I’ve been trying to make the same point for years when talking with aspiring fiction writers, but to no avail. Granted, writing nonfiction doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to break into fiction at some point – if that’s what you want to do. But show me another career (other than teaching, perhaps) that has produced more successful fiction writers than a career in journalism/nonfiction.

If nothing else, by writing nonfiction, you learn: 1- How to write at a professional/publishable level; 2- How to work with editors; 3- How to meet deadines; 4-How to promote/sell yourself and your work. Plus, you make a heck of a lot of contacts – agents, editors, publishers, publicity folks, etc. – who can do a heck of a lot for your future career as a writer, regardless of the path you chose to take with it.

I think part of the problem is that when aspiring fiction writers think of “nonfiction,” they often think of technical writing or copywriting – not creative or narrative nonfiction, or even human interest pieces or humor. Seems to me like too many aspiring ficition writers spend way too much time debating what pen name they’ll use when they’re discovered, or how they’ll never agree to a cover design or edits mandated by a publisher, and not enough time getting down to the real guts of it and taking tangible steps toward realizing their dream of writing for a living. Good for you for bringing up the topic of the elephant in the room.

-Jeff Yeager
Author, “The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches” (Random House 2008)