When we recount a story verbally, we usually say something like: “I went camping with Bob in Acadia, and we hiked for three days. Then, out of nowhere, a monsoon came in and we had to be helicoptered out.” That’s fine if you’re catching up with a friend over coffee. On the page, though, readers don’t have the benefit of your tone or body language to glean context. Too much exposition—telling the reader what happened—can bore readers to the point where they stop reading. When you tell, the reader has no choice but to interpret your words intellectually. Writing to reach the intellect falls flat. Memoir and fiction must engage the reader’s heart, not just her mind. Or, as I often tell clients: “Bring the reader into your body, so they can see through your eyes and feel what you felt.”
Characterization, action and dialogue are three building blocks that can help you create engaging scenes. Scenes help you to move the story along with less exposition—more showing, less telling.
If you’re writing third-person nonfiction (or fiction), you may have more leeway in diving deep into each character’s background, personality and motivation. Fiction writers, like actors, have been doing “character interviews” for years. Narrative nonfiction writers who focus on a topic, rather than memoir (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, NeuroTribes: The History of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity), can—and should, when possible—interview the people involved, or do enough research to present them as full-fledged characters.
In memoir and other first-person narrative nonfiction, you’re limited to what you knew about each person at the time of each scene and how they expressed themselves. That means you’re relying on your perceptions of another person to convey their character. As we will see later, you can also use other people to reveal aspects of your character you weren’t aware of at the time…