Whew! I polished up my newest WIP, sent it through my trusted critiquers, and buckled down in revision mode for a while. A few days ago, I sent this new project off to my agent. It’s likely she’ll ask for more revisions before it goes out into the world. That’s okay.  It’s all forward motion. It feels good to stay productive while awaiting word from the publisher interested in my other project. And it feels good to be back on my blog.

I recently wrote about expanding my own vision beyond pure narrative nonfiction. I’ve spent the last few months reading armloads of fictionalized and creatively told picture book biographies, paying special attention to storytelling devices. It’s been a fascinating study, really.

For the next month or so, I’ll share some of my observations and recommend related titles as examples, for anyone itching to add some fictional elements to a nonfiction subject. I’ll explore the use of:

First person POV (not autobiography).
Invented characters and scenes
Nonfiction told in rhyme, verse, and song lyric
Present tense.
Alternating points of view.
As a tall tale.
Dramatic point of view.
Present tense.
Second person point of view.

I’ll try to coerce some authors to pop in for related interviews soon, too.