Because of my military and then post-military corporate career, I do technical writing as well as non-fiction and fiction. By the way, “technical” in this sense does not automatically mean engineering or computer-related. It means that it’s not academic or entertainment-related. For me the writing, was training material, reports, studies, proposals, white papers, articles – that sort of thing.  On several occasions when I do presentations, I’ve been asked if I prefer to write fiction or non-fiction and that’s difficult to answer. I even enjoy technical writing, although that tends to be more functional than anything else, but there’s still a level of professional satisfaction in it.

Continuing with the main question though – non-fiction and fiction each have special aspects. With fiction, you have total freedom in deciding what you want a novel to be and what kind of characters to create to carry the story from start to finish. Oh sure, I might change certain ideas and scenes as I move more deeply into the novel because an original thought doesn’t work out as well as I expected it to or I decide to go in a slightly different direction for whatever reason. That’s all part of the process and aside from those occasions that I’ve posted about before when I realize that I have to kill off an extra character or two, I still control the story.

It’s exactly the opposite with non-fiction. “Control” is not at all the same because you are dealing in facts, context of facts, and often explanations or ponderings about facts. My goal is to entertain as well as inform. (The single exception to “entertaining” is my book, Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid, because of the subject matter.) The project that I am engaged with right now is a great example. The subject of deep shipwreck exploration is already intriguing, but it is also highly technical and doesn’t make a lot of sense to someone who doesn’t dive. The intent of the book that I will be able to fully discuss next month is to present this subject in such as way so that a wider audience can appreciate this fascinating aspect of diving. Hopefully, we will accomplish this, and in order for me to help tell the story in a compelling way, I’ve had the opportunity to meet some great people that I would not have otherwise except when attending lectures about the topics. I’ve also branched out into a period in history that I probably wouldn’t have on my own and who knows, there might even be a historical novel in there somewhere.

So, going back to the question of do I have a preference between writing novels and non-fiction? There may be a slight edge to novels, but don’t hold me to that.