Writing Reality Like a Thriller

WEEK 1:
The Narrative Spine

The novelistic toolkit applied to true stories: scene, character, tension, pacing

What separates narrative nonfiction from journalism or academic writing? This week answers that question through close reading of The Tetris Effect — the published proposal and sample chapter that launched the book. We’ll study how a true story about a Cold War-era video game licensing battle was shaped into a thriller, and establish the foundational toolkit every student will carry through the rest of the course.

WEEK 2:
The Idea-Driven Book

How to build thematic architecture

Not every narrative nonfiction book hangs on a single story thread. Some are organized around a concept — a cultural history, a big idea, a theme. This week we use The First Robot to explore how to build thematic architecture and manage complex structure across a broad subject. We’ll also go deep on two craft techniques that apply across all three anchor texts: using setting as a character, and organizing complicated factual material so it hits like plot.

WEEK 3:
The Author in the Story

First-person narrative nonfiction: when and how to put yourself in the story

What happens when you — the author — are inside the story? This week we turn to a first-person narrative nonfiction project and explore what changes when your voice, perspective, and professional experience become the narrative material. We also go deep on a craft challenge that runs through all three anchor texts: how to make technical, legal, or complex information read with the urgency of fiction. And we get practical: the proposal as business plan, and what agents are actually evaluating.

WEEK 4:
The Proposal as Business Plan

The full proposal anatomy: overview, market analysis, chapter outline, and more

The final session is a live workshop. You’ll submit a revised version of your Week 3 piece in advance, and we’ll discuss 3–4 student submissions together as a group. Every participant benefits from the discussion, whether or not their work is featured. This is where the course becomes a real writers’ room — and where everything from the previous three weeks comes into focus.

Dan Ackerman

New York native Dan Ackerman is a journalist, speaker, author, TV talking head, and media exec. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of tech news publication Gizmodo and Editorial Director at CNET.Dan’s non-fiction business/gaming history book, The Tetris Effect (Hachette/PublicAffairs) has earned rave reviews from the New York Times (“The story shines”), Fortune, WIRED, LA Review of Books, and many other publications, and has been translated into five languages.