How to Juggle Fiction When Nonfiction Brings in the Bread-Guest Post by C. Hope Clark

 

Writers know that nonfiction is bread and butter when it comes to earning a living. Fiction, often much more fun to write and a style that many writers feel better displays their prowess, does not draw in much of an income for years, if ever. So therein lies the rub. How much time do you spend on writing what you love versus the writing that pays the bills?
How is a writer to remain sane and satisfied? How does he juggle fiction and nonfiction?

 

1. Writing time.

Regardless the type of writing one does, a writer needs to have a regimen. What time of day and how long a period can you devote to your profession? It’s only when you identify the block of time you have at hand, and instill it as a hard-fast habit, that you can decide how to divide it up.

 

2. Prioritize.

If you need the income from writing to pay your bills, then nonfiction takes priority. Frankly, you need to focus all of your official writing time on nonfiction to establish your career before you can afford to steal time away to write fiction. Once you are solid in your writing income, you can judge how much time you can afford to lose to fiction.

 

3. Note your most creative times.

Fiction is more imaginative a craft than commercial nonfiction. You’ll find that evenings might be more conducive to your storytelling, once the world has slowed down. Or maybe you love mornings, while your mind is fresh, so you can tap those wonderful lines of dialogue and savvy plot twists. When you reach the point of assigning time to your fiction, give it the plum piece of day that makes it sing. You’ll be more inclined to stick to a schedule if your spirit is fed well using peak times. Chances are your nonfiction, business side works best at other times anyway. You use different parts of the brain.

 

4. Set goals.

Your commercial career has deadlines and administrative duties. You need time to write, research, manage queries, promote and collect payments. When you develop that managerial routine, you’ll be surprised how that knack carries over into your fiction. Everything you write needs goals even if they are no more than hours per week, word count per day or chapters each month. Without direction, you go nowhere.

I followed the above-mentioned four lessons to establish myself in this nonfiction career path. The primary goal was to make people see me as a writer, regardless what kind. Nonfiction was most logical in reaching that goal. Once I knew how many hours per week to work, once I’d collected published clips, once I knew what time of day suited me best for my nonfiction versus my fiction, I reopened the door to my fiction.

Every night, once I’d completed my nonfiction requirements, I wrote my mysteries. Nights let me escape and think characterization, emotion, setting and storyline. I knew my biological clock and its preferences. I gave myself a minimal length of time to write creatively.

That was a decade ago. Today, FundsforWriters.com is fourteen years old with 35,000 subscribers. I’m also author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, contracted with Bell Bridge Books. Lowcountry Bribe was the first in the series, released February 2012. Tidewater Murder, book two, comes out in April 2013. Palmetto Poison, book three, is tentatively planned for early 2014. I’m pleased as punch, but admittedly, I wouldn’t have published my fiction if not for the discipline developed in my nonfiction career.

1) My writing matured.

Writing so many articles, keeping so many deadlines, and tightening pieces to specific word counts gave me a more skilled, agile, practical knowledge of words. It doesn’t matter what you write, you improve your writing abilities with it. Each word on paper is one step closer to marketable talent.

2) My editing matured.

Under deadline I developed an eye for effective turns of phrase. I quickly grasped passive voice, hooks, metaphors and how to efficiently complete a thought. Punctuation, verb choice and minimal use of adverbs became natural to me.

3) My voice took root.

Nonfiction writers need recognition amidst the fray of other nonfiction writers, just as fiction authors fight for their places with readers. We twist sentences to be slick and wise. We learn to make a point more succinctly, more cleverly than the next guy. Over the years, after penning so many magazine features and essays for FundsforWriters (two to four per week), I awoke one night with the realization that my novel needed to be in first person, like the hundreds of essays I’d written. That sarcasm, pithy phrasing and pointed messaging from my essays was actually my voice, and those traits soon assumed their places in my fiction, making my protagonist a power to be reckoned with.

You can juggle fiction and nonfiction in your career. However, you need more than a storytelling aptitude. You need organization, diligence, and the ingenuity to recognize how to give each skillset its proper time, place, and respect in your writing life.

BIO

C. Hope Clark is author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series (www.chopeclark.com) and editor of FundsforWriters.com (www.fundsforwriters.com) . She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in beautiful South Carolina.

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