aspect gives the person's story a new twist. That's what happened when Peggy Thomas found about George Washington's love of farming, and wrote Farmer George Plants A Nation. Lots of books about George Washington out there, but she found something about him that had "settled in the shadows" and "shone her biographical flashlight on it."


** A strong biography will ground the person in the reality of the times in which he or she lived. An example they cited was Pam Munoz Ryan's When Marian Sang. She felt it was important to show the opera star riding in colored-only train cars and singing to two different audiences, one black and one white. They warn that if you don't ground your subject in the times, it will seem as if he is floating around in space, not connected to anything.




                       FINDING SUBJECTS TO WRITE ABOUT


Magazine theme lists are mentioned as a great place to start. The authors suggest finding out what major historic anniversaries are coming up, and ask teachers what they would like to know more about. When Peggy Thomas asked a school librarian what her elementary students needed more of, the librarian pointed out the biography section and said, "More. We need more books about people kids haven't heard about yet." Does that make you giddy? It should. Find that unknown person and bring him or her to life.






                         MAGAZINES FOR SHORT BIO PIECES


If your subject is not known, but worth reading about, they say writing a magazine profile can serve as a short, focused biography. Cricket and Insight Magazines feature people who have overcome struggles or have made the world a better place. Boys' Life, Yes Mag, and Highlights also print profiles.




                          A FEW HELPFUL BIOGRAPHY WEB-SITES


They list web sites that you can browse for fun, or sites that will give you
information on a certain person.  Here are three to get you started:






** Academy of Achievement: www.achievement.org. Features people in business, the arts, sports, science, and public service.


** Innovative Lives: www.invention.smithsonian.org. Lists inventions and inventors.


** My Hero: http://myhero.com. This one lists achievements of people from all walks of life.


     Okay, who will you be writing about? The library shelves are waiting.....