Defining the Form

Many people are confused about what makes a nonfiction article for young people. Some are afraid nonfiction is too boring for little kids so they assume that you have to make it look like a story. Now, that can work. Specific incidents from the life of a president could easily be told like a story – using well researched facts to create factual scenes, action and snippets of dialogue gleaned from letters or journals. That’s called “creative nonfiction.” Creative nonfiction happens when an author uses totally well researched facts to create a story-like narrative with NO made up parts. Creative nonfiction isn’t FICTION – it has to be built from facts. The pieces that lend themselves to creative nonfiction will be either historical, profiles, or biographies.

Other authors become confused. They think they need to make up a story – usually about two kids informing each other of stuff. Or, the new writer may create a “school report story" where the child is either informed of stuff by the adult helping with the report or the child informs the adult of what he’s written. This can be pretty dull stuff and it's also not creative nonfiction -- it's what some editors call "informational fiction." Most (as in almost all) magazines won't buy these flat stories where character spout facts because it’s usually not very interesting and rarely has a plot. Once you introduce fiction in any form, you're tied to the "rules" of fiction meaning PLOT. Now, if you have a solid plot and well-motivated, realistic characters and also introduce some interesting elements where it fits naturally into the plot -- you would have something editors would LOVE...but it wouldn't be nonfiction. It would be fiction.

If you’re still confused, let’s think about adult fiction that has tons you can learn from it -- Michael Crichton, for example, filled his novels with all kinds of research and facts but NO ONE called them creative nonfiction. They were novels. Once you add fiction...your result is fiction albeit well researched fiction. You might learn a ton of stuff from such a well researched piece of fiction – but the primary “job” of the piece will be to tell a great story. The facts will just add extra spice to a really good exciting story.

So remember: "creative nonfiction" is actually nonfiction with no made-up stuff. The "creative" part comes in using a story telling narrative of TOTAL FACT ...for example, if you tell the true story of the president who chased the goat down Pennsylvania Avenue...you would add the creative elements of him puffing and panting (since he was fat...we can assume that he would puff and pant...so it's still nonfiction). You could add the creative element of suggesting passersby were surprised to find the President of the United States running down Pennsyvania Avenue behind a goat. (Again, it's creative but we can realistically assume that anyone would be surprised to see a president chase a goat). You could add "creative" elements of storytelling but they all must logically be derived directly from fact...if you simply add total fiction (made up people, made up dialogue, made up events) then it is NOT creative nonfiction -- it's fiction.

Why Does It Matter?

Editors (the folks who actually buy the stuff) don't call it "creative nonfiction" when you make stuff up and mix it into a collection of facts. I actually saw an interesting discussion on this from a group of very well published nonfiction writers on the NFforKids email list. It makes them crazy when folks mistakenly call it "creative nonfiction" when you add fictional elements to nonfiction. They explain creative nonfiction in the way their editors/publishers/agents define it -- total nonfiction but written using a storytelling style. Thus the tools of fiction without any made-up bits.

But I Remember Seeing...

Children's magazines also used to mix fiction and nonfiction in many pieces. The prevailing theory was that most kids don't like nonfiction so you had to give information a fictional candy coating to get the kids to swallow it. But now editors/publishers know that (1) many children actually prefer nonfiction and (2) when you mix the fiction and nonfiction together without a plot you tend to result in pleasing NEITHER the fiction lovers nor the nonfiction lovers. Plus, educators (who account for a lot of magazine subscriptions) don't like that kind of mix as they can't let children use pieces like that as sources for reports.

Having said that...you do still sometimes see concept stories for the very very young (preschoolers and younger) that don't have a plot but just introduce concepts using a character. So a child might be introduced to trains by putting a character on a train and watching it...so no plot but you learn a bit about what it's like to ride a train. Still, even with those both Ladybug and Highlights, editors have told me that they do not consider those nonfiction -- they consider them concept stories.

So if the editors don't consider a piece nonfiction if you have made-up stuff in it, you want to make sure you don't call it nonfiction in your cover letter. But if you’re writing for a magazine that only publishes nonfiction – be sure that every thing you put into an article is backed up by research and can comfortably be called factual. It’s great if you can put it in a nice story style – real life is full of true stories that are compelling and exciting. But if you call it nonfiction, make sure it’s a true story – not a collection of facts in a fictional candy shell.