Laura Purdie Salas wrote an interesting take about how writing nonfiction is often a creative process on the
Celebrate Science blog today.
I agree with Laura the robots don't write our books. That would be boring.
I remember one day when I was giving a talk at a school about writing nonfiction when one upset student jumped up and shouted, "How can you write stuff like that. Nonfiction is boring!"
That stopped me cold. My immediate response was, "Well. If it's boring, I can't write about it. I ONLY WRITE ABOUT THE INTERESTING STUFF."
Think about it. The Interesting stuff.
It got so that I included this bit in every talk I gave from then on.
I look for the FASCINATING FACTS.
Where we differ from creative fiction writers is that nobody is desperately waiting for the next book by that famous author... (whoever) People are looking for a certain subject, If they're lucky, they find one by a good author who is passionate about the subject, which makes the reader excited about the subject.
Librarians, on the other hand, when they discover a writer who can present nonfiction in interesting ways will always look for other books by that same author, no matter the subject, and will purchase them for their library system instead of books by less talented writers. (and publishers get a reputation among librarians when they consistently publish either dull or fascinating books.)
