How do you take a family legend that no one alive can truly confirm, and then turn that legend into a scene in your creative nonfiction novel? The backstory of whether a family member deserted the Marine Corps during Christmas 1942.

The movie Dunkirk had a profound inspiration on how I tell the story of my father’s abduction and the investigation into what happened 60 years later. Why? Messing with the chronology proved to be profound.

If you walked into the nonfiction section of Barnes & Noble and pulled a book out from the memoir shelf, and you read that the book is “based on a true story,” how would you feel? Today on Creatively Genuine, talking the creative part of creative nonfiction novel writing.

Your opening scene to the first chapter isn’t the only hook you should be concerned about as a writer. There’s another hook that’s just as vital to keeping the reader interested.

Dropping by quickly to say hello on this Sunday afternoon.

Saturday morning, and after finishing Chapter One of the manuscript, I discuss the difference between straight journalism and creative nonfiction and why for my book I chose the latter.

I bet that title caught your attention. Today I continue work on Chapter One of my creative nonfiction novel, in which my grandmother in 1957 threatens to kill the baby my grandfather has with his teenage mistress. I also discuss why I reject the idea of daily word counts for writers and focus instead on writing scenes.

It’s day one of the effort to write a review draft of my creative nonfiction novel, For Him I Sing, and it begins with a kidnapping. My father’s kidnapping in 1957, to be specific. On this episode I explore that story, why I use it for my opening, and I even read the first page and a half.

Which do you enjoy more: The pursuit of something or the discovery? I pose a question to several experts in the genealogy field as well as share one of my own discoveries. It’s also the day before I begin writing what I hope to be the review manuscript of my creative nonfiction novel.

Railroads, Cincinnati’s secrets, and bringing my father’s life full circle. Here are three things you should know as I start writing a creative nonfiction memoir.