Telling the Story: How to Write and Sell Narrative Nonfiction Book

Name some books that have been huge bestsellers over the years -- In Cold Blood; All the President's Men; The Hot Zone; The Perfect Storm; Black Hawk Down; Longitude -- and you'll find they have one thing in common: They read like novels, but they are true stories. They fall into a category now called "narrative nonfiction" -- the novel of true events.

These books seize upon an untold or barely told incident and pry it apart. They search for a way to understand in the microcosm of the story more about the macrocosm of our world -- who we are and why we do the things we do, while at the same time giving us a riveting story.

In Telling the Story author and literary agent Peter Rubie, a former BBC Radio and Fleet Street journalist, provides guidance and practical advice on how best to meld careful journalistic research with narrative writing techniques. Filled with insights and interviews with authors, agents, and editors such as Mark Bowden, Jon Krakauer, Jonathan Galassi (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Peter Gethers (Random House), George Gibson (Walker & Co.), and Jack Hart (The Oregoinian), this is the essential guide to writing this hot new genre.