Story Space: Creating Passion in Your Nonfiction Writing

I’ve long remembered this quote by writer Malcolm Gladwell from the preface to his book What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures.

"Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade," he said. "It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head--even if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be."

I’ve published a good number of nonfiction books in my writing career. Eleven to date, with five different publishers. Each had their unique topic, but each book worked only if that topic was engaging to the reader.

Sounds simple, obvious, but it’s harder than it appears. It depends on something I’ve named “container.” Basically, it’s the story space you create.

Why is that important to nonfiction today?

Your story’s space

The environment of your story, even if it’s all information, delivers your passion for your topic. Here’s where nonfiction writers can borrow a lesson from fiction. Container delivers more emotion than plot, characters, topic, structure, or all of these combined. These are fiction or memoir terms, but in nonfiction lingo we might say information, method, anecdotes, formulas, etc.

Using a fiction technique for nonfiction might seem counter-intuitive; we write nonfiction to inform, to excite, to inspire. But really, we’re after a response, right? We want the reader to become involved in what we’re presenting, even if it’s to disagree. We want an intellectual or emotional response.

In fiction, plot creates momentum. It drives the story forward. It creates tension. What does that in nonfiction?

Story space in nonfiction

When I wrote nonfiction, I kept coming back to Gladwell’s theory of engagement. I wrote a weekly food column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate, and my editors always wanted a story to go along with whatever I was presenting. Story creates an atmosphere or space for the information to live in, it humanizes the topic so a human reader can relate to it.

My favorite food writers, when I was a food journalist, were those who conveyed emotion in their writing. Their recipes made me want to cook, but the stories that surrounded the recipes—the container—made me feel a tender moment of history when the writer first tasted this dish, or a heart racing with anticipation as they tried it the first time for company. Passion came through those stories.

Why these folks—and me at that time—would rather read a cookbook before bed than a novel. Why they thought about food all the time. If this is you, as a nonfiction writer approaching your subject, your passion needs to come through. And container, the story space you create, is the easiest way to convince us.

Without container, information is just a series of details, like a newspaper report. This, then this. I’m already bored.

Passion for your topic

When I read nonfiction writers, I read those who have this passion and know how to convey it with story.

Since I love food and food writing, I follow several food writers here on Substack. Ruth Reichl writes La Briffe. Reichl was editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, among many other accomplishments, and she shares old menus, history, her own memories in the kitchen and as a restaurant critic and writer. What I love most about her posts is the passion that leaks through every description of ingredients or dishes she tastes. She’s excited, therefore I get engaged.

Gladwell shares a similar excitement, as do many nonfiction writers today. Why else would I, as a reader, have become so engaged in the healing of a crime-ridden neighborhood, the comeback of Hush Puppy Shoes, and other examples from Gladwell's long-ago bestseller, The Tipping Point?

When I read it, I didn’t care about Hush Puppies for a millisecond. His passion to engage, not persuade, brought me into the story. It’s a good lesson for all of us writing nonfiction.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Find a dead spot in your nonfiction writing, a paragraph or a page.

Ask yourself how you are using one of these five “passion producing” techniques. Insert one to try. See if more passion comes through.

details of physical setting (creating a story space)
use of the five senses (smell, sound, touch, taste, sight)
physical sensations (felt in the body of the writer or person in the anecdote)
word choice (varying the length and punch of words to create rhythm)
paragraph length and flow (same as with word choice)

What did you notice?

Photo by Darío Méndez on Unsplash