It's probably poor form to repeat something I've said before, but recent studies show that reading a passage more than once is one of the best ways to improve comprehension. With that in mind, and catering to those of you who may have missed the Project: Educate article, please allow me this small discretion:



What is Nonfiction?


Nonfiction deals with real people and real events in the real world. There are many different types and approaches to Nonfiction, from the very academic and formal to the very creative and experimental, but all of these methods are held together by a common thread: they are based on and built around accuracy and facts.

Now, facts are a tricky subject. As ~EveningDownpour mentioned in her Nonfiction Poetry *Writers-Workshop:

Ten people can watch the same fight, but each person will have their own unique interpretation of the event. Were you to ask what happened, it's likely you'll get ten different stories. Did each of those people lie to you? No, absolutely not. They told you the facts as they perceived them...In nonfiction writing, the writer usually believes that the facts presented are accurate and truthful. There is rarely a conscious intention to "make something up."

Unlike in fiction where people deliberately manipulate facts--even real and true facts--to help create a new story, in Nonfiction the facts are the story. The telling may be different, and some facts may feel a bit convoluted at times, but the author always approaches the subject with the intent of telling the truth about a person or event (though perhaps not the whole truth) as s/he perceive it. In nonfiction, nothing should be entirely made up.



Why Nonfiction Month?

It comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with my dA Gallery that Nonfiction Prose has always been my baby. I often claim to have no imagination and, as a result, fall back on the original and interesting--or even the very mundane--experiences and people I encounter in my day-to-day. I love telling and retelling true stories, and I have plenty of reasons for that--not the least of which is reminding each of us that we can relate to perfect strangers because, as human beings, we are grounded in a similar emotional core and have similar basic needs: safety, food, shelter, and companionship.

But it would be entirely selfish and self-serving to subject you to a month of Nonfiction Prose if I had little more than my preferences to fall back on. Instead, the Nonfiction Galleries on dA have long been the bastard, or perhaps the ugly stepchild, of our written world. People consider Nonfiction Prose to be boring, there is little respect given to the different modes and styles that fall under the umbrella of Nonfiction, and many of our personal experiences with writing true stories has come from a mandatory school project or paper--something few of us look favorably upon when we reminisce.

For these reasons, and many others, I thought it high time to bring back some prestige to Nonfiction poetry and prose.



What's This Gonna Look Like?

I have a few different purposes I'd like to hit on during this month:

To educate deviants about a few of the different modes of Nonfiction prose
To clarify the Nonfiction Prose Galleries on dA
To encourage and cultivate improved or new Nonfiction writing skills
To clean-up the Nonfiction Galleries in an effort to eliminate miss-cats

That said, I do not anticipate many full-blown contests as much as I would like, instead, to focus on writing challenges. That's not to say there won't be prizes eventually, but I don't think the prizes should be the central factor this month. I want to see good writing, strong writing--writing for the sake of honing and improving or introducing new skills to your craft. And we don't need prizes to do that!

_{Don't worry, there many be a few contests anyway--.}



Month-Long Initiatives

You may remember when `Beccalicious, our June Deviousness Award Winner, ran the Lit Spring Cleaning a few months back. The goal of that contest was to help remove some of the major miss-cats from all of the Lit Galleries and, we were all very proud to report, it was a grand success. In keeping with that idea, and in trying to help AR with their new study, I would love to see a wide-scale Nonfiction Miss-Cat Removal swing into acton.

What can you do? Well, my intention is to clean up the 2008 submissions so that, if nothing else, we will have a strong showing of correctly-categorized deviations for our current year. This, I am hoping, will help folks who are thinking of submitting to a specific category as they will then be able to trust the models sitting in those galleries. This means we have the last six (or so) months to work with.

If you are interested in helping me clean the Nonfiction Galleries during July, please send me a NOTE stating your intention. Currently, these are the categories available:

Biographies
Editorial
Essays
General Non-Fiction
Historical
Journalism
Philosophical
Satire
Reviews

If you are unfamiliar with some of these categories or lack confidence that you'd be able to identify miss-cats, don't worry: I'll give you some things to look for and offer some friendly advice to help you on your way.

Prizes will be awarded for the most miss-cats reported during the month, overall, and for the most miss-cats reported for each specific category (provided there is more than one person assigned to that gallery). Also, the galleries will be separated by Month and, in some cases, by specific days in that month, to help avoid repetitive reporting.



Week One: The Editorial and the Review

The world is rather topsy-turvy at the moment, and our daily lives introduce us to new and interesting topics that we're sure to have opinions on. With that in mind, the first week of Nonfiction Month is going to focus on determining the difference between the editorial and the rant, and it will also look at how to properly and effectively write a review.



Week Two: Traditional and Feature News Articles

Examining the principles and purpose of journalism, the second week will explore various methods to writing an acceptable news article--and the different type of news articles there are. There will also be reference materials for conducting and writing up a good interview, and you can expect at least one major contest to weasel its way into the week.



Week Three: Informative Writing

This seems a bit misleading, as most nonfiction writing is informative in some way, but this week we're going to tackle the different types of essays and the different modes of writing associated with some of these more traditional forms of writing. Formality and its place in the literary world will also be addressed, and forum discussions are expected in order to explore the emerging power of creative nonfiction.



Week Four: Biography, Memoir, and Autobiography

Our discussion of creative nonfiction is bound to lead us to memoir and biography, and this seems the perfect place to end our month. This week, my personal favorite, will look at various ways in which to bring real-life stories alive--whether through traditional means or through experimentation. There will also be a brief discussion of Nonfiction Poetry (odd, that), and you can expect a challenge or two involving these rather popular forms.



Nonfiction's Not for You? No problem!





If the thought of nonfiction still makes you cringe, allow me to point you towards *MSJames's Summer HaikuWriMo. In keeping with tradition, deviants will be encouraged to write one Haiku per day for the entire month of July. The goal of the month, other than producing great writing, is to encourage a sense of supportive community and to show that persistence really does pay off. So join your fellow deviants in this celebration of such a challenging form!