Writing Creative Nonfiction

While away in Yellowstone last week I read Writing Creative Fiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Great Nonfiction by Theodore Cheney. I like how he contrasts scenes and summaries, drama and narrative. Nonficiton writers can use both sides of this continuum to keep the reader moving.

He also refers to the nonfiction version of fictional dialog as "captured conversation." As for character development, nonfiction writers should reveal character bit by bit using selective details sprinkled through the writing that are connected to the unfolding narrative.

Perhaps the strongest aspect of this book are the many excerpts from great writing that illustrate Cheney's points. Here's an excerpt about passive verbs:

"'To be' doesn't conjure up any image in the brain. It says only that the subject exists--and we already knew that. Tell us something new. Better yet, 'show' us something new. 'To be or not to be, that is the question'--the bard gives us a moment's pause, and then we remember we have the answer--NOT to be."

"We want our sentences vivid (vivid deriving from the Latin vivere--to live). Give life to sentences by substituting accurate, vivid verbs for the intransigent forms of to be:

He was enticed by her black hair.
Revised to:
Her black hair knocked him for a loop.

She was embraced by the clown.
Revised to:
The clown grabbed her and hugged her."

Notice how he swapped the object and subject to eliminate the passive verb? This doesn't work all the time but find every place in your draft where it could.

What writing books do you recommend?