The Elements of Narrative Nonfiction: How to Write & Sell the Novel of True Events

by Peter Rubie

Name some of the huge bestselling books over the years—In Cold Blood; All the President’s Men; The Perfect Storm; Black Hawk Down; Longitude; Jarhead—and they all have one thing in common; they all read like novels. Author and agent Peter Rubie shows the reader how to join journalistic research with riveting, character-driven prose to create narrative nonfiction. This is the only book to focus on writing and marketing the narrative nonfiction “novel.” (An earlier version of this book was published under the title Telling the Story: How to Write and Sell Narrative Nonfiction. This version has been extensively reworked.)

Genres: Writing

287 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Joanne Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book quite helpful, even though it was not specifially geared to memoir writing (which is what I am working on). Lots of good insights and nuggets.

[Andy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has so many typos (e.g. Lexus/Nexus), grammatical errors, wrong dates and names that it is just painful to read.

[Lori Gertz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for writing!

[Nsikan Akpan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can be a little discouraging for those like me who want to be future authors, but is completely realistic about what to do

[Joe Fontenot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. From a Newspaper angle.