Narrative Nonfiction: The Craft of True Stories
Scene construction, voice, structure, and the ethics of writing about real people
Sarah Oduya teaches narrative nonfiction as a discipline of observation, structure, and moral responsibility — lessons drawn from two decades of writing for the highest-stakes publications in journalism.
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What you'll learn
- Build a scene from interview notes and observation
- Develop a distinctive, earned voice that is consistent across a long piece
- Structure a long-form narrative with deliberate control of pacing and revelation
- Conduct interviews that generate material rather than confirmation
- Navigate the ethical obligations of writing about real people and events
Curriculum
2 modules · 5 lessons · 8h total
- The sentence as the unit of meaning22 minPreview
- Scene construction: the three elements28 min
- Voice: what it is and how to find yours24 min
Requirements
- Have written something — anything — of at least 1,000 words
- Reading: The Journalist and the Murderer (Janet Malcolm), The Elements of Style
- A project in mind, even if only vaguely formed
About the sample instructor
Sarah Oduya
Author & Writing Coach
Narrative nonfiction author · Magazine editor · Writing workshop mentor
Sarah Oduya is a fictional author and editor created to demonstrate an editorial instructor profile. Her sample practice spans long-form essays, book-length narrative, and the careful development of emerging writers. Her teaching starts with the sentence—the unit of meaning—before expanding to structure, argument, ethics, and the reader's sustained attention.
Full profileFictional learner reviews
“Sarah's lesson on scene construction is the single best piece of writing instruction I've encountered in ten years of professional writing. The three-element framework sounds obvious once she explains it, which is how you know it's actually right.”