I've met a few fiction authors who have also wanted to write non-fiction books. Maybe because they want to share their expertise, or want to provide writing tips or some kind of coaching. It can be tricky when you want to go from one to the other. It's been a balancing act for me for many years.
My first professional writing job was as a catalog copywriter for JC Penney, where I wrote about women’s fashions and toys. In that position I learned how to put a lot of description into a very small space. We were limited to 1 or 2 sentences of copy to describe an item. That included all the selling points the customer needed to know. To make it even more of a challenge, the copy had to be engaging and not just a list of features.
On the plus side, when you're forced to make every word count there's no room for fluff or filler. My copy had to sell the item to the reader. It had to catch their attention and provide all the information they needed to make a decision to buy.
Writing lean is something I still do today. Which might explain why I tend to favor novella-length books when I write. Though I did write one book with over 100K words, that isn't my norm.
After several years in catalog copywriting, I changed careers into IT, which is about as far away as you can get from writing sales copy.
During my time as a computer programmer, I didn’t write any fiction, or non-fiction for that matter. During that time I put my fiction writing on hold. There was never enough time to focus on my interests outside of work, and being on-call took up a lot my leisure time.
What's really funny is that when I decided to transition into technical writing, I was once told by an HR person that I was "too technical to write." As though those years in IT somehow wiped away all my communications skills.
Unfortunately I think a lot of people believe that it's hard (if not impossible) to bridge the gap between creative writing and non-fiction writing. That's obviously not true, though. I know of a few non-fiction authors who later decided to publish novels. So it is certainly possible to do both.
As a technical writer my “voice” has to be more formal. Usually the passive voice is the way people in corporate communicate. But unless you want to put your readers to sleep, I wouldn’t recommend it for fiction.
Of course writing non-fiction books doesn't have to be like writing technical documentation. Non-fiction authors can, and do, write in very creative ways. But it can be daunting to go from writing one to the other. Not to mention that, just as I had with that HR professional, expectorations can end up discouraging the author who wants to do both.
It can also be tough letting go of the passive voice, or the instructional one so that you can write fiction. So it never hurts to take classes (if you've only ever written one or the other) and to do free writing in order to find your own voice.
What helped me bridge the gap between those two writing styles was to start a blog. At first my writing was quite formal, but in time I was able to loosen up a bit. At times it's still challenging, especially when I'm working on a book. It's not always easy to turn off my work laptop and forget all the technical items I've been working on all day.
But I can say that blogging did help me when I wrote my first book, Think Like an Entrepreneur: Transforming Your Career and Taking Charge of Your Life. In fact, many of the blog posts ended up being included. Though at that time I was also writing and publishing short stories.
My first published novel, Hathor Legacy: Outcast was rewritten about 3 times, which isn't exactly a bad thing. It took a while for me to get into the fictional world I was building, and let go of the more formal language I'd been using at work. Looking back, I don't think I was completely successful in letting go of the formal structure. But it taught me how to do better the next time around - which is always good.
To me, the big difference between fiction and non-fiction is allowing yourself to get lost in a character (and a fictional world). Sure, you can have creative non-fiction as well, but that's not what I'm referring to here. Business writing (even if you're a coach writing about personal experiences) still isn't the same as writing from a character's POV.
But, if you enjoy writing and you do it regularly, I think you can find your balance between the two. That’s how you get better at it. No matter what it is: short, long, non-fiction, fiction, poetry - just write it.
Once you’re writing, you might find it’s not so much about striking a balance as it is finding the flow. Maybe by that point, it won't really be challenging at all. It will be a natural way for you to tell your stories and express the things you want to say.
