Narrative Nonfiction’s 9 Great Parts

I am close to completing a nonfiction manuscript about two brothers from the Bronx, the younger one who joined a gang and the older one who didn’t, and the lives they led as a result of that one fundamental choice. It’s violent, coarse, graphic, and it’s filled with the foul language they used on the streets.

One tool I used to draw the readers in and put them there is to quote everybody. That meant a lot of interviews.

At first, I would talk to the older brother and he would tell me the story, quoting people along the way as necessary. Then I would write a draft and submit it, and he would come back with additional quotes. If they were from the other brother, that made sense. But if he was attributing quotes to people who had died, or if he added to what he told me others had said, I found this odd and wondered why he didn’t tell me these quotes earlier.

Perhaps since this story takes place mostly between the late 1960s and mid 1970s, his memory isn’t what it was. But I would hear him tell me in later drafts, “Let’s build this story out,” which made me wonder if these quotes were really accurate. I feared that this was no longer a nonfiction story.

I asked the older brother. He responded that sometimes they were, but in many cases, they were based on what was really said at that moment, who that person was, and how they really spoke.

I asked a publisher about it. She told me this was no problem because the quotes were illustrative. I was ghostwriting a type of memoir known as “narrative nonfiction.” 

Narrative nonfiction, also known as creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction, is a story that’s true and sticks to the truth, but also incorporates stylistic elements of fiction writing. With this type of story, the events presented have to be factual. What happened, in what order, and with what consequences, have to be accurate. The characters have to be the real people, and what they knew and felt at the time must be accurate—no giving them insights and feelings they didn’t have at the time.

However, dialogue doesn’t have to be verbatim, but the meaning has to be faithful to the person quoted. Scenes and time periods can be combined, but all events had to have actually happened. Objects, locations, and moments can be highlighted as symbols even if the characters didn’t recognize them at the time—they just can’t claim they did.

In this manuscript, the brothers accurately described the neighborhood they grew up in—the tenements, the crime, the drugs, the gangs, the violence, the language. I did my research to confirm the accuracy (because human memories are what they are). We jumped around in time a little, but each event described and depicted really happened. We used real names.

Here are nine defining qualities that are found in narrative nonfiction works.

1. The facts are present. Everything is grounded in real events, real people, real consequences. The ghost writer in Phoenix may compress time or shape scenes, but he never invents outcomes or experiences. It’s all nonfiction.

The South Bronx neighborhood described in the manuscript was real, down to the name of the nearby subway station, the names of the people and gangs, the street address where the brothers lived, locales such as the various bridges, the Bronx Terminal Market, and Yankee Stadium.

There are historical moments that they witnessed, such as the Hoe Avenue peace meeting, in which the various gangs attempted to put aside their differences; or real events that set up the neighborhood in which they lived, such as how the Cross Bronx Expressway divided the borough and increased crime and poverty.

2. Scene-driven storytelling. The work unfolds in scenes—moments with action, setting, and dialogue. The readers are there, not being told about being there.

Readers will hear the foul language. They will visit the drug houses where people shot up and got robbed. They will go inside Spofford Juvenile Center and Rikers Island. They will witness how the two brothers were bullied, and how they evolved into making the choice to join the Ghetto Brothers gang or not.

3. A noticeable narrative arc. Even though their lives are messy, there’s movement: a beginning state, disruption, transformation, and some form of arrival or reckoning.

One brother chose the gang life after being bullied as a kid. He was arrested and jailed numerous times. The older brother also was bullied but didn’t join the gangs and ended up a successful neurosurgeon. The younger brother comes to regret his decisions and tells anybody who will listen to follow his brother’s path, not his.

4. A reflective voice. Since this story is told as the brothers look back on their lives, the people who lived in that neighborhood and the people who made it out and have their insights into the past.

The brothers understand why they took the paths they did, why it was so hard to escape the neighborhood, and how they did.

5. Character development. People change. Growth, contradiction, blindness, leaning—all are visible and earned.

One brother wanted to be an astronaut before becoming a doctor. The manuscript shows his path—and his sadness when he couldn’t realize his lifelong dream. The other brother was muscular, charismatic, attractive, got plenty of girls but also saw more violence and committed more acts of violence before realizing—as a much older man—that his way was wrong. The nonfiction manuscript shows his arc, too.

6. Thematic coherence. The memoir isn’t just “what happened to them.” It’s about something larger—identity, loss, ambition, invention, betrayal, belief—and every episode feeds that theme.

As violent, coarse, unrelenting, and unforgiving as their story is, the brothers want to inspire people to not go down that path, and they have decided the the best way is to show the lives they led, warts and all.

7. Selective memory with purpose. Not everything is included. Events are chosen because they serve the story’s meaning, not because they simply occurred.

There are some really good stories, such as a fishing trip from hell and a comedic desire to go to Tarrytown, that don’t fit with the narrative of contrasting life on the streets with living the non-criminal life, so they got cut. 

I equate it to a movie scene that the director really, really, likes but knows it interferes with the pacing or dramatic tension, or whatever else, and cuts it. The director regrets it but does it for the better of the project. 

8. Concrete sensory detail. Specific sights, sounds, textures, and rhythms anchor the narrative in physical reality, reinforcing its nonfiction credibility.

The reader hears the music emanating from the fire escapes. The reader also hears the gunshots and sirens ringing throughout the neighborhood.

9. Emotional honesty over self-justification. People resist polishing their images. Doubt, error, regret, and ambiguity are allowed to stand without apology or spin.

These brothers, their families, friends, and enemies, are and were real people, so they are presented that way. Nobody is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes—and sometimes pays for them with their lives.

Feel free to read and check out my other posts related to ghostwriting. Go to https://leebarnathan.com/blog/