A New Tale ~ Creative Writing is FUN!

Tell the Whole Story and Nothing But the Story

2/26/2025

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They Will Remember A Great Ending

2/26/2025

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Finding and Reporting the Facts!

1/22/2025

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How do you turn a 'hum drum' News Story into an exciting read? Research! Dig deeper! There is more to this tale!

TODAY's NEWS REPORTING TIP: A great picture will get your story on the front page!

News and magazine reporters often have to do their own photography, until you become famous then you are assigned a company photographer.

Learning to be a better photog will help your news writing career take off.

You should not fret too long over the title of your story. Your editor will probably re-write the title anyway.

Editors love good photographs. Photos sell newspapers!

Know that a good Editor will probably give back to you, your first try at writing your article, with some suggestions for improvement. "Get me a quote from someone who knew the victim." or "Find an expert who is willing to give you a statement on the record that backs up your idea."

TIP: News is about chronicling facts, but facts are not a story. You need to tell how the interested parties are reacting to the facts.

The human aspects are what your readers and your editor want you to inform them of.

Who is getting emotional and why?

Interview, interview, interview... We do not wish to hear what you have to say. We want to learn what it all means to those involved. How are their lives changed?

Why is this story important enough to be told and shared with thousands of readers?

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Investigative Journalism - Getting the Truth Told!

1/22/2025

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When editors and publishers are ignoring you, it may be time for you to publish your work yourself!

Certain topics may make some publications nervous to tackle. But you have a voice, and you wish to be heard in the public square too!

When you are not feeling the love from traditional publishers, it is time to try Indie Publishing!

Independent Publishing or going Indie, is about getting your writing to audiences when the big publications turn you down. Yes, you can always publish your masterpieces yourself, but you should not sneer at the many smaller publishers who are hungry for new talent.

Going to the presses, on your own, costs you money!

Working with smaller publishers and small presses has its advantages. For one thing, you do not need to impress a literary agent then convince them to sign you as a client. You, as author represent yourself and thus have all rights to your writing. Yep, at a later date, you can decide to turn your book into an audio book and keep all the earnings.

Indie publishing can be your steppingstone. Once the big publishers see your book sales; they will all want to sign you to a contract for your next title.

Wish to learn more about becoming an Indie Author?

Stay informed...

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Nonfiction Writing Tips From a Pro Author

7/2/2015

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Writing Nonfiction well is probably one of the most important things anyone can do in today's modern complicated world.

We need writers who are objective, concise, fearless, opinionated, heroic!

The internet has given Nonfiction Authors, reporters, bloggers, social media stars...a huge far reaching platform. Now more than ever before we need to have integrity when we pose our tales as true stories!

A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal will teach you how to report the news, tell true stories, write dramatically without the hype!

# reportingnews #newswritingtip #newsreportingtips #learnreporting #writenews

YES! You too can start a newsletter! Learn Proper Grammar and Great English Composition technique! Become a better writer NOW!

#writingprompts #creativewriting

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Nonfiction Writing Takes Courage Commitment and Conviction

1/25/2015

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"If you are going to write about the truth you must have a deep desire to know the truth. If you settle for anything less, your readers will sense in your writing that you have settled!" - Read... A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal

Reporting News verses Opinion Writing!
By Stu Leventhal

News reporters need to stick to the facts. Leave stuff out when telling the story and you will lose your credibility. Your fans will abandon you.

Opinion writers are different from news reporters. Opinion writers are paid for their analysis of the tale. Their readers want to hear what their favorite writer thinks of the breaking news of the day.

Why is this story important?

Reporters simply tell the story they are not supposed to interpret the facts. Reporters should look for a few experts to get quotes from when they feel the facts need further explaining.

A reporter is our eyes and ears at the scene.

Opinion writers put the story in perspective for us readers.

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Nonfiction is Man's Legacy

10/15/2014

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Real Verses Make-believe

By Stu Leventhal

How creatively can nonfiction be written before it is disqualified from the nonfiction genre? That is the question every non-fictionist eventually ends up staring in the face!

Nonfiction is supposed to be about facts and proven data which can be tough to write about entertainingly for long stretches without ad-libbing. But fabricating is not allowed! Guessing and supposing and filling in the grey areas that one is not sure of is a no go, against the rules!

You cannot make anything up if you wish your work to stay in the nonfiction category! Therefore, it should be easy for us all to agree that research is the key to great nonfiction writing.

The more research an author does the more material he or she has to work with. The goal is to show a complete representation of a specific time period; the ugliness and the beauty, the good and the bad, the boring and exciting.

The quest has always been to find more truth! Readers want to know why! Why did it happen? Could the bad and the hurt have been avoided? Can the beauty be duplicated, the blue print learned, the triumph bottled and distributed so we all can benefit or is mankind destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again?

Is truth the ultimate oxymoron? Is there ever really one complete undebatable version of the truth?

I have said to my students often that when you find yourself working extremely hard to explain something you should stop and take a step back then reevaluate your idea or premise. The truth is not evasive and usually even young children can recognize it. Therefore it should not take a scholar or a professor or a genius to puzzle out the truth and then even more effort to point it out to the rest of us!

Nonfiction is always about history, things that have actually happened. Readers are seeking new ideas and new perspectives not old ideas that have been beaten to death and re-hatched many times already. So the challenge for writing successful creative nonfiction lies in the question; how can we write about happenings gone by and bring something new and worthwhile to the discussions?

Time marches on but history should not be forgotten. Humans shall evolve, mankind will progress; it is man’s legacy to continue to develop. Remembering where we came from is important if we are to move forward with confidence. The future is directly related to the past. Creative nonfiction is not meant to keep old irrelevant discussions alive! Creative nonfiction is here to help us understand the present and build a better future.

Our ancestors did not always answer life’s questions thoroughly and so many of those same questions still haunt us. Those who came before us did the best they could with what they had to work with and they generously made it their business to pass on to the next generation their best knowledge. Our job is to continue to pass this knowledge down the line adding what we can add.

We now know the earth is round instead of flat but that does not mean we laugh at our ancestors for believing the earth was flat or for believing in witches or for worshipping all the different Gods of Greek mythology; Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, Athena… We continue to tell their stories with awe and pleasure!

This is the purpose of great creative nonfiction writing! Make the tales of our past pertain to our present issues and future wellbeing and you will have readers eating out of your hand. Our ancestors struggled for our benefit; their stories deserve our utmost respect. History is exciting and interesting as is all human life and human endeavors. How can history not be relevant to today? Without history there would be no today or tomorrow!

Creative nonfiction is modern man’s means of showing respect and thanks for all the work everyone who came before us contributed to our state of affairs.

Through creative nonfiction we pay homage to all the great deeds and sacrifices people made and are still making just by living and struggling.

The key is to show a way of life as close as possible to the way it actually was. To accomplish writing of that quality, you start with a deep love for one’s fellow human being!

*Need some help sprucing up your nonfiction projects contact: [email protected]

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The Nonfiction Writer

7/19/2014

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DEFINING NONFICTION WRITING

"Nonfiction is Writing That Deals With Reality!"

TELLING THE TRUTH!

Nonfiction Exposed!

By Stuart Leventhal

Nonfiction is a classification or category of literature consisting of works of prose other than fiction. Simply put, since fiction is the term applied to fake, make believe, imaginary stories then Nonfiction works are Real Stories, true stories, stories that actually happened about people and places that actually existed!

Literary works that are not fabricated by the author’s imagination often take considerable skill and discipline in order to be written in a way that captures and holds the reader’s full attention span over the long haul of the piece. Good nonfiction writing requires siphoning out the gist or essence of life’s moments then replaying them for your audience. Your readers do not want to hear about every single thing that happened and you do not have the time to depict everything either. Your readers are counting on you to tell them the important stuff, the defining moments then to go into explicit detail when the details are worth your readers’ time.

Nonfiction includes narrative prose that reflects reality and depicts or reenacts true events as they actually happened. Attention to detail, adherence to facts, figures and getting the data correct is all of the utmost importance. Nonfiction text often deals with or offers opinions or conjectures upon facts and reality but it never alters the facts. Historic essays and Biographies are all good examples of nonfiction.

Prose accounts of real people, places, objects, things and ideas or events are all nonfiction. Nonfiction covers everything from instructional manuals to history, from science text books to cooking and gardening books. Nonfiction books include law books, diet books, self-help books and travel books.

There is also Creative Nonfiction Writing, which at first may seem like a contradiction of words since when we are dealing with telling the truth we are often taught we are not supposed to get creative! But remember, factual stories can be presented in many different, varying, innovative and unique ways without changing or altering the facts! Creative Nonfiction Authors are breaking ground all the time with telling true stories more entertainingly. Creative Nonfiction Authors have recently been having great successes exploring nontraditional uses of storytelling to hammer home ideas and to teach in the mostly non-story telling arenas of higher education and learning that are more used to the text book style, memorization types of teaching and learning such as in the scientific and mathematical fields where the emphasis has been mostly focused on memorization of formulas, definitions and theories.

Anyone can go to a library and borrow a pile of books on a subject, read through the books taking out episodes that one feels are important, cross check and confirm the facts, dates, figures and names with other books then compile a summary text of the events based on all the accounts gone over. There is a place for that kind of writing; school text books, history class…After all it is important that mankind remember history accurately and pass the details of the events down to the new generations so they can learn from our mistakes and accomplishment and honor our historic heroes and geniuses and celebrate worthy accomplishments but that is not creative nonfiction writing.

Creative nonfiction writing goes deeper and evaluates things from more than just the popular points of view. There are facts and then there are always the stories behind the facts. These smaller tales are equally if not more important than the big picture but they are a lot lesser known and rarely documented or explored thoroughly. For example: 1245 people die in one week in a small town in the hills of Maine from a still unidentified, mysterious illness. The outbreak came suddenly claiming the first victim little Henry Barney Forsythia the 3rd just 11 years old at 4pm July 16th. The fifth grader, Forsythia suddenly collapsed on the basketball court during a scrimmage game. He never recovered! The disease, if that was what it was, (poison natural or deliberate was never ruled out) swept through the rural town downing victim after victim for seven straight days! On july23 the sudden collapsing or pedestrians ceased and so did the unexplained deaths, just as mysteriously as they had begun. After a full two weeks past with no more symptoms appearing the army finally lifted their quarantine clearing the town folk to go back to resuming normal activities which the survivors attempted to do to the best of their ability considering the travesty the had just experienced. Now the above info may make for fascinating news stories around the globe and even great nonfiction background for essays for medical journals but can you see how telling the more personal true story of any of the victims or lucky survivors or doctors or scientists who worked on the strange case or politicians who dealt with the social damage or family members of the victims involved in the episode whose lives were devastated by the unexplained loss of their loved ones would be much more engaging?

Sure the main large more talked about story is still the most important story but it really only is important due to the way it influences so many other smaller stories. Your readers’ knowledge is enhanced by your writing helping them to understanding the relationship between the big picture and the effect it has on altering or shaping all the little tales. When we add knowledge to a read we add meaning and purpose increasing the value and fulfillment of the read and thus enhance and extend the readers enjoyment. Sometimes the impression an informative, enlightening read makes on us can last a long time even the rest of our life. In this way, exposing one’s mind and senses to a well written creative nonfiction writing piece can be life altering.

The power of creative nonfiction writing is that it personifies the big events of history. It converts vague, staggering large numbers and often boat loads of confusing data into emotionally charged relevant scenes which the reader can better relate to. Nonfiction is the record of human existence. Nonfiction tells the tale of our heritage; keeps the memory of our ancestors alive and reminds us of from where we have come and how we have grown. Nonfiction is also all of societies rule and regulations and our guides, tips and instructions for living. That being said, nonfiction writers have a lot of responsibility to live up to!

Want to learn more about Writing Nonfiction? Check out these recommended readings!

RECOMMENDED READS:
News Reporting:
http://www.anewtale.com/news-reporting.html
Literature:
http://www.anewtale.com/literature.html

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TRUE TALES

2/21/2014

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The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth! (part 2)

TELLING THE TRUTH, WRITING THE TRUTH

BY Stu Leventhal

Journalism, non-fiction, biography, historic documentaries; for all of these, telling engaging true tales starts with the integrity of the author. A nonfiction author must build his platform on honesty and trust. Tell the truth first and foremost, that is what your readers expect and deserve. Get caught embellishing and you can flush even the most established nonfiction career down the toilet.

The craft of structuring a true story so it is entertaining can be taught. There are many proven, tried and true ways to present a true topic but remember new innovative authors are always showing us that the methods of telling a story in print are as diverse as all the varied delivering styles of standup comedians or religious sermon givers or singing styles.

THE TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

The popular saying, ‘The Truth is Stranger than Fiction’ has proven itself time and time again. How? Why? While fiction writers are given a huge liberty to make up virtually whatever worlds, scenes and characters as they wish the trick to being successful lies in a fiction author’s ability to make the imaginary tale seem plausible. Super Man may fly and that may be totally impossible in real life but throughout the rest of the story the characters act, talk, react as we have come to expect people to carry and conduct themselves in real life.

Non-fiction; news, memoirs, exposés, history pieces are generally interesting to us because they expose something unexpected. There is no reason to tell a true tale if all the action is predictable and has been told a thousand times before. Thus Non-fiction’s success relies on exposing something unique, unusual and unknown. Nonfiction’s charm lies in the fact that it is all true!

All advances in education rely on writers of truth. Man’s growth and development relies on nonfiction. We must know what went on in the past to pave the way for the future. Non-fiction is man’s story and the tale of man’s quest.

Just like people have different styles of telling a verbal story, there are no wrong ways of telling a written nonfiction tale. The only criteria are that the facts are considered to be true by the author. Of course as with any other craft, some authors are more entertaining or more informative or better at conveying their message than other authors.

Styles of true story telling vary considerably and thus the impact of two true tales written about the same subject can vary considerably. Yet, both these tales, written from different viewpoints can still be considered true and both categorized as nonfiction even though their messages contradict each other.

Writing about observed fact, deciphering and verifying accepted chronicled data as well as confirming and challenging universally perceived theories can be quite challenging. Any policeman who has had the pleasure of recording 5 or 6 very different eye witness accounts of the same crime will contest to the problem of people perceiving things uniquely. Thus there can be many different nonfictional accounts of the very same incident or occurrence. Obviously they all cannot be true but they all can be classified as nonfiction! The requirement for nonfiction classification is that the author believed he or she was documenting the truth at the time of the writing. So, if ten years later, new evidence turns up dispelling a nonfiction work, it remains classified as nonfiction. But any new writing about the same subject must take into account the new evidence in order not to be deemed fiction!

Telling true nonfiction tales with integrity and applied high ethics is truly one of the most important undertakings a man or woman can undertake. In modern days with all our modern distractions, writing quality nonfiction is still just as admirable an undertaking as any ancient monk painstakingly slaving all day and night under candle light to transcribe history for the benefit of all future generations. A NEW TALE salutes all nonfiction authors as well as all fellow creative writers, writing students and scribe want-a -bees for undertaking the noblest craft of mankind.

*If you need help crafting a nonfiction creative writing project contact us with the details so we can give you a free price quote. Email your project details: [email protected]

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THE TRUTH ABOUT NON-FICTION

11/16/2013

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"WHEN WRITING NON-FICTION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET YOUR FACTS CORRECT."

"THE READER IS RELYING ON YOU TO BE SURE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING. THE READER EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW MORE THAN THEY DO."

"CREATIVE WRITING NON-FICTION AUTHORS NEED TO WRITE WITH INTEGRITY!"

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Stu Leventhal has just released a mystery Kindle Book in the suspense mystery detective genre. HIGH SEA by Stu Leventhal is a thriller set on an exotic island resort. check out the Kindle Book Trailer!

Tell the Whole Story and Nothing But the Story

They Will Remember A Great Ending

Finding and Reporting the Facts!

Investigative Journalism - Getting the Truth Told!

Nonfiction Writing Tips From a Pro Author

Nonfiction Writing Takes Courage Commitment and Conviction

Reporting News verses Opinion Writing!
By Stu Leventhal

Nonfiction is Man's Legacy

The Nonfiction Writer

TRUE TALES

The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth! (part 2)

THE TRUTH ABOUT NON-FICTION

"WHEN WRITING NON-FICTION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET YOUR FACTS CORRECT."

"THE READER IS RELYING ON YOU TO BE SURE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING. THE READER EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW MORE THAN THEY DO."

"CREATIVE WRITING NON-FICTION AUTHORS NEED TO WRITE WITH INTEGRITY!"

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Archives

Categories

Reporting News verses Opinion Writing!By Stu Leventhal

The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth! (part 2)

"WHEN WRITING NON-FICTION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET YOUR FACTS CORRECT." "THE READER IS RELYING ON YOU TO BE SURE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING. THE READER EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW MORE THAN THEY DO." "CREATIVE WRITING NON-FICTION AUTHORS NEED TO WRITE WITH INTEGRITY!"

Author

Archives

Categories

Reporting News verses Opinion Writing!
By Stu Leventhal

"WHEN WRITING NON-FICTION THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET YOUR FACTS CORRECT."

"THE READER IS RELYING ON YOU TO BE SURE ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING. THE READER EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW MORE THAN THEY DO."

"CREATIVE WRITING NON-FICTION AUTHORS NEED TO WRITE WITH INTEGRITY!"