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A Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction

by Melissa Donovan | Mar 4, 2021 | Creative Writing | 12 comments

Try your hand at writing creative nonfiction.

Here at Writing Forward, we’re primarily interested in three types of creative writing: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

With poetry and fiction, there are techniques and best practices that we can use to inform and shape our writing, but there aren’t many rules beyond the standards of style, grammar, and good writing . We can let our imaginations run wild; everything from nonsense to outrageous fantasy is fair game for bringing our ideas to life when we’re writing fiction and poetry.

However, when writing creative nonfiction, there are some guidelines that we need to follow. These guidelines aren’t set in stone; however, if you violate them, you might find yourself in trouble with your readers as well as the critics.

What is Creative Nonfiction?

Telling True Stories (aff link).

What sets creative nonfiction apart from fiction or poetry?

For starters, creative nonfiction is factual. A memoir is not just any story; it’s a true story. A biography is the real account of someone’s life. There is no room in creative nonfiction for fabrication or manipulation of the facts.

So what makes creative nonfiction writing different from something like textbook writing or technical writing? What makes it creative?

Nonfiction writing that isn’t considered creative usually has business or academic applications. Such writing isn’t designed for entertainment or enjoyment. Its sole purpose is to convey information, usually in a dry, straightforward manner.

Creative nonfiction, on the other hand, pays credence to the craft of writing, often through literary devices and storytelling techniques, which make the prose aesthetically pleasing and bring layers of meaning to the context. It’s pleasurable to read.

According to Wikipedia:

Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is a genre of writing truth which uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft.

Like other forms of nonfiction, creative nonfiction relies on research, facts, and credibility. While opinions may be interjected, and often the work depends on the author’s own memories (as is the case with memoirs and autobiographies), the material must be verifiable and accurately reported.

Creative Nonfiction Genres and Forms

There are many forms and genres within creative nonfiction:

• Autobiography and biography
• Personal essays
• Literary journalism
• Any topical material, such as food or travel writing, self-development, art, or history, can be creatively written with a literary angle

Let’s look more closely at a few of these nonfiction forms and genres:

Memoirs: A memoir is a long-form (book-length) written work. It is a firsthand, personal account that focuses on a specific experience or situation. One might write a memoir about serving in the military or struggling with loss. Memoirs are not life stories, but they do examine life through a particular lens. For example, a memoir about being a writer might begin in childhood, when the author first learned to write. However, the focus of the book would be on writing, so other aspects of the author’s life would be left out, for the most part.

Biographies and autobiographies: A biography is the true story of someone’s life. If an author composes their own biography, then it’s called an autobiography. These works tend to cover the entirety of a person’s life, albeit selectively.

Literary journalism: Journalism sticks with the facts while exploring the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a particular person, topic, or event. Biographies, for example, are a genre of literary journalism, which is a form of nonfiction writing. Traditional journalism is a method of information collection and organization. Literary journalism also conveys facts and information, but it honors the craft of writing by incorporating storytelling techniques and literary devices. Opinions are supposed to be absent in traditional journalism, but they are often found in literary journalism, which can be written in long or short formats.

Personal essays are a short form of creative nonfiction that can cover a wide range of styles, from writing about one’s experiences to expressing one’s personal opinions. They can address any topic imaginable. Personal essays can be found in many places, from magazines and literary journals to blogs and newspapers. They are often a short form of memoir writing.

Speeches  can cover a range of genres, from political to motivational to educational. A tributary speech honors someone whereas a roast ridicules them (in good humor). Unlike most other forms of writing, speeches are written to be performed rather than read.

Journaling: A common, accessible, and often personal form of creative nonfiction writing is journaling. A journal can also contain fiction and poetry, but most journals would be considered nonfiction. Some common types of written journals are diaries, gratitude journals, and career journals (or logs), but this is just a small sampling of journaling options.

Writing Creative Nonfiction (aff link).

Any topic or subject matter is fair game in the realm of creative nonfiction. Some nonfiction genres and topics that offer opportunities for creative nonfiction writing include food and travel writing, self-development, art and history, and health and fitness. It’s not so much the topic or subject matter that renders a written work as creative; it’s how it’s written — with due diligence to the craft of writing through application of language and literary devices.

Guidelines for Writing Creative Nonfiction

Here are six simple guidelines to follow when writing creative nonfiction:

• Get your facts straight. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing your own story or someone else’s. If readers, publishers, and the media find out you’ve taken liberties with the truth of what happened, you and your work will be scrutinized. Negative publicity might boost sales, but it will tarnish your reputation; you’ll lose credibility. If you can’t refrain from fabrication, then think about writing fiction instead of creative nonfiction.
• Issue a disclaimer. A lot of nonfiction is written from memory, and we all know that human memory is deeply flawed. It’s almost impossible to recall a conversation word for word. You might forget minor details, like the color of a dress or the make and model of a car. If you aren’t sure about the details but are determined to include them, be upfront and include a disclaimer that clarifies the creative liberties you’ve taken.
• Consider the repercussions. If you’re writing about other people (even if they are secondary figures), you might want to check with them before you publish your nonfiction. Some people are extremely private and don’t want any details of their lives published. Others might request that you leave certain things out, which they want to keep private. Otherwise, make sure you’ve weighed the repercussions of revealing other people’s lives to the world. Relationships have been both strengthened and destroyed as a result of authors publishing the details of other people’s lives.
• Be objective. You don’t need to be overly objective if you’re telling your own, personal story. However, nobody wants to read a highly biased biography. Book reviews for biographies are packed with harsh criticism for authors who didn’t fact-check or provide references and for those who leave out important information or pick and choose which details to include to make the subject look good or bad.
• Pay attention to language. You’re not writing a textbook, so make full use of language, literary devices, and storytelling techniques.
• Know your audience. Creative nonfiction sells, but you must have an interested audience. A memoir about an ordinary person’s first year of college isn’t especially interesting. Who’s going to read it? However, a memoir about someone with a learning disability navigating the first year of college is quite compelling, and there’s an identifiable audience for it. When writing creative nonfiction, a clearly defined audience is essential.

Are you looking for inspiration? Check out these creative nonfiction writing ideas.

Ten creative nonfiction writing prompts and projects.

The prompts below are excerpted from my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts , which contains fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction writing prompts. Use these prompts to spark a creative nonfiction writing session.

1200 Creative Writing Prompts (aff link).

• What is your favorite season? What do you like about it? Write a descriptive essay about it.
• What do you think the world of technology will look like in ten years? Twenty? What kind of computers, phones, and other devices will we use? Will technology improve travel? Health care? What do you expect will happen and what would you like to happen?
• Have you ever fixed something that was broken? Ever solved a computer problem on your own? Write an article about how to fix something or solve some problem.
• Have you ever had a run-in with the police? What happened?
• Have you ever traveled alone? Tell your story. Where did you go? Why? What happened?
• Let’s say you write a weekly advice column. Choose the topic you’d offer advice on, and then write one week’s column.
• Think of a major worldwide problem: for example, hunger, climate change, or political corruption. Write an article outlining a solution (or steps toward a solution).
• Choose a cause that you feel is worthy and write an article persuading others to join that cause.
• Someone you barely know asks you to recommend a book. What do you recommend and why?
• Hard skills are abilities you have acquired, such as using software, analyzing numbers, and cooking. Choose a hard skill you’ve mastered and write an article about how this skill is beneficial using your own life experiences as examples.

Do You Write Creative Nonfiction?

Have you ever written creative nonfiction? How often do you read it? Can you think of any nonfiction forms and genres that aren’t included here? Do you have any guidelines to add to this list? Are there any situations in which it would be acceptable to ignore these guidelines? Got any tips to add? Do you feel that nonfiction should focus on content and not on craft? Leave a comment to share your thoughts, and keep writing.

12 Comments

Shouldn’t ALL non-fiction be creative to some extent? I am a former business journalist, and won awards for the imaginative approach I took to writing about even the driest of business topics: pensions, venture capital, tax, employment law and other potentially dusty subjects. The drier and more complicated the topic, the more creative the approach must be, otherwise no-one with anything else to do will bother to wade through it. [to be honest, taking the fictional approach to these ghastly tortuous topics was the only way I could face writing about them.] I used all the techniques that fiction writers have to play with, and used some poetic techniques, too, to make the prose more readable. What won the first award was a little serial about two businesses run and owned by a large family at war with itself. Every episode centred on one or two common and crucial business issues, wrapped up in a comedy-drama, and it won a lot of fans (happily for me) because it was so much easier to read and understand than the dry technical writing they were used to. Life’s too short for dusty writing!

I believe most journalism is creative and would therefore fall under creative nonfiction. However, there is a lot of legal, technical, medical, science, and textbook writing in which there is no room for creativity (or creativity has not made its way into these genres yet). With some forms, it makes sense. I don’t think it would be appropriate for legal briefings to use story or literary devices just to add a little flair. On the other hand, it would be a good thing if textbooks were a little more readable.

I think Abbs is right – even in academic papers, an example or story helps the reader visualize the problem or explanation more easily. I scan business books to see if there are stories or examples, if not, then I don’t pick up the book. That’s where the creativity comes in – how to create examples, what to conflate, what to emphasis as we create our fictional people to illustrate important, real points.

Thanks for the post. Very helpful. I’d never thought about writing creative nonfiction before.

You’re welcome 🙂

Hi Melissa!

Love your website. You always give a fun and frank assessment of all things pertaining to writing. It is a pleasure to read. I have even bought several of the reference and writing books you recommended. Keep up the great work.

Top 10 Reasons Why Creative Nonfiction Is A Questionable Category

10. When you look up “Creative Nonfiction” in the dictionary it reads: See Fiction

9. The first creative nonfiction example was a Schwinn Bicycle Assembly Guide that had printed in its instructions: Can easily be assembled by one person with a Phillips head screw driver, Allen keys, adjustable wrench and cable cutters in less than an hour.

8. Creative Nonfiction; Based on actual events; Suggested by a true event; Based on a true story. It’s a slippery slope.

7. The Creative Nonfiction Quarterly is only read by eleven people. Five have the same last name.

6. Creative Nonfiction settings may only include: hospitals, concentration camps, prisons and cemeteries. Exceptions may be made for asylums, rehab centers and Capitol Hill.

5. The writers who create Sterile Nonfiction or Unimaginative Nonfiction now want their category recognized.

4. Creative; Poetic License; Embellishment; Puffery. See where this is leading?

3. Creative Nonfiction is to Nonfiction as Reality TV is to Documentaries.

2. My attorney has advised that I exercise my 5th Amendment Rights or that I be allowed to give written testimony in a creative nonfiction way.

1. People believe it is a film with Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson and Queen Latifa.

Hi Steve. I’m not sure if your comment is meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek, but I found it humorous.

My publisher is releasing my Creative Nonfiction book based on my grandmother’s life this May 2019 in Waikiki. I’ll give you an update soon about sales. I was fortunate enough to get some of the original and current Hawaii 5-0 members to show up for the book signing.

Hi, when writing creative nonfiction- is it appropriate to write from someone else’s point of view when you don’t know them? I was thinking of writing about Greta Thungbrurg for creative nonfiction competition – but I can directly ask her questions so I’m unsure as to whether it’s accurate enough to be classified as creative non-fiction. Thank you!

Hi Madeleine. I’m not aware of creative nonfiction being written in first person from someone else’s point of view. The fact of the matter is that it wouldn’t be creative nonfiction because a person cannot truly show events from another person’s perspective. So I wouldn’t consider something like that nonfiction. It would usually be a biography written in third person, and that is common. You can certainly use quotes and other indicators to represent someone else’s views and experiences. I could probably be more specific if I knew what kind of work it is (memoir, biography, self-development, etc.).

Dear Melissa: I am trying to market a book in the metaphysical genre about an experience I had, receiving the voice of a Civil War spirit who tells his story (not channeling). Part is my reaction and discussion with a close friend so it is not just memoir. I referred to it as ‘literary non-fiction’ but an agent put this down by saying it is NOT literary non-fiction. Looking at your post, could I say that my book is ‘creative non-fiction’? (agents can sometimes be so nit-picky)

Hi Liz. You opened your comment by classifying the book as metaphysical but later referred to it as literary nonfiction. The premise definitely sounds like a better fit in the metaphysical category. Creative nonfiction is not a genre; it’s a broader category or description. Basically, all literature is either fiction or nonfiction (poetry would be separate from these). Describing nonfiction as creative only indicates that it’s not something like a user guide. I think you were heading in the right direction with the metaphysical classification.

The goal of marketing and labeling books with genres is to find a readership that will be interested in the work. This is an agent’s area of expertise, so assuming you’re speaking with a competent agent, I’d suggest taking their advice in this matter. It indicates that the audience perusing the literary nonfiction aisles is simply not a match for this book.

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Examples of Creative Nonfiction: What It Is & How to Write It

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When most people think of creative writing, they picture fiction books – but there are plenty of examples of creative nonfiction. In fact, creative nonfiction is one of the most interesting genres to read and write. So what is creative nonfiction exactly? 

More and more people are discovering the joy of getting immersed in content based on true life that has all the quality and craft of a well-written novel. If you are interested in writing creative nonfiction, it’s important to understand different examples of creative nonfiction as a genre. 

If you’ve ever gotten lost in memoirs so descriptive that you felt you’d walked in the shoes of those people, those are perfect examples of creative nonfiction – and you understand exactly why this genre is so popular.

But is creative nonfiction a viable form of writing to pursue? What is creative nonfiction best used to convey? And what are some popular creative nonfiction examples?

Today we will discuss all about this genre, including plenty of examples of creative nonfiction books – so you’ll know exactly how to write it. 

This Guide to Creative Nonfiction Covers:

Need A Nonfiction Book Outline?

What is Creative Nonfiction?

Creative nonfiction is defined as true events written about with the techniques and style traditionally found in creative writing . We can understand what creative nonfiction is by contrasting it with plain-old nonfiction. 

Think about news or a history textbook, for example. These nonfiction pieces tend to be written in very matter-of-fact, declarative language. While informative, this type of nonfiction often lacks the flair and pleasure that keep people hooked on fictional novels.

Imagine there are two retellings of a true crime story – one in a newspaper and the other in the script for a podcast. Which is more likely to grip you? The dry, factual language, or the evocative, emotionally impactful creative writing?

Podcasts are often great examples of creative nonfiction – but of course, creative nonfiction can be used in books too. In fact, there are many types of creative nonfiction writing. Let's take a look!

Types of creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction comes in many different forms and flavors. Just as there are myriad types of creative writing, there are almost as many types of creative nonfiction.

Some of the most popular types include:

Literary nonfiction

Literary nonfiction refers to any form of factual writing that employs the literary elements that are more commonly found in fiction. If you’re writing about a true event (but using elements such as metaphor and theme) you might well be writing literary nonfiction.

Writing a life story doesn’t have to be a dry, chronological depiction of your years on Earth. You can use memoirs to creatively tell about events or ongoing themes in your life.

If you’re unsure of what kind of creative nonfiction to write, why not consider a creative memoir? After all, no one else can tell your life story like you. 

Nature writing

The beauty of the natural world is an ongoing source of creative inspiration for many people, from photographers to documentary makers. But it’s also a great focus for a creative nonfiction writer. Evoking the majesty and wonder of our environment is an endless source of material for creative nonfiction. 

Travel writing

If you’ve ever read a great travel article or book, you’ll almost feel as if you've been on the journey yourself. There’s something special about travel writing that conveys not only the literal journey, but the personal journey that takes place.

Writers with a passion for exploring the world should consider travel writing as their form of creative nonfiction. 

For types of writing that leave a lasting impact on the world, look no further than speeches. From a preacher's sermon, to ‘I have a dream’, speeches move hearts and minds like almost nothing else. The difference between an effective speech and one that falls on deaf ears is little more than the creative skill with which it is written. 

Biographies

Noteworthy figures from history and contemporary times alike are great sources for creative nonfiction. Think about the difference between reading about someone’s life on Wikipedia and reading about it in a critically-acclaimed biography.

Which is the better way of honoring that person’s legacy and achievements? Which is more fun to read? If there’s someone whose life story is one you’d love to tell, creative nonfiction might be the best way to do it. 

So now that you have an idea of what creative nonfiction is, and some different ways you can write it, let's take a look at some popular examples of creative nonfiction books and speeches.

Examples of Creative Nonfiction

Here are our favorite examples of creative nonfiction:

1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

No list of examples of creative nonfiction would be complete without In Cold Blood . This landmark work of literary nonfiction by Truman Capote helped to establish the literary nonfiction genre in its modern form, and paved the way for the contemporary true crime boom.  

2. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is undeniably one of the best creative memoirs ever written. It beautifully reflects on Hemingway’s time in Paris – and whisks you away into the cobblestone streets.  

3. World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

If you're looking for examples of creative nonfiction nature writing, no one does it quite like Aimee Nezhukumatathil. World of Wonders  is a beautiful series of essays that poetically depicts the varied natural landscapes she enjoyed over the years. 

4. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is one of the most beloved travel writers of our time. And A Walk in the Woods is perhaps Bryson in his peak form. This much-loved travel book uses creativity to explore the Appalachian Trail and convey Bryson’s opinions on America in his humorous trademark style.

5. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

 While most of our examples of creative nonfiction are books, we would be remiss not to include at least one speech. The Gettysburg Address is one of the most impactful speeches in American history, and an inspiring example for creative nonfiction writers.

6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Few have a way with words like Maya Angelou. Her triumphant book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , shows the power of literature to transcend one’s circumstances at any time. It is one of the best examples of creative nonfiction that truly sucks you in.

7. Hiroshima by John Hershey

Hiroshima is a powerful retelling of the events during (and following) the infamous atomic bomb. This journalistic masterpiece is told through the memories of survivors – and will stay with you long after you've finished the final page.

8. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you haven't read the book, you've probably seen the film. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of the most popular travel memoirs in history. This romp of creative nonfiction teaches us how to truly unmake and rebuild ourselves through the lens of travel.

9. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Never has language learning brought tears of laughter like Me Talk Pretty One Day . David Sedaris comically divulges his (often failed) attempts to learn French with a decidedly sadistic teacher, and all the other mishaps he encounters in his fated move from New York to Paris.

10. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Many of us had complicated childhoods, but few of us experienced the hardships of Jeannette Walls. In The Glass Castle , she gives us a transparent look at the betrayals and torments of her youth and how she overcame them with grace – weaving her trauma until it reads like a whimsical fairytale.

Now that you've seen plenty of creative nonfiction examples, it's time to learn how to write your own creative nonfiction masterpiece.

Tips for Writing Creative Nonfiction

Writing creative nonfiction has a lot in common with other types of writing. (You won’t be reinventing the wheel here.) The better you are at writing in general, the easier you’ll find your creative nonfiction project. But there are some nuances to be aware of.

Writing a successful creative nonfiction piece requires you to:

Choose a form

Before you commit to a creative nonfiction project, get clear on exactly what it is you want to write. That way, you can get familiar with the conventions of the style of writing and draw inspiration from some of its classics.

Try and find a balance between a type of creative nonfiction you find personally appealing and one you have the skill set to be effective at. 

Gather the facts

Like all forms of nonfiction, your creative project will require a great deal of research and preparation. If you’re writing about an event, try and gather as many sources of information as possible – so you can imbue your writing with a rich level of detail.

If it’s a piece about your life, jot down personal recollections and gather photos from your past. 

Plan your writing

Unlike a fictional novel, which tends to follow a fairly well-established structure, works of creative nonfiction have a less clear shape. To avoid the risk of meandering or getting weighed down by less significant sections, structure your project ahead of writing it.

You can either apply the classic fiction structures to a nonfictional event or take inspiration from the pacing of other examples of creative nonfiction you admire. 

You may also want to come up with a working title to inspire your writing. Using a free book title generator is a quick and easy way to do this and move on to the actual writing of your book.

Draft in your intended style

Unless you have a track record of writing creative nonfiction, the first time doing so can feel a little uncomfortable. You might second-guess your writing more than you usually would due to the novelty of applying creative techniques to real events. Because of this, it’s essential to get your first draft down as quickly as possible.

Rewrite and refine

After you finish your first draft, only then should you read back through it and critique your work. Perhaps you haven’t used enough source material. Or maybe you’ve overdone a certain creative technique. Whatever you happen to notice, take as long as you need to refine and rework it until your writing feels just right.

Ready to Wow the World With Your Story?

You know have the knowledge and inspiring examples of creative nonfiction you need to write a successful work in this genre. Whether you choose to write a riveting travel book, a tear-jerking memoir, or a biography that makes readers laugh out loud, creative nonfiction will give you the power to convey true events like never before.  

Who knows? Maybe your book will be on the next list of top creative nonfiction examples!

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5 Nonfiction Writing Techniques That Will Captivate Readers

by Alexander Limberg | Oct 12, 2020

Do fiction and nonfiction writing have anything in common?

After all, their goals are fundamentally different. One wants to entertain, the other one mainly educates.

But take a look at Hunter S. Thompson’s work and you will know better. Thompson was a master at crafting tight, compelling fiction, and he used these very same fiction techniques to become one of the most highly acclaimed and fascinating nonfiction writers in history.

How to write a nonfiction book using fiction techniques

There’s no doubt: If you want to hook your audience, some story techniques come in extremely handy. It’s basic human psychology.

Take a page from your favorite fiction writer and adopt these five nonfiction writing tips.

1. Tell a memorable story

Humans have been fascinated by stories since the dawn of time. At lunch, we tell our newest stories to our co-workers; at night, we tell fanciful tales to our kids and then consume suspense from our flatscreens.

We remember stories much better than abstract rules, formulas or concepts. Your post or essay will be stronger and more relatable if you include little examples, experiences and comparisons.

For example, instead of saying “Spinach is healthy,” you could tell a story about a runner who improved his performance by eating a lot of spinach. Just two or three additional sentences is often enough to help your words hit home for the reader.

2. Bait your audience

Great fiction grabs you right at the beginning and doesn’t let your attention go until the end. Why not do the same with your nonfiction?

If your article is online, it’s in direct competition with thousands of other articles; your reader can choose from all of them instantly, and mostly for free. She could also just close her browser and go watch TV. In today’s multimedia world, attention is the number one commodity .

Does your first sentence make the reader want to read the second? Does your second sentence evoke curiosity for the third? Here are a couple of options for beginnings that I found worked best for my blog:

One strategy is beginning with a little personal or historical story . Take a look at the storytelling tips above and make sure to always keep the reader wondering what’s next. Before he knows it, he will be halfway through your article.

You could also ask a question that moves your audience. If you write an article about how to save money, how about a start with “Isn’t it frustrating that at the end of any given month, there is no money left in your wallet?“ That’s how you put yourself in the reader’s shoes, to make her identify with you and your article.

You could start with an interesting or funny thought , too. When you’re writing about the phases of the moon, why not begin the post like this: “Did you know that on the moon, you would only weigh 16.5 percent of your weight on Earth?”

By using one of these strategies, you have a better chance of catching your reader’s attention — and keeping it.

3. Use emotional language

Bad nonfiction pieces are overly factual and prosaic. (Think of the last academic paper you read. Snooze!) They often employ a certain “code” of complex sentence structures and foreign words to make them seem more credible and expert-like.

The antidote: use more imagery, more emotion and more personality. Metaphors are also an interesting way to add some spice. Instead of writing “double-digit percent fluctuations,” write, “a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs.”

The less abstract your nouns, the better. Any noun of something you’re able to touch physically is better than something you can’t touch. Palpable words draw the reader into your text more effectively, so he experiences them instead of simply reading them.

Certain words like ”confession” or “magic” are emotionally charged power words that hit your audience strongly. They make them feel your content. Power words can evoke vibrant emotions, and emotion will keep the reader’s eyes glued to every single word of yours.

So read some Hemingway or Dickens, reconnect with the emotional side of your writing, and stir up your audience’s feelings!

4. Say it simply

Have you ever given up on an article or instruction manual because its wording frustrated you? If you have great content, don’t encrypt it . Provide even more value for your reader by cutting the content down into easily digestible bites.

Look at any post on The Write Life: The content is top-notch, but it’s all packed into short sentences and easily understandable vocabulary. Ideas are broken down into detail. You see short paragraphs and a lot of white space. All the components of tight, simple writing are right before your eyes.

Many great novels are written in a fairly simple style. They impress with story rather than with wording. Take any novel by Charles Bukowski : Do you think his prose would have the same effect if it used long-winded, multi-clause sentences and a jungle of technical terms? Rather than trying to make a sophisticated expression, Bukowski conveys emotion and character.

Say it as simply as possible, but make sure your idea comes across.

5. Surprise the reader

Good fiction is full of surprising twists, but nonfiction often reads predictably, which is to say, dull .

Do it better and include an unexpected twist or turn when you can. It will keep things interesting and fun for your audience. Why do we watch dramas and why do we like our gifts wrapped up? It’s for the kick of the surprise that awaits us.

Keep readers on their toes by asking them a question and answering it in a way they wouldn’t have expected. For example, if you are writing an article about robots, you could ask: Which famous person drew early plans for a robot?

(Answer: Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for an armored humanoid machine in 1495.)

You could also make a statement and follow it up with a point that seems like a contradiction. Don’t forget to explain and reconcile your points. A surprising joke or a provocative comparison can keep the reader interested as well, provided it fits your style and the format of your writing. Be imaginative, just like a fiction writer.

Finally, how can you train yourself in the above techniques?

One way helps for sure: read a lot of great fiction . The storytellers’ styles and strategies will spill over into your unconscious, and before you know it, you’ll be a master at helping every reader fall in love with your writing.

What do you do to grab your reader’s interest? Share your secret weapons in the comments!

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Dean Drobot /  Shutterstock  

When writers set down the facts of their lives into a compelling story , they’re writing a narrative essay. Personal narrative essays explore the events of the writer’s own life, and by crafting a nonfiction piece that resonates as storytelling, the essayist can uncover deeper truths in the world.

Narrative essays weave the author’s factual lived experiences into a compelling story.

So, what is a narrative essay? Whether you’re writing for college applications or literary journals , this article separates fact from fiction. We’ll look at how to write a narrative essay through a step-by-step process, including a look at narrative essay topics and outlines. We’ll also analyze some successful narrative essay examples.

Learn how to tell your story, your way. Let’s dive into this exciting genre!

What is a Narrative Essay?

The narrative essay is a branch of creative nonfiction . Also known as a personal essay, writers of this genre are tasked with telling honest stories about their lived experiences and, as a result, arriving at certain realizations about life.

Think of personal narrative essays as nonfiction short stories . While the essay and the short story rely on different writing techniques, they arrive at similar outcomes: a powerful story with an idea, theme , or moral that the reader can interpret for themselves.

Now, if you haven’t written a narrative essay before, you might associate the word “essay” with high school English class. Remember those tedious 5-paragraph essays we had to write, on the topic of some book we barely read, about subject matter that didn’t interest us?

Don’t worry—that’s not the kind of essay we’re talking about. The word essay comes from the French essayer , which means “to try.” That’s exactly what writing a narrative essay is: an attempt at organizing the real world into language—a journey of making meaning from the chaos of life.

Narrative essays work to surface meaning from lived experience.

Narrative Essay Example

A great narrative essay example is the piece “Flow” by Mary Oliver, which you can read for free in Google Books .

The essay dwells on, as Mary Oliver puts it, the fact that “we live in paradise.” At once both an ode to nature and an urge to love it fiercely, Oliver explores our place in the endless beauty of the world.

Throughout the essay, Oliver weaves in her thoughts about the world, from nature’s noble beauty to the question “What is the life I should live?” Yet these thoughts, however profound, are not the bulk of the essay. Rather, she arrives at these thoughts via anecdotes and observations: the migration of whales, the strings of fish at high tide, the inventive rescue of a spiny fish from the waterless shore, etc.

What is most profound about this essay, and perhaps most amusing, is that it ends with Oliver’s questions about how to live life. And yet, the stories she tells show us exactly how to live life: with care for the world; with admiration; with tenderness towards all of life and its superb, mysterious, seemingly-random beauty.

Such is the power of the narrative essay. By examining the random facts of our lives, we can come to great conclusions.

What do most essays have in common? Let’s look at the fundamentals of the essay, before diving into more narrative essay examples.

Narrative Essay Definition: 5 Fundamentals

The personal narrative essay has a lot of room for experimentation. We’ll dive into those opportunities in a bit, but no matter the form, most essays share these five fundamentals.

• Personal experience
• Meaning from chaos
• The use of literary devices

Let’s explore these fundamentals in depth.

All narrative essays have a thesis statement. However, this isn’t the formulaic thesis statement you had to write in school: you don’t need to map out your argument with painstaking specificity, you need merely to tell the reader what you’re writing about.

Take the aforementioned essay by Mary Oliver. Her thesis is this: “How can we not know that, already, we live in paradise?”

It’s a simple yet provocative statement. By posing her thesis as a question, she challenges us to consider why we might not treat this earth as paradise. She then delves into her own understanding of this paradise, providing relevant stories and insights as to how the earth should be treated.

Now, be careful with abstract statements like this. Mary Oliver is a master of language, so she’s capable of creating a thesis statement out of an abstract idea and building a beautiful essay. But concrete theses are also welcome: you should compel the reader forward with the central argument of your work, without confusing them or leading them astray.

You should compel the reader forward with the central argument of your work, without confusing them or leading them astray

2. Personal Experience

The personal narrative essay is, shockingly, about personal experience. But how do writers distill their experiences into meaningful stories?

There are a few techniques writers have at their disposal. Perhaps the most common of these techniques is called braiding . Rather than focusing on one continuous story, the writer can “braid” different stories, weaving in and out of different narratives and finding common threads between them. Often, the subject matter of the essay will require more than one anecdote as evidence, and braiding helps the author uphold their thesis while showing instead of telling .

Another important consideration is how you tell your story . Essayists should consider the same techniques that fiction writers use. Give ample consideration to your essay’s setting , word choice , point of view , and dramatic structure . The narrative essay is, after all, a narrative, so tell your story how it deserves to be told.

3. Meaning from Chaos

Life, I think we can agree, is chaotic. While we can trace the events of our lives through cause and effect, A leads to B leads to C, the truth is that so much of our lives are shaped through circumstances beyond our control.

The narrative essay is a way to reclaim some of that control. By distilling the facts of our lives into meaningful narratives, we can uncover deeper truths that we didn’t realize existed.

By distilling the facts of our lives into meaningful narratives, we can uncover deeper truths that we didn’t realize existed.

Consider the essay “ Only Daughter ” by Sandra Cisneros. It’s a brief read, but it covers a lot of different events: a lonesome childhood, countless moves, university education, and the trials and tribulations of a successful writing career.

Coupled with Cisneros’ musings on culture and gender roles, there’s a lot of life to distill in these three pages. Yet Cisneros does so masterfully. By organizing these life events around her thesis statement of being an only daughter, Cisneros finds meaning in the many disparate events she describes.

As you go about writing a narrative essay, you will eventually encounter moments of insight . Insight describes those “aha!” moments in the work—places in which you come to deeper realizations about your life, the lives of others, and the world at large.

Now, insight doesn’t need to be some massive, culture-transforming realization. Many moments of insight are found in small interactions and quiet moments.

For example, In the above essay by Sandra Cisneros, her moments of insight come from connecting her upbringing to her struggle as an only daughter. While her childhood was often lonely and disappointing, she realizes in hindsight that she’s lucky for that upbringing: it helped nurture her spirit as a writer, and it helped her pursue a career in writing. These moments of gratitude work as insight, allowing her to appreciate what once seemed like a burden.

When we reach the end of the essay, and Cisneros describes how she felt when her father read one of her stories, we see what this gratitude is building towards: love and acceptance for the life she chose.

5. Literary Devices

The personal narrative essay, as well as all forms of creative writing, uses its fair share of literary devices . These devices don’t need to be complex: you don’t need a sprawling extended metaphor or an intricate set of juxtapositions to make your essay compelling.

However, the occasional symbol or metaphor will certainly aid your story. In Mary Oliver’s essay “Flow,” the author uses literary devices to describe the magnificence of the ocean, calling it a “cauldron of changing greens and blues” and “the great palace of the earth.” These descriptions reinforce the deep beauty of the earth.

In Sandra Cisneros’ essay “Only Daughter,” the author employs different symbols to represent her father’s masculinity and sense of gender roles. At one point, she lists the few things he reads—sports journals, slasher magazines, and picture paperbacks, often depicting scenes of violence against women. These symbols represent the divide between her father’s gendered thinking and her own literary instincts.

More Narrative Essay Examples

Let’s take a look at a few more narrative essay examples. We’ll dissect each essay based on the five fundamentals listed above.

Narrative Essay Example: “Letting Go” by David Sedaris

Read “Letting Go” here in The New Yorker .

Sedaris’ essay dwells on the culture of cigarette smoking—how it starts, the world it builds, and the difficulties in quitting. Let’s analyze how this narrative essay example uses the five fundamentals of essay writing.

• Thesis: There isn’t an explicitly defined thesis, which is common for essays that are meant to be humorous or entertaining. However, this sentence is a plausible thesis statement: “It wasn’t the smoke but the smell of it that bothered me. In later years, I didn’t care so much, but at the time I found it depressing: the scent of neglect.”
• Personal Experience: Sedaris moves between many different anecdotes about smoking, from his family’s addiction to cigarettes to his own dependence. We learn about his moving around for cheaper smokes, his family’s struggle to quit, and the last cigarette he smoked in the Charles de Gaulle airport.
• Meaning from Chaos: Sedaris ties many disparate events together. We learn about his childhood and his smoking years, but these are interwoven with anecdotes about his family and friends. What emerges is a narrative about the allure of smoking.
• Insight: Two parts of this essay are especially poignant. One, when Sedaris describes his mother’s realization that smoking isn’t sophisticated, and soon quits her habit entirely. Two, when Sedaris is given the diseased lung of a chain smoker, and instead of thinking about his own lungs, he’s simply surprised at how heavy the lung is.
• Literary Devices: Throughout the essay, Sedaris demonstrates how the cigarette symbolizes neglect: neglect of one’s body, one’s space, and one’s self-presentation.

 Narrative Essay Example: “My Mother’s Tongue” by Zavi Kang Engles

Read “My Mother’s Tongue” here in The Rumpus .

Engles’ essay examines the dysphoria of growing up between two vastly different cultures and languages. By asserting the close bond between Korean language and culture, Engles explores the absurdities of growing up as a child of Korean immigrants. Let’s analyze how this narrative essay example uses the five fundamentals of essay writing.

• Thesis: Engles’ essay often comes back to her relationship with the Korean language, especially as it relates to other Korean speakers. This relationship is best highlighted when she writes “I glowed with [my mother’s] love, basked in the warm security of what I thought was a language between us. Perhaps this is why strangers asked for our photos, in an attempt to capture a secret world between two people.”This “secret world” forms the crux of her essay, charting not only how Korean-Americans might exist in relation to one another, but also how Engles’ language is strongly tied to her identity and homeland.
• Personal Experience: Engles writes about her childhood attachment to both English and Korean, her adolescent fallout with the Korean language, her experiences as “not American enough” in the United States and “not Korean enough” in Korea, and her experiences mourning in a Korean hospital.
• Meaning from Chaos: In addition to the above events, Engles ties in research about language and identity (also known as code switching ). Through language and identity, the essay charts the two different cultures that the author stands between, highlighting the dissonance between Western individualism and an Eastern sense of belonging.
• Insight: There are many examples of insight throughout this essay as the author explores how out of place she feels, torn between two countries. An especially poignant example comes from Engles’ experience in a Korean hospital, where she writes “I didn’t know how to mourn in this country.”
• Literary Devices: The essay frequently juxtaposes the languages and cultures of Korea and the United States. Additionally, the English language comes to symbolize Western individualism, while the Korean language comes to symbolize Eastern collectivism.

Narrative Essay Example: 3 Rules for Middle-Age Happiness by Deborah Copaken

Read “3 Rules for Middle-Age Happiness” here in The Atlantic .

Copaken’s essay explores her relationship to Nora Ephron, the screenwriter for When Harry Met Sally . Let’s analyze how this narrative essay example uses the five fundamentals of essay writing.

• Thesis: This essay hands us the thesis statement in its subtitle: “Gather friends and feed them, laugh in the face of calamity, and cut out all the things—people, jobs, body parts—that no longer serve you.”
• Personal Experience: Copaken weaves two different threads through this essay. One thread is her personal life, including a failing marriage, medical issues, and her attempts at building a happy family. The other is Copaken’s personal relationship to Ephron, whose advice coincides with many of the essay’s insights.
• Meaning from Chaos: This essay organizes its events chronologically. However, the main sense of organization is found in the title: many of the essayist’s problems can be perceived as middle-aged crises (family trouble, divorce, death of loved ones), but the solutions to those crises are simpler than one might realize.
• Insight: In writing this essay, Copaken explores her relationship to Ephron, as well as Copaken’s own relationship to her children. She ties these experiences together at the end, when she writes “The transmission of woes is a one-way street, from child to mother. A good mother doesn’t burden her children with her pain. She waits until it becomes so heavy, it either breaks her or kills her, whichever comes first.”
• Literary Devices: The literary devices in this article explore the author’s relationship to womanhood. She wonders if having a hysterectomy will make her “like less of a woman.” Also important is the fact that, when the author has her hysterectomy, her daughter has her first period. Copaken uses this to symbolize the passing of womanhood from mother to daughter, which helps bring her to the above insight.

How to Write a Narrative Essay in 5 Steps

No matter the length or subject matter, writing a narrative essay is as easy as these five steps.

1. Generating Narrative Essay Ideas

If you’re not sure what to write about, you’ll want to generate some narrative essay ideas. One way to do this is to look for writing prompts online: Reedsy adds new prompts to their site every week, and we also post writing prompts every Wednesday to our Facebook group .

Taking a step back, it helps to simply think about formative moments in your life. You might a great idea from answering one of these questions:

• When did something alter my worldview, personal philosophy, or political beliefs?
• Who has given me great advice, or helped me lead a better life?
• What moment of adversity did I overcome and grow stronger from?
• What is something that I believe to be very important, that I want other people to value as well?
• What life event of mine do I not yet fully understand?
• What is something I am constantly striving for?
• What is something I’ve taken for granted, but am now grateful for?

Finally, you might be interested in the advice at our article How to Come Up with Story Ideas . The article focuses on fiction writers, but essayists can certainly benefit from these tips as well.

2. Drafting a Narrative Essay Outline

Once you have an idea, you’ll want to flesh it out in a narrative essay outline.

Your outline can be as simple or as complex as you’d like, and it all depends on how long you intend your essay to be. A simple outline can include the following:

• Introduction—usually a relevant anecdote that excites or entices the reader.
• Event 1: What story will I use to uphold my argument?
• Analysis 1: How does this event serve as evidence for my thesis?
• Conclusion: How can I tie these events together? What do they reaffirm about my thesis? And what advice can I then impart on the reader, if any?

One thing that’s missing from this outline is insight. That’s because insight is often unplanned: you realize it as you write it, and the best insight comes naturally to the writer. However, if you already know the insight you plan on sharing, it will fit best within the analysis for your essay, and/or in the essay’s conclusion.

Insight is often unplanned: you realize it as you write it, and the best insight comes naturally to the writer.

Another thing that’s missing from this is research. If you plan on intertwining your essay with research (which many essayists should do!), consider adding that research as its own bullet point under each heading.

For a different, more fiction-oriented approach to outlining, check out our article How to Write a Story Outline .

3. Starting with a Story

Now, let’s tackle the hardest question: how to start a narrative essay?

Most narrative essays begin with a relevant story. You want to draw the reader in right away, offering something that surprises or interests them. And, since the essay is about you and your lived experiences, it makes sense to start your essay with a relevant anecdote.

Think about a story that’s relevant to your thesis, and experiment with ways to tell this story. You can start with a surprising bit of dialogue , an unusual situation you found yourself in, or a beautiful setting. You can also lead your essay with research or advice, but be sure to tie that in with an anecdote quickly, or else your reader might not know where your essay is going.

For examples of this, take a look at any of the narrative essay examples we’ve used in this article.

Theoretically, your thesis statement can go anywhere in the essay. You may have noticed in the previous examples that the thesis statement isn’t always explicit or immediate: sometimes it shows up towards the center of the essay, and sometimes it’s more implied than stated directly.

You can experiment with the placement of your thesis, but if you place your thesis later in the essay, make sure that everything before the thesis is intriguing to the reader. If the reader feels like the essay is directionless or boring, they won’t have a reason to reach your thesis, nor will they understand the argument you’re making.

4. Getting to the Core Truth

With an introduction and a thesis underway, continue writing about your experiences, arguments, and research. Be sure to follow the structure you’ve sketched in your outline, but feel free to deviate from this outline if something more natural occurs to you.

Along the way, you will end up explaining why your experiences matter to the reader. Here is where you can start generating insight. Insight can take the form of many things, but the focus is always to reach a core truth.

Insight might take the following forms:

• Realizations from connecting the different events in your life.
• Advice based on your lived mistakes and experiences.
• Moments where you change your ideas or personal philosophy.
• Richer understandings about life, love, a higher power, the universe, etc.

5. Relentless Editing

With a first draft of your narrative essay written, you can make your essay sparkle in the editing process.

Remember, a first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to exist.

Remember, a first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to exist. Here are some things to focus on in the editing process:

• Clarity: Does every argument make sense? Do my ideas flow logically? Are my stories clear and easy to follow?
• Structure: Does the procession of ideas make sense? Does everything uphold my thesis? Do my arguments benefit from the way they’re laid out in this essay?
• Style: Do the words flow when I read them? Do I have a good mix of long and short sentences? Have I omitted any needless words ?
• Literary Devices: Do I use devices like similes, metaphors, symbols, or juxtaposition? Do these devices help illustrate my ideas?
• Mechanics: Is every word spelled properly? Do I use the right punctuation? If I’m submitting this essay somewhere, does it follow the formatting guidelines?

Your essay can undergo any number of revisions before it’s ready. Above all, make sure that your narrative essay is easy to follow, every word you use matters, and that you come to a deeper understanding about your own life.

Above all, make sure that your narrative essay is easy to follow, every word you use matters, and that you come to a deeper understanding about your own life.

Next Steps for Narrative Essayists

When you have a completed essay, what’s next? You might be interested in submitting to some literary journals . Here’s 24 literary journals you can submit to—we hope you find a great home for your writing!

If you’re looking for additional feedback on your work, feel free to join our Facebook group . You can also take a look at our upcoming nonfiction courses , where you’ll learn the fundamentals of essay writing and make your story even more compelling.

Writing a narrative essay isn’t easy, but you’ll find that the practice can be very rewarding. You’ll learn about your lived experiences, come to deeper conclusions about your personal philosophies, and perhaps even challenge the way you approach life. So find some paper, choose a topic, and get writing—the world is waiting for your story!

Sean Glatch

Thanks for a superbly efficient and informative article…

We’re glad it was helpful, Mary!

Very helpful,, Thanks!!!

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Publishing Insights

From writing & publishing advice to author interviews, the FriesenPress Blog is where you'll find industry-leading insights on all facets of self-publishing.

How to Start Writing Your First Nonfiction Book

Writing a nonfiction book begins with an idea. The author identifies a problem that needs solving, a story that must be told or an issue that is begging for exposure. A light bulb goes on and suddenly you realize, “I could write a book about this!” Then what?

As a book-writing coach I’m often contacted by first-time authors who don’t know how to start writing their book. Budding writers get stalled for many reasons, and it sometimes happens before a single word is put on the page. They don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, fearing it will poison their entire effort. Or they are brimming with a plethora of possibilities but they struggle to pick the right one and run with it. 

Here are 6 tips to help you get started writing your first nonfiction book:

1. Write Your First Sentence

There’s only one way to go wrong at the beginning of your first book: not writing at all. The most important thing is to start. However imperfect your first words may appear, the fact that those words exist is what matters most. You don’t have to show them to anyone. You will certainly revise those words during a rewrite. You might delete them completely. Perfection is not the point. The goal is to start. 

Today you can write your first sentence. Tomorrow turn that sentence into a paragraph. Stop thinking about your book and start writing it. Next week is not a better time to begin. Don’t wait for vacation to have that huge block of free time you think you need to start your book. Writing requires momentum more than inspiration, and there’s only one way to get momentum going: by writing.

2. Count Words Not Minutes

I have a friend who is a successful painter. He treats his artistic career like a 9-to-5 job. Neil sits down to work, and he stays in his seat for eight hours, no matter what. Some days he paints very little. He just stares at his canvas. Neil doesn’t mind if nothing gets done. He puts in his time, and tomorrow might be more productive. His paintings have been shown in some of the most prestigious galleries in New York City; his work sells for thousands of dollars. Each piece will get finished as long as he sits at his desk everyday for eight hours. Neil counts minutes, and it works. 

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But first time authors can struggle to find the time to write. They are often juggling a full-time job and family responsibilities. I once coached a psychologist on his first book. He and his wife had just moved to a new city. He had opened a new practice and taken a second job at a college, all while they prepared for the imminent arrival of twin boys. I told him to count words because he didn’t have minutes to spare. Even if he wrote fifty words in a day, it was a step closer to finishing his book. 

If you start writing your nonfiction book by counting the number of words you produce, you’ll feel progress every day. You’ll stay inspired. Eventually, a routine will appear. You will notice when and where to find the minutes you need to complete the words that you’re counting. Don’t let your schedule get in the way of starting your book. Count words not minutes.

3. Write for a Designated Reader

In the Netflix series Designated Survivor, Kiefer Sutherland is selected to become President of the United States should tragedy strike and wipe out the entire line of succession. Of course, that is exactly what happens during the State of the Union address. America ends up with Kiefer’s character, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as the unlikely Commander-In-Chief. He saves the day because he was selected in advance. A “Designated Reader” can do the same for your book.

The temptation with a nonfiction book is to write for the world. Many authors, not just first-timers, think that their book will benefit everyone who reads it. That might even be true. But the problem is that “everyone” will not pick up your book. Only a select few will even hear about the publication. Then they must decide if it is interesting enough to purchase. Finally, they have to actually read it from cover to cover. “Everyone” is not going to do that. But “someone” will. Write for that person. 

The idea is to designate a real human being to represent the amalgam of individuals that might find your work interesting and beneficial. This makes beginning your book less daunting because you’re not trying to reach the mysterious multitudes, just the barista at your favourite coffee shop. You don’t have to know this person well. You can simply imagine what their life might be like and build a profile of their needs and challenges so that you can write your book for their unique benefit. 

The added bonus of your Designated Reader is that this focus can help you land a publishing deal down the line. The last thing a potential publisher wants to hear from a nonfiction author is that their book will appeal to “everyone.” Publishers know that only “someones” buy books. Start writing with that one reader in mind.

4. Don’t Let Facts Get in the Way

I’m probably going to get into trouble for this tip. I can hear the complaints already, “With all the fake news out there, why would a successful book coach counsel such blatant disregard for the truth?” The answer is very simple—it works. 

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New authors often get stuck in the research phase of their book. They spend months, even years, developing resources to beef up the factuality of their first publication. Feeling the need to boost their own credibility, they overdo the investigation to the point that it stalls their writing before it even starts. Don’t worry about lawsuits or angry tweets about the inaccuracies in your book before you’ve even started writing it. Your interview on CNN is still a few years away. There’s lots of time to get your facts straight before Wolf Blitzer starts asking you tough questions on live TV.

If you think something is true, then write as if you’re correct. You can go back later when you need a breather and verify your assumption. It’s a great way to take a break from writing, and it will give you new insights to expand upon. Fact checking is an essential step in the latter stages of a nonfiction book. For now, writing without concern for veracity keeps the creativity going. It will also force you to conduct deeper research later on to prove your point if you’re really committed to it. When you’re starting to write your book, don’t let the facts slow you down. You need to write. You can always research later and revise accordingly.

5. Stick to the Same Structure in Every Chapter

When I sat down to write my first book, I had no idea how to begin. So I copied a format from a motivational speech I’d given hundreds of times on the same subject as the book. It worked great for the first chapter. Then I was stuck again. So I repeated the very same format in every chapter. Fast forward a few years and Shifting Sands had sold over one hundred thousand copies. Not bad for a first book.

I began every chapter with a quote that touched on the subject matter. Then I told a story from my journey across the Sahara Desert that formed the foundation of the book itself. Next, I wrote a lesson I’d learned from that particular experience and linked it to real life. Finally, I divided the rest of the chapter into three subheadings that dove deeper into ways of applying the self-help and leadership lessons.

It was a pretty simple format. But it freed me from having to figure out how to organize every subsequent chapter. My creativity actually increased the more I built a container to operate within. It seems counter-intuitive but it works. Most art operates that way. Visual artists, such as painters, use a canvas. My friend Neil makes paintings that can be as small as six inches wide. Everything has to fit in that tiny space. The work must be contained within that boundary.

Your chapter structure can be anything you like. But whatever it is—stick to it. Once the words are flowing and the chapters are piling up, you might decide to tweak your organizing system. You can change the format later if it feels stiff or formulaic. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. But even then, make sure all chapters follow the repeating configuration that you eventually settle upon.

6. Write a Book Proposal

The first five tips are designed to get your writing started. They are all focused on helping real words get typed up, words that could someday be part of your book. This final tip heads in another direction, but it could make all the difference. 

Whether you're beginning your first draft or surveying your publishing options, our resources for writers will help move your book forward.

Unlike novels, which must be written in their entirety, nonfiction books are purchased by publishers from a book proposal. Developing that document could be exactly how you should begin your book journey, even if you have already decided to self-publish your work. Self-publishing is easy, cost effective , and can produce a quality of publication that rivals the big publishing houses in New York and Toronto. The majority of the authors I coach end up self-publishing their books. But many of them also write book proposals in the early stages of their project.

A nonfiction book proposal forces the author to make decisions about their book before they write it. You need to know the title, the subtitle, what the chapters are about, and—most importantly—who the audience is for your book. You must research your competition and compare your effort to similar books already in circulation. You must describe what makes your book unique, and how it will fill a need for your readers. You have to create a marketing plan that demonstrates how you, the author, will promote your own book. It’s a big job, but the benefits are substantial.

I will often give authors feedback on a book proposal much like an agent or publisher would so that they can improve their approach as they get started. When your proposal is finished, you will have battle-tested your idea. You’ll know where the weak points and strong points are. There won’t be a lot of guesswork about what the book will look like when it’s finished. All that remains is the writing itself.

My favourite reason for writing a proposal brings us back to the beginning of this blog post. All nonfiction book proposals must include several fully finished sample chapters. So you see, to complete your book proposal, you still have to start writing words, sentences, and paragraphs. There’s no way around it. Starting to write a book means just that—start writing.

Steve Donahue is a professional speaker, book coach, and the author of two bestselling nonfiction books. His works have sold over 100,000 copies and have been translated into Korean, Turkish, Russian and Greek. Steve helps new and experienced authors turn their book ideas into well-crafted publications that delight readers and inspire change. To learn more, visit his website at MyBookCoach.ca .

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Nonfiction Writing Tips: How to Tell a True Story in a Creative Way

by Tim McConnehey ( @izzardink )

Successful nonfiction writing calls for more than just conveying information to your reader. Not only do you need to know how to deliver that information, but your writing should also be clear and easy to read. And just because you’re writing nonfiction doesn’t mean you shouldn’t engage your reader with a gripping story and impactful language. These nonfiction writing tips will help you steer clear of some of the most common mistakes made by nonfiction authors, who may think that all they have to do is present the facts.

Nonfiction Writing Tips

Ask yourself "why are you writing who are you writing for".

• Remember that you still need to tell a story

Draw in your readers

Use emotional, impactful language, start with an outline, learn from your favorite fiction.

If you only follow one nonfiction writing tip, it should probably be this one. According to The Creative Penn, the single most common mistake among nonfiction authors is failing to identify the reason they’re writing the book in the first place. Besides wanting to write a profitable bestselling book , why are you choosing to write about your topic? What is it you want to say, and perhaps most importantly, who is the audience you’re hoping to reach? Imagine the ideal reader for your book, and exactly what you hope they will get out of reading it.

Choosing too wide of an audience can make it harder to cater to their interests with your writing, but choosing too narrow an audience can, of course, make it hard to find readers for your book. You’ll want to have this figured out before you start writing, but it’s also information you’ll use to market your book later on. So take the time to figure out your mission in writing your nonfiction book, and keep your target audience in mind as you write.

Remember you still need to tell a story

Many nonfiction authors may believe that narrative structure isn’t necessary for a nonfiction book. Instead of simply listing a series of facts or events, successful nonfiction tells a story. In its most basic form, this can mean a three-part structure, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end.

It can include characters , and character development. You can even utilize dialogue. For example, if you’re writing a book about a certain period of history, you’ll probably want to identify a core set of characters that drove the events in question. A book about the American Revolution will be much more interesting if it takes the time to paint a portrait of Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams, than if it simply describes a series of events and battles.

In fact, telling the story through their eyes is a great way to get the reader absorbed in your narrative, and add a humanizing element to the facts , while also giving you an opportunity to describe the events or information.

You might assume every reader that picks up your book has already decided to spend money and time to learn about the topic you’re writing about. In some cases, this might be true. But your opening is your chance not only to convince them your topic is worth reading about, but that you’re the best author from whom to learn about it. Once again, this is a cue that nonfiction writers can take from the most successful fiction writing.

This can mean starting with an anecdote, a surprising fact, or posing a question for your audience to consider. The idea is to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read more.

Aspiring nonfiction authors might believe that drama and emotion are best left to fiction writers. They might also simply believe they don’t need to think much about word choice. But the right language can bring drama, suspense, and tension to whatever story you’re trying to tell, whether it’s fiction or not.

Successful nonfiction books don’t read like an academic paper or a textbook. They use simple, impactful language that the average reader can understand and appreciate. It’s the difference between saying “the situation worsened after collapse of stock prices in 1929” and saying “life for Americans turned desperate after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.”

By laying out this outline or a table of contents first, you can make sure the structure of the book and the sequence of information holds up well. Sorting this out first will allow you to be sure of the order before you start working on transitioning between chapters and how your ideas connect. 

If there’s a pattern in these nonfiction writing tips, it’s that nonfiction writers can learn a lot from great fiction writing. Most tips for fiction writing can and should be used in nonfiction writing. Like fiction writers, nonfiction writers will appeal to readers by paying close attention to word choice, narrative structure, and characters.

Knowing your goals and your audience and telling your story on a human-level, using captivating language and character development, will build the best foundation for an engaging story that will both educate and entertain readers while establishing you as a reliable authority on your subject.

As Mark Twain said:

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” 

Tim McConnehey is the founder and owner of Izzard Ink Publishing where “self-publishing does not mean publishing by yourself.” As a collaborative publisher, Tim and the Izzard Ink team have helped authors sell hundreds of thousands of books around the world, including partnering with local publishers on four continents.

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50 Creative Nonfiction Prompts Guaranteed to Inspire

But not to worry. I present one whole hefty list of prompts just for creative nonfiction writers.

One small note before you dive in: don’t be afraid to mix and match the prompts. Each suggestion was meant to highlight a specific line of inspiration. There is absolutely no reason that two or three of these can’t be explored within one piece.

In fact, just use my tiny suggestions as springboards. Good luck!

1. Explore a scene or story from your memory by reimagining it from an alternate perspective. Write the event from the point of view of a passing bystander, another person close to the event, a pet, or even an inanimate object. When choosing your narrator, pay attention to how objective they would have been, what they would have paid attention to, and what sort of background knowledge they would have had about the scene.

2. Tell the nonfiction story that you don’t want your mother to read. You know the one. Don’t censor yourself.

3. Recall a moment in which you felt a strong spiritual or unidentifiable energy. Describe the scene in vivid detail, with special attention to the senses. Connect that scene to your relationship with your own religious beliefs or lack thereof. Examine how you incorporated that experience into your worldview.

4. Create a timeline of events depicting your life by using newspaper headlines. Try to focus on events that didn’t involve you directly, but connect them to the pivotal events in your life.

5. Tell the story of one of your family holiday gatherings. Identify any of your family’s common trademarks, such as your one aunt that seems to tell the same joke at every Christmas, or your two uncles that always hide from the rest of the family by doing the dishes. Explore how you are linked within this family dynamic, and how these little quirks evolved and changed over the years.

6. Tell the story of a location. Possibly one that is very close to your heart that you already know well, or a new one that inspires your curiosity. Pay particular attention to your own connection to the location, however small or large that connection may be.

7. Choose a location that you’ve come to know as an adult. Compare how you interact with this setting now to how you interacted with similar settings when you were a child. How has your perspective changed?

8. Describe a time in which you expected or wanted to feel a religious or spiritual moment, but couldn’t. What were you hoping would happen? How do you choose to interpret that?

9. Recall a key lesson that parents or family members tried to impart onto you as a child. For example: “live with a healthy mind and healthy body,” or “put others before yourself.” Revisit that lesson as an adult and connect it to how you have come to interpret it as you grew up or in your adult life. Feel free to pick a less serious lesson and have a little bit of fun with it.

10. Revisit a special birthday from when you were younger. Describe specific details, with emphasis upon the senses. Now that you have years of context, how do you feel about what your parents and family did or did not do for you? What does that event mean to you now?

11. Choose an event in your life that someone else remembers differently. Describe both memories and debate the differences. Who do you think is right? Why do you think you remember it differently?

12. Choose a strong emotion and think of two memories associated with it. What are the links between those two memories?

13. Think of a lesson you learned recently and apply it to a memory. How would your behavior have changed if you had applied the lesson back then?

14. Choose a commonplace or otherwise unremarkable memory and describe it in the most dramatic and absurd way possible. For inspiration, I’m leaving you with some quotes from Douglas Adams. “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” “He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.” “It was a deep, hollow malevolent voice which sounded like molten tar glurping out of a drum with evil on its mind.”

15. Have you seen those bizarre Illuminati videos in which some automated voice tries to prove that Arch Duke Ferdinand is actually alive and has a monopoly on the world’s dairy farms? For this prompt, think of people in your life who have believed in crazy conspiracy theories, and write about the time they first shared them with you. Think of how your beliefs might seem naïve to them, and explore the tension between the competing versions of history.

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

16. What do you want more than anything in your life? Write about the burning hot core of your desire, and how that desire has changed over your life.

17. Recall what stressed you out most as a child. Was it the creaking stairs leading to the basement? Or being lost at the store? Explore your current relationship to that stressor. Did you ever move past that fear or anxiety? How do you interact with it now?

18. What relationship in your life has caused the most pain? Write the key scene in that relationship, when everything was at stake.

19. Write about a road trip you took, and about where all your fellow travelers ended up in life versus where you ended up. Are you glad you didn’t end up where they did, or are you jealous?

20. How has your identity changed over the course of your life? Write a scene from your teenage years that epitomizes the type of person you were, and then write a scene from recent life that shows how you’ve changed.

21. What event in your life has angered you the most? Write the scene where it happened, and tell us what you would do if it happened again.

22. What single experience most shaped who you are? Describe the experience in a single, vivid scene.

23. Who was your first friend to die? Write about how you learned of their death, and how you and their other friends mourned them.

24. Choose a happy or comfortable memory and write it in a way that makes the memory creepy or eerie to the reader. Don’t change the basic facts of the event, only select different facts and present them differently.

25. Show yourself in a scene pursuing the thing you want most in the world. Try to show the reader, without telling them, about your character flaws.

26. If you could throw five items into the fire, what would they be and why? To be clear, by throwing them in this fire, there would be no trace of them left anywhere, even if it’s something on the Internet or a memory. This is a very powerful fire. What would the consequences be?

27. What physical object or family heirloom ties together your grandparents, your parents, and yourself? Describe this object in great detail, and what it has meant to generations of your family.

This is seriously the best anthology out there for creative nonfiction.   

Lee Gutkind and Annie Dillard have created a fantastic repository of classics.

In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction

28. Tell a story from your life in inverted chronological order. Start with the end, then backpedal to the middle, then tell the beginning, and then fill in the rest of the gaps.

29. Write about your favorite trip or journey, and how that high level of happiness was eventually threatened.

30. Look at some photographs of your childhood. Look at the pictures of your old room, the clothes you wore, and the places you had been. Try to remember a friend from that time period, and describe the first memory of a time when they pressured you or made you uncomfortable or angry.

31. Take a small, boring moment that happened today and write as much as you can about it. Go overboard describing it, and make this boring moment exciting by describing it in intense detail with ecstatic prose. Eventually connect this small, boring detail with the grand narrative of your life, your bigger purpose and intentions.

32. Describe the best meal you ever ate. Then describe a conflict you had with the people you shared it with, one that happened before, during, or after.

33. Recall an individual that you particularly hated. Describe their cruelty to you, and try to write yourself into an understanding of why they might have done it.

34. What was the best/worst letter you ever received or wrote? Write about the situation surrounding that letter, and why it was so important.

35. Recall a name you’ve given to a toy, a car, a pet, or a child, and tell us the story of how you and your family selected that name. Who fought over the name? What was the significance of that name? What happened to the animal or thing you named?

36. Write about experiencing the craziest natural event you’ve ever seen — tornado, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane. Dramatize the physical danger of the natural event as well as the tension between you and the people you were with.

37. Tell the story of the most important person that has shaped your town and its culture (you might have to do some research). How did the activity of that person  influence the way you grew up or live currently?

How do you find good creative nonfiction stories?    

This book masterfully teaches you how to discover the stories others will want to hear.

Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life

38. Scientists have wondered for years how nature and nurture plays into the development of human minds and their choices. Explore where you and your siblings are today and the choices that brought you there. Would you like to trade places with your sibling? Would you be happy living in their shoes? How have your personal choices differed over the years?

39. Write a scene of a time when someone older than you gave you advice, and write about how you followed it or ignored it and the consequences.

40. Write a single, three-paragraph scene when your sexual desire was thwarted by yourself or someone else.

41. Describe a scene when you were stereotyping someone. Did someone challenge you, or if you only felt guilty by yourself, how did you change your behavior afterwards?

42. Describe the biggest epiphany of your life, then backtrack and tell the lead-up to that scene or the aftermath. In the lead-up or aftermath, show how the epiphany was either overrated or every bit as valuable as you’d previously thought.

43. Write about a fork in the road in your life, and how you made the decision to go the direction you did.

44. Explore an addiction you had or currently have. Whether the addiction is as serious as alcohol or cigarettes, or something much more mundane like texting, video games, or internet usage, describe in vivid detail the first time you tried it. If you quit, tell the story of how you quit.

45. Recall a scene in which you chose to remain silent. Whether it was your boss’s racist rant, or just an argument not worth having, explore the scene and why you chose not to speak.

46. Revisit a moment in your life that you feel you will never be able to forget. What about that moment made it so unforgettable?

47. What makes you feel guilty? Revisit a moment that you are ashamed of or feel guilty for and explore why that is. Describe the scene and the event and communicate why you feel this way.

48. Write about a moment in which you acted selflessly or against your own benefit. What motivated you to do so? What were the circumstances? How did you feel after words?

49. Write about the most pivotal scene in a relationship with someone in your extended family — Uncle, aunt, cousin, grandmother. Describe the tension or happiness you shared, and how that came to affect your relationship from that point onward.

50. If all else fails, try a writing-sprint. Set an alarm for 5, 10, or 15 minutes and write as much as possible within that time span. Even if you begin with no inspiration, you might be surprised with what you come up with by the end.

The definitive guide to creating riveting true life stories.     

Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction

For added pressure, try these writing websites:

• Write Or Die

If you stop writing for more than 5 seconds, everything you’ve written disappears. It’s like writing with someone with a whip behind your chair. But with this new update you can choose to get positive reinforcements, too, like a kitten or candy, or to have your words disemvoweled rather than disappear.

A points-based system to encourage writers to write 750 words every single day. You get bonus points for not skipping days, and bonus points for writing more than 750 words.

• Written? Kitten!

Every 100 words you write, you get shown a picture of a kitten. Ah, simple motivation. No word whether a dog version of the site is in the works for those who are more dog people.

For more on creative nonfiction writing, I suggest Creative Nonfiction . This website works with its print magazine counterpart to specifically cater to creative nonfiction writers and operates as an excellent starting point for more inspiration. Happy writing!

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Thank you for adding Written Kitten to the list, Bridget! We have bunnies and dogs now!

Thank you for this. Very helpful for a useless person like me

Stfu, you are amazing, and no one in this entire universe is useless, except for me, so love yourself.

This is super awesome & I am so happy to have some new ideas… creative block has been beyond bad. this is what I have needed to start unclogging it!

do you have topics i can write about

This is very helpful!

I am searching for non-fiction writing topics

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

199+ Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts to Spark Your Creativity

Have you ever found yourself staring at a blank page, wondering how to start writing? Whether you're a seasoned creative nonfiction writer, filmmaker , aspiring memoirist, or someone looking to explore your own experiences through writing, the right prompt can be the key to unlocking your creative potential.

This extensive collection of nonfiction writing prompts delves into the art of telling true stories. From recollecting personal experiences with as much detail as possible, exploring the depths of your unique life journey, to even describing an inanimate object with a special meaning, these prompts are designed to challenge and inspire you.

A long list of Nonfiction Writing Prompts

1.  Describe your first memory in as much detail as possible.

2.  Write about a road trip you took and how it changed your perspective.

3.  Describe a moment when you overcame writer's block.

4.  Share the story of your favorite childhood pet.

5.  Write a personal essay about a significant family history event.

6.  Describe an inanimate object in your home that holds special meaning.

7.  Share a true story about a misunderstanding that led to an unexpected friendship.

8.  Write about a time you faced your biggest fear.

9.  Share a personal experience that challenged your religious beliefs.

10.  Describe a moment in your life that felt like a scene from a movie .

11.  Write about your own experience with learning a new skill or hobby.

12.  Share a detailed account of your most memorable holiday.

13.  Write about a historical event you wish you had witnessed.

14.  Describe a significant moment in your life from the perspective of someone else who was there.

15.  Write a personal story about a lesson you learned the hard way.

16.  Share an experience of doing something for the first time.

17.  Write about a moment when you felt completely at peace.

18.  Describe an experience where you unexpectedly helped someone.

19.  Write about a conversation that changed your life.

20.  Share a story about a time when you felt misunderstood.

21.  Write about a moment when you had to make a difficult decision.

22.  Describe a day in your life from ten years ago.

23.  Write about a memorable encounter with a stranger.

24.  Share a story about overcoming a difficult challenge.

25.  Write about a time you were inspired by art.

26.  Share your experience with a random act of kindness.

27.  Write a narrative creative nonfiction piece about a significant event in your community.

28.  Describe a moment when you realized you had grown up.

29.  Write about a tradition in your family and its origins.

30.  Share a personal essay about a turning point in your life.

31.  Write about an experience that made you see the world differently.

32.  Describe a moment when you achieved something you didn't think was possible.

33.  Write about your relationship with a parent or guardian.

34.  Share a story about when you got lost and what you discovered.

35.  Write about a decision that changed the course of your life.

36.  Describe a moment of unexpected joy.

37.  Write about a time when you had to be brave.

38.  Share a story about a misunderstanding that taught you an important lesson.

39.  Write about your first experience with love.

40.  Describe when you had to say goodbye to someone important.

41.  Write about a moment when you felt utterly alone.

42.  Share a story about a time you were underestimated.

43.  Write about a significant event in your childhood.

44.  Describe a day you wish you could relive.

45.  Write about a person who has significantly influenced your life.

46.  Share a story about a time you were incredibly embarrassed.

47.  Write about a moment when you felt triumphant.

48.  Describe a time when you had to apologize.

49.  Write about a physical or metaphorical journey you've taken.

50.  Share a story about a moment that made you question everything.

51.  Write about an experience that taught you about forgiveness.

52.  Describe a time when you were faced with a moral dilemma.

53.  Write about a chance encounter that left a lasting impression.

54.  Share a story about a time you felt out of place.

55.  Write about a tradition in your culture and its significance.

56.  Describe an experience that tested your resilience.

57.  Write about a time when you had to start over.

58.  Share a personal essay about finding happiness in simple things.

59.  Write about an experience that made you appreciate your life.

60.  Describe a moment when you realized the importance of family.

61.  Write about a time when you had to stand up for what you believe in.

62.  Share a story about an unexpected act of kindness you received.

63.  Write about a moment that defined your character .

64.  Describe a time when you witnessed a historical event.

65.  Write about a person who inspired you to change your life.

66.  Share a story about when you felt a strong connection to nature.

67.  Write about an experience that taught you about empathy.

68.  Describe a time when you had to confront your fears.

69.  Write about a moment that took your breath away.

70.  Share a personal story about a challenge you're still facing.

71.  Write about a time when you had to forgive someone.

72.  Describe a moment when you felt truly alive.

73.  Write about an experience that shaped your worldview.

74.  Share a story about a time you made a difficult choice.

75.  Write about when you realized your parents are just people.

76.  Describe a time when you helped someone in need.

77.  Write about an experience that taught you about patience.

78.  Share a story about a time you were surprised by your own strength.

79.  Write about a moment when you experienced a cultural shock.

80.  Describe a time when you had to adapt to a new environment.

81.  Write about a significant event in your personal history.

82.  Share a story about an experience that changed your perspective on life.

83.  Write about a time when you learned a valuable lesson from a child.

84.  Describe a moment that restored your faith in humanity.

85.  Write about a personal experience with nature that left a lasting impression.

86.  Share a story about a time you took a risk that paid off.

87.  Write about a moment you had to let go of something important.

88.  Describe a time when you were truly content.

89.  Write about an experience that made you rethink your career path.

90.  Share a story about when you realized the importance of self-care.

91.  Write about a moment when you witnessed an act of true courage.

92.  Describe a time when you unexpectedly made a new friend.

93.  Write about an experience that tested your limits.

94.  Share a personal essay about a journey of self-discovery.

95.  Write about when you had to confront a personal weakness.

96.  Describe a moment of luck in your life.

97.  Write about an experience that taught you about the power of words.

98.  Share a story about when you felt connected to your ancestors.

99.  Write about a moment when you realized the value of honesty.

100.  Describe a time when you had to rebuild something in your life.

101.  Write about an experience that taught you the meaning of perseverance.

102.  Share a story about a conversation that opened your eyes to a new perspective.

103.  Write about a time when a book significantly impacted your life.

104.  Describe a moment when you had to defend your beliefs.

105.  Write about an experience that brought you closer to a family member.

106.  Share a personal essay about overcoming a health challenge.

107.  Write about a moment you felt connected to a place you visited.

108.  Describe an experience where you had to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

109.  Write about a time when you found joy in an unexpected place.

110.  Share a story about a moment when you felt completely out of your comfort zone.

111.  Write about an experience that taught you the importance of listening.

112.  Describe a time when you witnessed a small act of heroism.

113.  Write about a moment when you had to take a stand for someone else.

114.  Share a story about an experience that taught you the value of teamwork.

115.  Write about a time when you had to navigate a difficult conversation.

116.  Describe an experience that made you appreciate the present moment.

117.  Write about a personal journey towards a significant goal.

118.  Share a story about a time you learned something new about yourself.

119.  Write about an experience that showed you the strength of your community.

120.  Describe a moment when you had to overcome a language barrier.

121.  Write about a time when you had to rely on your intuition.

122.  Share a personal essay about an encounter that left a lasting impression.

123.  Write about a moment when you had to challenge societal norms.

124.  Describe an experience that taught you about the complexity of human emotions.

125.  Write about a time when you had to reconcile with your past.

126.  Share a story about an experience that made you question your career choices.

127.  Write about a moment when you found clarity in a confusing situation.

128.  Describe an experience that taught you the value of silence.

129.  Write about a time when someone's humility inspired you.

130.  Share a story about a moment when you had to advocate for yourself.

131.  Write about an experience that taught you the importance of balance in life.

132.  Describe a time when you had to deal with a significant change.

133.  Write about a moment when you realized the power of kindness.

134.  Share a personal essay about a time you had to navigate through a loss.

135.  Write about an experience that taught you about resilience.

136.  Describe a time when you found beauty in an ordinary moment.

137.  Write about a moment when you had to confront your own prejudices.

138.  Share a story about an experience that made you value simplicity.

139.  Write about a time when you had to make an ethical decision.

140.  Describe an experience that taught you the importance of cultural awareness.

141.  Write about a moment when you realized the importance of self-reflection.

142.  Share a personal essay about a time you had to adapt to a significant life change.

143.  Write about an experience that made you appreciate the arts.

144.  Describe a time when you were deeply moved by music.

145.  Write about a moment when you had to face the consequences of your actions.

146.  Share a story about a time you had to navigate through a conflict.

147.  Write about an experience that made you question traditional beliefs.

148.  Describe a moment when you realized the importance of your heritage.

149.  Write about a time when you had to confront a personal challenge.

150.  Share a story about an experience that made you value education.

151.  - Write an essay about a moment when you had to choose between two paths.

152.  Describe an experience that taught you about the power of determination.

153.  Write about a time when you felt a strong sense of belonging.

154.  Share a personal essay about an encounter that changed your worldview.

155.  Write about an experience that showed you the importance of honesty in relationships.

156.  Describe a time when you were inspired by the success of others.

157.  Write about a moment when you had to overcome an internal struggle.

158.  Share a story about a time you found strength in vulnerability.

159.  Write about an experience that taught you the value of hard work.

160.  Describe a moment when you had to face the reality of a situation.

161.  Write about a time when you witnessed the power of human will.

162.  Share a personal essay about an experience that made you reconsider your priorities.

163.  Write about a moment when you realized the importance of mental health.

164.  Describe an experience that made you value the small things in life.

165.  Write about a time when you had to navigate through a major life transition.

166.  Share a story about a moment when an experience humbled you.

167.  Write about an experience that taught you the importance of empathy in communication.

168.  Describe a time when you had to confront an injustice.

169.  Write about a moment when you felt deeply connected to someone from a different background.

170.  Share a personal essay about an encounter that left you with more questions than answers.

171.  Write about an experience that taught you the value of patience and perseverance.

172.  Describe a time when you had to advocate for a cause you believe in.

173.  Write about a moment when you realized the impact of your actions on others.

174.  Share a story about a time you found meaning in an unexpected place.

175.  Write about an experience that showed you the diversity of human experience.

176.  Describe a moment when you had to stand up against peer pressure.

177.  Write about a time when the resilience of someone close to you inspired you.

178.  Share a personal essay about a journey towards self-acceptance.

179.  Write about an experience that taught you the importance of self-care and boundaries.

180.  Describe a time when you had to navigate through a complex emotional situation.

181.  Write about a moment when you realized the importance of forgiveness.

182.  Share a story about a time you had to make a tough decision for your well-being.

183.  Write about an experience that made you appreciate the complexity of human relationships.

184.  Describe a moment when you had to reconcile with someone from your past.

185.  Write about a time when you realized the importance of honest communication.

186.  Share a personal essay about an experience that taught you the value of compromise.

187.  Write about an experience that challenged your perspective on a societal issue.

188.  Describe a moment when you had to adapt to a new cultural environment.

189.  Write about when you had to balance your personal and professional life.

190.  Share a short story about a moment that made you appreciate the beauty of nature.

191.  Write about an experience that taught you the importance of community support.

192.  Describe a time when you had to confront a personal bias.

193.  Write about a moment when you realized the importance of self-expression.

194.  Share a personal essay about an experience that made you question your life path.

195.  Write about a time when you had to deal with a significant loss.

196.  Describe an experience that made you understand the importance of mental wellness.

197.  Write about a moment when you realized the value of being present in the moment.

198.  Share a story about inspiration or a time someone's creativity inspired you.

199.  Write about what happened in an experience that made you appreciate the complexities of human nature.

200.  Describe a moment when you had to find inner strength during a difficult time.

201.  Write about a time when you learned something valuable from a challenging experience.

In conclusion, this collection of nonfiction writing prompts is more than just a tool for battling writer's block. It's a treasure chest of gateways to self-exploration and creative expression.

As you navigate through these prompts, remember that each written piece reflects your perspective, history, and voice. Your stories, whether a short narrative, a detailed memoir, or a personal essay, are not just written words; they are the echoes of your journey, resonating with the experiences and emotions that shape who you are.

So grab a pen, open your heart, and let these prompts guide you in capturing the essence of your reality in the most creative ways possible.

Happy writing!

Frequently Asked Questions About Nonfiction Writing Prompts (FAQs)

What are nonfiction writing prompts.

Nonfiction writing prompts are creative catalysts that ignite your imagination to write about actual events, experiences, or concepts. They're designed to spark new ideas, helping writers of all skill levels to start writing about something tangible and true.

How Can Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts Enhance My Writing Skills?

Creative nonfiction writing prompts challenge you to explore real-life events with a creative lens. They help improve your descriptive abilities, narrative skills, and the art of weaving personal experiences into compelling stories.

What's the Difference Between Nonfiction Writing and Creative Nonfiction?

Nonfiction writing focuses on factual and informational content, whereas creative nonfiction combines accurate reporting with literary techniques to tell a true story more engagingly and artistically.

I'm Experiencing Writer's Block. How Can Nonfiction Prompts Help My Writing Process?

Nonfiction prompts can break the block by providing a starting point. They can trigger memories, opinions, or thoughts on a topic, making it easier to get the words flowing.

Can I Use Nonfiction Prompts for Writing a Personal Essay or Memoir?

Absolutely! Prompts that ask you to reflect on personal experiences, childhood memories, or even a significant event are perfect for crafting personal essays or memoirs.

Are There Any Prompts for Writing About Inanimate Objects with Special Meaning?

Yes! Some prompts encourage you to write about an object in your life that holds special meaning, allowing you to explore its history and the reasons it's significant to you.

How Can I Use Creative Nonfiction Prompts to Write About My Travels, Like a Road Trip?

Travel-oriented prompts can help you recount your adventures. They can guide you to describe the places, the people, and even the emotions you experienced during your road trips or travels.

How Important is Detail in Narrative Nonfiction Writing?

Detail is crucial in nonfiction writing. It helps bring your story to life, providing the readers with a vivid picture of the events or experiences you're describing.

Can Nonfiction Writing Include Stories About My Family or Pets?

Nonfiction writing often includes personal stories about family members, childhood experiences, or pets. These stories can offer a deep, relatable, and sometimes poignant view into your life.

What If My Nonfiction Writing Involves Sensitive Topics Like Religion or Personal Beliefs?

Writing about sensitive topics requires tact and respect. It's essential to present your beliefs or experiences honestly while considering the diverse perspectives of your readers.

Any Tips for Beginning Creative Nonfiction Writers Who Want to Start Writing Nonfiction?

Start by writing about a moment or event from your past, using as much detail as possible. Reflect on your experiences, the people involved, and your emotions. This can be a great way to dip your toes into the world of nonfiction writing.

How Can I Find the Best Nonfiction Writing Prompts For My Writing Practice?

Look for prompts that resonate with your experiences or interests. The best prompts challenge you creatively while allowing you to explore and articulate your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

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How to Write Literary Nonfiction

By CS Rajan

Literary nonfiction is a little difficult to define. Also called creative nonfiction, narrative nonfiction and literary journalism, this genre is essentially about describing the real world in a compelling and interesting manner.

It is a broad and expansive genre that encompasses different types of writing such as memoirs, personal essays, lyric essays, literary journalism, articles, and even research papers. The purpose of literary nonfiction is to make true stories and nonfiction content as interesting and engaging as possible by using literary devices. Settings, character development, tone and voice are all essential tools that are common in both literary nonfiction and fiction. However, in literary nonfiction, these tools are used to enhance the real world instead of a fantasy world.

Literary or creative nonfiction has recently gained in popularity among magazine and book publishers due several highly popular literary nonfictions books released

Some of the ways you can begin your literary nonfiction adventure are:

1. Read literary nonfiction

The best way to understand the unique world of literary nonfiction books is to read as many of them as possible. Blending creative writing with real facts is an art which needs some perfecting. Reading some of the greats in this area can help you to achieve this fine balance. There are many wonderful nonfiction books which are a far cry from the typical dull, dry, and fact-based nonfiction books. Some examples of popular literary nonfiction books are: The Glass Castle, Unbroken, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, The Botany of Desire, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Eat, Pray, Love.

2. Writing memoirs

Memoir writing is a great way to learn to use the creative tools to enhance a real story. Not to be confused with autobiographies , memoirs are lively and interesting stories of certain personal experiences, events, phases or stages in your life. A memoir can even be about people or pets who have made a difference in your life. For example, the wildly popular Marley and Me: Life with the world’s craziest dog is a moving true story of a journalist and his crazy but adorable Labrador. The story revolves around the author’s personal life, but the theme of the book is the pet and his influence on the author’s household.

3. Personal essays

A personal essay is similar to a memoir in some ways; however it focuses more on you, your experiences and thoughts, and your opinions. A single topic in your life (an event, an opinion, a viewpoint) is usually the theme of the personal essay. Also, while the memoir style is often narrative, the personal essay is usually non-narrative and takes on a more flowing and descriptive style.

4. Literary journalism

If looking within and writing about yourself makes you uncomfortable, there is a wealth of other topics to write about. Literary journalism involves writing about any actual public event, a person, or even an interview in a creative and narrative or descriptive manner. It essentially means that this is a form of journalism where you are not required to be objective or restrain yourself to reporting the facts. You can include your opinions, use personal examples to illustrate a point and employ any other tools you can think of to make the article engaging and interesting.

Image credit: Ken Hawkins on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0

CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel. 

108 Engaging And Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts

So you want to write a nonfiction book . Good for you! What are you going to write about ?

I know. That question stumps most everyone.

What indeed? Coming up with creative nonfiction ideas isn’t for the faint of heart.

Nonfiction is a big, broad genre of book writing, and narrowing it down to an area in which you have some expertise, background , or interest can be daunting.

And even if you kinda, sorta know what you want to write about , you’re not exactly sure how to begin or how to get your creative juices flowing.

That’s why we’ve created a varied list of nonfiction writing prompts for you — so you can narrow down your choices or pinpoint precisely the type of nonfiction you want to write.

108 Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts

Ready to get started? Read through this list of creative nonfiction ideas, and make a note of any that resonate with you.

Or just start writing about one of the nonfiction prompts and see where it takes you.

If you’ve been wondering, “What are some nonfiction topics I might write about?” then these prompts can help you narrow down ideas for your next book project.

1. You’ve developed a new creative side-hustle, and you have enough business to bring in at least a few hundred (or even thousand) a month.

2. You know how to prepare for a specific kind of disaster, and you want to make others aware not only of the imminent danger of that disaster but how best to prepare for it.

3. The Missing Ingredient: What is one thing most people forget or overlook when making or doing something?

4. This is something most people don’t know about ______.

5. You could be more (or less) ______.

6. You need more _____ in your life.

7. Discontent is not (always) a lack of gratitude. Here’s why.

8. The right music can change everything for you. Here’s how.

9. Swap this for that and see how it changes your life!

10. Be your own devil’s advocate? Why would you want to do that?

11. What on earth does logic have to do with creative writing (or creative anything)?

12. Are your morning/nighttime habits keeping you poor? Or did they for a while?

13. How do you go on after your best friend dies (or leaves you)?

14. What one thing could you add to your workspace to make you happier and more productive?

15. What one thing in your life would you love to change? And what can you do to change it — and help others do the same?

16. Your doc says, “No more alcohol for you!” So, you look for ways to relax without it.

17. You used to take everything personally — thinking everyone was comparing you to someone else.

18. Why do bad things pile up the way they do? And what can you do about it?

19. Why would anyone want to live in < city /state/country>

20. Yeah, your desk is cluttered — and you’re okay with that.

21. Your oldest kid is driving you nuts, and you have to admit your role in that.

22. Your pets have all but destroyed an entire room in your home.

23. So, you want to do something dangerous (skydiving, parasailing, bungee jumping, learning parkour, etc.).

24. You’ve always wanted to travel to ______. How can you afford it, and what do you need to know?

25. Investing is a scary business. How do you even begin?

26. You’re moving, but you can’t find a buyer for your house. Why not rent it out instead — and how do you do that?

27. You have no Christmas budget, but you want to make this Christmas one your kids will remember fondly.

28. You learned something from writing your last book that has changed the way you write them.

29. Everything started to fall into place once you finally narrowed your focus to the kind of writing you really want to do.

30. When you changed this little thing in your diet, you started dropping weight faster than ever before.

31. Something you didn’t know about your body has been working behind the scenes, turning your own efforts against you.

32. Caffeine has always been one of your besties, but now your doc says you have to cut back — or even cut it completely from your diet!

33. Your path from the 9-to-5 job to full-time self-employment hasn’t been like the ones described by the experts whose books you’ve read, but you know you’re not alone.

34. Serendipity is nice and all, but something else is responsible for your success, and you want others to know what that is — and how they can make it work for them.

35. When was the last time you actually kept a New Year’s resolution? How did you keep it, and what difference did it make?

36. How big is your daily to-do list? And what kind of daily planning works for you?

37. What changes have you made to your monthly spending that have made a huge difference for you?

38. Desperation (i.e. lack of money and/or time) made you do it. You learned how to do something yourself, you did it well, and people are saying good things.

39. One of your kids has said, “I don’t read. I have ADHD.” You have ADHD, too, though, and you read plenty. You become determined to find out if something else is going on.

40. Adding this spice to every day’s menu has made a big difference in your health — as well as your enjoyment of cooking.

41. Only when you discovered and addressed a deficiency in a certain nutrient did you begin to feel more energetic, alive, and creative than you remember ever feeling before.

42. Your doctor suggests a new therapy for your condition but warns you that it could damage one of your other organs.

43. No one told you how hard it would be to withdraw from SSRIs (or how long it could take), but through trial and error, you found a way.

44. Everyone around you is telling you to quit taking your SSRI, but you know that — somehow — it has actually helped you.

45. Your kids have special needs, and you’re fed up with people making assumptions about their intelligence or their parenting when they act up in public.

46. You find an approach to homeschooling (or partial homeschooling) that restores your kids’ curiosity and love of learning and creating.

47. Your oldest wants to drop out of school, because so-and-so did it, and “Look how successful he is!”

48. Your marriage was deteriorating until you made this one, small change.

49. For years, all you had to do was look at a donut, and you’d gain weight. Then you changed one thing

50. You made a goal: “In the next 100 days, I will ______.”A hundred days later, you’ve exceeded your goal .

51. The first day of that “staycation” you wanted has arrived.

52. You went on a mission to where?

53. You’ve increased your own self-confidence and helped others to boost theirs, too.

54. Ditching both Netflix and your gym membership has changed your life for the better….

55. Changing your beliefs about something has caused some tension at home but has also made it possible for you to earn and accomplish more than you used to think was possible.

56. Childhood memories and the emotions attached to them have held you back for years, but not anymore.

57. Your high school education led you to college, which led you to a job you hated but felt stuck with for years.

58. What app or online tool has changed the way you do business?

59. Families can take a heavy toll on a house. What repair work have you had done to restore your home and what have you learned to do yourself?

60. Your second grader hates school and thinks reading is boring.

61. One of your kids is a writer and wants to take a page out of her main character’s book and dye her hair purple.

62. One of your kids has come out to you as gay, bisexual, or asexual.

63. One of your teenage kids has chosen a different religion and no longer wants to go to church with his family.

64. A brush with death has changed your priorities, and you’ve made some drastic changes.

65. You’ve hit your forties and found a list you made 10 years ago of the things you wanted to accomplish during your 30’s.

66. You’ve had an epiphany in the shower, and after exploring it with a journal entry, you’re thinking, “This could be a book!”

67. You’re looking at a goal and thinking, “What kind of person do I have to be to accomplish this goal in the time I’ve set for it?”

68. What does it mean to be neurotypical as opposed to neurodiverse?

69. How has marriage changed your perception of married life?

70. You learn that one of your kids is autistic, and you and your spouse have very different reactions to the news.

71. You and your spouse have opposing beliefs with regard to gender differences and sexual orientation, and it’s becoming a problem.

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72. You’ve just learned to fix something in your own house and have saved yourself thousands of dollars.

73. You can’t shake something from your past, but you’re not sure if you even remember it correctly anymore.

74. Your spouse doesn’t seem to really care about what you have to say, and it really bothers you.

75. Your significant other has started writing erotica and is making a nice, steady income with it, but you’re conflicted.

76. You’ve been writing books for years, and then your SO writes a book and sells more copies of his/her first novel than you’ve ever sold.

77. You’ve found the perfect quick remedy for canker sores, and it uses cheap and easy-to-find ingredients.

78. You’ve never really been a hat person until you saw a hat you liked on someone else.

79. You and your SO can’t agree on wall colors for your new home.

80. It all started when someone told you that you needed a professional photo taken.

81. Everyone should take a road trip, because…

82. Of all the superpowers, this would your #1.

83. You found the perfect secluded vacation spot/s with great food, and they’re not crazy expensive.

84. You’ve always had a knack for losing weight — right up until your mid-forties.

85. You have a gift for dismantling and countering other people’s arguments.

86. One of your kids has gotten her first job, and you want to help her budget her earnings without being too controlling.

87. One of your kids has just announced an engagement to a person you don’t particularly like or trust.

88. Your friend has challenged you to spend a week unplugged — no internet, no cable, and no phone.

89. Your in-laws have come over to help with house projects, and since your spouse didn’t tell you they were coming, the place is a disaster.

90. You really do want to lose that weight — really — but your daily wine habit is hard to kick.

91. Oh, the joys of pet ownership! Your new fur-baby has moved right in and claimed the house as his own — with multiple visual tokens of acceptance.

92. Your spouse wants to be intimate, but you’d rather avoid it.

93. Your friend wants to start a business with you. You spend hours talking about this and addressing the main obstacles, and finally, you go for it.

94. You’re so good at writing academic papers that your college classmates start offering to pay you to write their essays and reports for them.

95. Your in-laws vilify you as a traitor because of the way you voted, and their petty attacks even extend to your children.

96. Every time you go to a potluck, people come up to you and beg you for your recipe. You’ve decided to create your own potluck recipe book — with a unique twist.

97. You’ve attended a fascinating seminar about being “limitless,” and while you’re still a bit skeptical, you really want to believe in the speaker’s message. You go all in, and things start changing for you.

98. You’re fed up with your health-obsessed teenage son constantly telling you you’re out of the foods he likes, and when you ask him to try something else, he angrily reminds you that it’s not his fault he can’t tolerate those foods.

99. Your kid wants to eat nothing but croutons and potato chips, and you can’t get him to try anything else (ironically he’s the same child who later grows into the health-obsessed teenager in the previous prompt).

100. You’re out driving and your car has a flat. You call your spouse who basically throws up his hands, sighs dramatically, and tells you to call AAA. You get a tow, and your spouse (who is at home) suggests you learn how to change a tire.

101. After twenty-three years of adhering to your religious beliefs, you have more questions than ever, and no one can answer them in a satisfying way.

102. Your best friend, who never went to college, is earning much more than you are and is loving life more. You meet him for lunch and ask how he’s gotten to where is, and what do you have to do to get there.

103. The staff at your kid’s school have called to tell you they’re having trouble with your daughter again because she just doesn’t seem to respect the authority of her teachers or other school staff.

104. You and your spouse go to an IEP meeting for your son, who has been miserable at school and who is tired of being micromanaged by the staff.

105. You’re at a pre-wedding retreat at your church, and when the leaders announce a break, your fiance heads out the large glass front door and lets it close in your face.

106. Once again, you’ve played the peacemaker at home, and relative tranquility is restored, but your relationships with your spouse and with your kids has suffered, and you’re not sure which has done the most damage: the open arguments or the forced calm.

107. Throwing fancy brunches and dinner parties is one of your favorite things, and people come to you for ideas on how to make theirs better. You’ve decided to write a book on hosting unforgettable brunches and dinner parties.

108. You’ve never forgotten how you loved the food when you lived in, and you’ve collected a variety of recipes, along with the history behind them.

Did you find some nonfiction topics to write about?

We hope our list of writing prompts has primed your creative pump and that one (or more) of them is on the shortlist for your next book.

If you don’t feel confident that your topic is one that readers are looking for, check out our post on tools and resources to help you make the best choice.

Even if you use these prompts only as creative nonfiction writing exercises, you won’t be wasting your time.

You’ll not only have a better idea about possible book topics for the future but also you’ll improve your writing and hone your skills at fleshing out an idea.

All of your efforts contribute to your success as a writer and your sense of confidence as you begin outlining your next nonfiction book.

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I dedicate this story to my partner and to everyone who has carried or is carrying the burden of grief.Sitting by the bed, holding my hand, you think my mind is fighting against the decision of my body to quit life’s game. My eyes are closed, but I sense your will through the fingers laced tightly around my own. Tenderness is a force and you stake my claim to life through the insistent pressure of your hand. How it has grown over these long years from its immaculate small perfection to this manifestati...

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Mama Said Chico, California, January 22, 2002The movie credits roll.  Mark comes barreling into the house. “We have a game tonight.” His energetic presence and booming voice motivate us to take action.  Steven mimics his dad. “Yeah, let’s go.” Kristie kisses Sassy and Chance while they prance on the sofa, trying to jump into her arms. “Not tonight. I don’t care what ‘grandma’ says or that my crazy school lets Chihuahuas come to the games. Not tonight.”  I take exception to being called a grandma until Kristie gives me her irre...

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Somehow, I had settled on marrying a narcissist. It didn’t quite resonate with me until I studied at university and read about behaviours in humans. The similarities I noticed between my husband and the sociological outlook of a narcissist fascinated me.  Physically and emotionally, he’s comfortable with me, but he checked out a long time ago. I see, hear, and feel it with everything he does. It’s a level of comfort he’s reached with me. Regardless of the circumstances, I am as dependable as a rock in his life.  He’s got me by the ...

“ Broken Royals ” by Natalie Portera-Sickler

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but most of the memories I have left of my grandmother are unpleasant. To say Eve was unkind was an understatement. She was downright cruel. She made a sport of pitting others against their friends, their family, and no one was safe from her sadistic schemes – especially not her own husband and children. If you ever spoke a word against her, she would verbally tear you down for daring to challenge her, and then cry victim to your so-called unfair treatment of her.She suffered a disease of disillusionmen...

“ The World Without Her ” by Sam Hoekstra

I know my friends think I've been here for too long - that I come to the grave too often.They don't know how to say that, of course - nobody has a satchel full of poignant phrases to adequately express feelings like, "I've been really worried about you ever since she died," or, "I think you're spending more time in the past than is helpful right now."Maybe if there were such phrases doled out in emergency aid kits, the kinds that you keep in your car for that one day that you never hope comes, maybe she wouldn't be dead.I don't know what tim...

“ The Girl and the Black Hoody Figure ” by Angela Cerecedes

Somewhere in a city. Nighttime. Rain coming down. A Young Woman in her 20s is walking down the street. She is wearing a purple hoody listening to music minding her own business. She walks over to a drug store, takes a beat, then continues walking. Suddenly, a Figure who appears to be a person wearing a black hoody walking slowly behind her. The figure is giving her the creeps. She is a bit nervous but continues to walk. However, the figure continues to follow her which makes her even more nervous. She walks faster and the figure walks faster...

“ Watch Your Step or Step Out to be Heard ” by Pete Gautchier

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“ The WhatsApp Swindler ” by Scott Christenson

-based on a true storyI like to steal things. It matters little whether it’s an unattended iPhone on a coffee shop table, a Barney jacket taken from in front of the sales staff, or a packet of almonds snatched at CVS. The value is inconsequential. The act is exhilarating. But after three close calls–each of which I needed to talk myself out from–I realized my little hobby clashed with my grander ambitions. And why steal things when people will simply give them to you?I study her from head to toe. My girlfriend Amanda is standing before me, a...

“ Not Another One! ” by Mary Bendickson

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“ Intergenerational ” by Victoria MacDonald

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The Best Creative Nonfiction Short Stories

Made for those bookworms who love the compelling freedom of fiction but are looking for a little bit of the real world in their reading, creative nonfiction is the radiant lovechild of elegant poetry and rigorous reportage. Writers of this genre aim to present the truth — factually accurate prose about real life and real people — in a brilliant and creative way. Its faithful readers find themselves as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.

As a literary form, nonfiction can be a little hard to pin down. At its crux, creative nonfiction applies literary techniques drawn from poetry and fiction to content that would be at home in a textbook — making for an entertaining read that you might just learn something from! Among creative nonfiction short stories, you could find an insightful memoir, a dramatic monologue, hot, witty journalism, or a tight, personal essay.

Looking for new creative nonfiction stories? 

Look no further! Every week, hundreds of writers submit stories to Reedsy’s short story contest. On this page, you’ll find all of those that are categorized as creative nonfiction stories. This means that the featured writers were triggered by one of our prompts to look to their own experiences and reveal a true-life story — but, crucially, they decided to tell it in a brilliant and creative way. 

If you want to find the cream of the crop — perhaps the next Joan Didion or Jia Tolentino — then look to the top of the page: that’s where we’ve gathered all the winning and shortlisted entries. And don’t forget, if you’ve got a story to tell (fact or fiction), you too can enter our weekly contest and be in with a chance of nabbing the $250 prize plus a shot at publication in Prompted , our new literary magazine . Now wouldn’t that be a story?

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Most Read in 2021

Year-End Lists!

We don’t publish a lot of lists. But this year, having launched this new website with nearly complete access to 30 years of magazine archives, we thought it seemed like a good time to look back at the stories that resonated with our readers. 

In that spirit, we’ve compiled the most-read pieces published on our website in 2021, as well as the most-read work from our archives. 

And for good measure, we’ve pulled together a few pieces worth an honorable mention; our favorite Sunday Short Reads ; CNF content that was republished elsewhere; and the best advice, inspiration, and think pieces from some of our favorite publications.

Finally, if you enjoy what follows, please know there’s plenty more! We have a soft paywall on our site, which allows for three free reads a month. To get unlimited access for as little as $4/month, simply subscribe today.

Top 10 Published in 2021

• Almost Behind Us A dental emergency interrupts a meaningful anniversary // JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE
• El Valle, 1991 An early lesson in strength and fragility // AURELIA KESSLER
• Stay at Home All those hours alone with a new baby can be rough // JARED HANKS
• The Desert Was His Home There are many things we don’t know about Mr. Otomatsu Wada, and a few things we do // ERIC L. MULLER
• Just a Big Cat The dramatic boredom of jury duty // ERICA GOSS
• What Will We Do for Fun Now? Her parents survived World War II and the Blitz just fine … didn’t they? // JANE RATCLIFFE
• Harriet Two brothers and a turtle // TYLER McANDREW
• Rango Getting existential at a funeral for a lizard   // JARRETT G. ZIEMER
• Mouse Lessons from a hamster emergency // BEVERLY PETRAVICIUS
• Roxy & the Worm Box Trying to recapture a childhood love of dirt // ANJOLI ROY

Top 5 from the Archive

• Picturing the Personal Essay A visual guide // TIM BASCOM
• The 5 Rs of Creative Nonfiction The essayist at work   // LEE GUTKIND
• The Line Between Fact & Fiction Do not add, and do not deceive // ROY PETER CLARK
• The Braided Essay as Social Justice Action The braided essay may be the most effective form for our times // NICOLE WALKER
• On Fame, Success, and Writing Like a Mother#^@%*& An interview with Cheryl Strayed   // ELISSA BASSIST

Honorable Mention ( ICYMI Essays)

• Latinx Heritage Month Who do you complain to when it’s HR you have a problem with? // MELISSA LUJAN MESKU
• Women’s Work Sometimes, freedom means choosing your obligations // EILEEN GARVIN
• Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup Avoiding prison in Huntsville, Texas, is nearly impossible // WILL BRIDGES
• Stealth A nontraditional couple struggles with keeping part of their life together private while undertaking the public act of filing for marriage // HEATHER OSTERMAN-DAVIS
• Something Like Vertigo An environmental writer sees parallels between her father’s declining equilibrium and a world turned upside down   // ELIZABETH RUSH

Our favorite Sunday Short Reads from our partners 

from BREVITY

• What Joy Looks Like SSR #128  // DORIAN FOX
• How to Do Nothing SSR #156 // ABIGAIL THOMAS

from DIAGRAM

• At 86, My Grandmother Regrets Two Things SSR #134 // DIANA XIN
• The Seedy Corner SSR #140 // KIMBERLY GARZA

from RIVER TEETH

• Waste Not SSR #131 // DESIREE COOPER
• This Is Orange SSR #141 // JILL KOLONGOWSKI

from SWEET LITERARY

• The Pilgrim’s Prescription SSR #122  // CAROLYN ALESSIO
• Leaves in the Hall SSR #160 // ANNE GUDGER

Our favorite stories from around the internet. 

Advice & Inspiration

• In Praise of the Meander Rebecca Solnit on letting nonfiction narrative find its own way (via Lit Hub )
• What’s Missing Here? A Fragmentary, Lyric Essay About Fragmentary, Lyric Essays Julie Marie Wade on the mode that never quite feels finished (via Lit Hub )
• Getting Honest about Om A brief essay on audience (via Brevity )
• Using the Personal to Write the Global Intimate details, personal exploration and respect for facts (via Nieman Storyboard )
• Fix Your Scene Shapes And quickly improve your manuscript (via Jane Friedman’s blog)

The State of Nonfiction

• What the NYT ‘Guest Essay’ Means for the Future of Creative Nonfiction Description (via Brevity )
• How the Role of Personal Expression and Experience Is Changing Journalism On the future of the newsroom (via Poynter )
• 50 Shades of Nuance in a Polarized World An essayist ponders when to write black-and-white polemics that attract clicks, and when to be more considered (via Nieman Storyboard )
• These Literary Memoirs Take a Different Tack Description (via NY Times )
• The Politics of Gatekeeping On reconsidering the ethics of blind submissions (via Poets & Writers )

25 Great Nonfiction Essays You Can Read Online for Free

Alison Doherty

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

View All posts by Alison Doherty

I love reading books of nonfiction essays and memoirs , but sometimes have a hard time committing to a whole book. This is especially true if I don’t know the author. But reading nonfiction essays online is a quick way to learn which authors you like. Also, reading nonfiction essays can help you learn more about different topics and experiences.

Besides essays on Book Riot,  I love looking for essays on The New Yorker , The Atlantic , The Rumpus , and Electric Literature . But there are great nonfiction essays available for free all over the Internet. From contemporary to classic writers and personal essays to researched ones—here are 25 of my favorite nonfiction essays you can read today.

“Beware of Feminist Lite” by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The author of We Should All Be Feminists  writes a short essay explaining the danger of believing men and woman are equal only under certain conditions.

“It’s Silly to Be Frightened of Being Dead” by Diana Athill

A 96-year-old woman discusses her shifting attitude towards death from her childhood in the 1920s when death was a taboo subject, to World War 2 until the present day.

“Letter from a Region in my Mind” by James Baldwin

There are many moving and important essays by James Baldwin . This one uses the lens of religion to explore the Black American experience and sexuality. Baldwin describes his move from being a teenage preacher to not believing in god. Then he recounts his meeting with the prominent Nation of Islam member Elijah Muhammad.

“Relations” by Eula Biss

Biss uses the story of a white woman giving birth to a Black baby that was mistakenly implanted during a fertility treatment to explore racial identities and segregation in society as a whole and in her own interracial family.

“Friday Night Lights” by Buzz Bissinger

A comprehensive deep dive into the world of high school football in a small West Texas town.

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates examines the lingering and continuing affects of slavery on  American society and makes a compelling case for the descendants of slaves being offered reparations from the government.

“Why I Write” by Joan Didion

This is one of the most iconic nonfiction essays about writing. Didion describes the reasons she became a writer, her process, and her journey to doing what she loves professionally.

“Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Roger Ebert

With knowledge of his own death, the famous film critic ponders questions of mortality while also giving readers a pep talk for how to embrace life fully.

“My Mother’s Tongue” by Zavi Kang Engles

In this personal essay, Engles celebrates the close relationship she had with her mother and laments losing her Korean fluency.

“My Life as an Heiress” by Nora Ephron

As she’s writing an important script, Ephron imagines her life as a newly wealthy woman when she finds out an uncle left her an inheritance. But she doesn’t know exactly what that inheritance is.

“My FatheR Spent 30 Years in Prison. Now He’s Out.” by Ashley C. Ford

Ford describes the experience of getting to know her father after he’s been in prison for almost all of her life. Bridging the distance in their knowledge of technology becomes a significant—and at times humorous—step in rebuilding their relationship.

“Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay

There’s a reason Gay named her bestselling essay collection after this story. It’s a witty, sharp, and relatable look at what it means to call yourself a feminist.

“The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison

Jamison discusses her job as a medical actor helping to train medical students to improve their empathy and uses this frame to tell the story of one winter in college when she had an abortion and heart surgery.

“What I Learned from a Fitting Room Disaster About Clothes and Life” by Scaachi Koul

One woman describes her history with difficult fitting room experiences culminating in one catastrophe that will change the way she hopes to identify herself through clothes.

“Breasts: the Odd Couple” by Una LaMarche

LaMarche examines her changing feelings about her own differently sized breasts.

“How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story” by Donna Minkowitz

A journalist looks back at her own biased reporting on a news story about the sexual assault and murder of a trans man in 1993. Minkowitz examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have changed since she reported the story, along with how her own lesbian identity influenced her opinions about the crime.

“Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell

In this famous essay, Orwell bemoans how politics have corrupted the English language by making it more vague, confusing, and boring.

“Letting Go” by David Sedaris

The famously funny personal essay author , writes about a distinctly unfunny topic of tobacco addiction and his own journey as a smoker. It is (predictably) hilarious.

“Joy” by Zadie Smith

Smith explores the difference between pleasure and joy by closely examining moments of both, including eating a delicious egg sandwich, taking drugs at a concert, and falling in love.

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan

Tan tells the story of how her mother’s way of speaking English as an immigrant from China changed the way people viewed her intelligence.

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace

The prolific nonfiction essay and fiction writer  travels to the Maine Lobster Festival to write a piece for Gourmet Magazine. With his signature footnotes, Wallace turns this experience into a deep exploration on what constitutes consciousness.

“I Am Not Pocahontas” by Elissa Washuta

Washuta looks at her own contemporary Native American identity through the lens of stereotypical depictions from 1990s films.

“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White

E.B. White didn’t just write books like Charlotte’s Web and The Elements of Style . He also was a brilliant essayist. This nature essay explores the theme of fatherhood against the backdrop of a lake within the forests of Maine.

“Pell-Mell” by Tom Wolfe

The inventor of “new journalism” writes about the creation of an American idea by telling the story of Thomas Jefferson snubbing a European Ambassador.

“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf

In this nonfiction essay, Wolf describes a moth dying on her window pane. She uses the story as a way to ruminate on the lager theme of the meaning of life and death.

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