: How to make travel stories interesting? I have some good, true travel stories. Things that involve guns, explosions, and all kinds of other good stuff. I want to write them down, but I'm

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You can use internal monologue in between the action beats. Show reaction beats: "I did this. He flinched. Then he did that".

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I have written 2 narrative travel books. My advice is - use lots of dialogue, look into the monomyth structure, increase drama where possible and try to build an emotional connection between the reader and characters by embellishing the ups and downs the character is facing.

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From what I can see, there seems to be no way of writing an interesting account, without violating your ethics. But I would bet my bottom dollar that at least 50% of "non-fiction" accounts embellish on the facts. Sure, maybe you don't want to add whole paragraphs of made-up details, but without some details (e.g, "My hand held tightly to the cold metal of the gun...") your story will be as dry as dust. Non-fiction is taking the things that you remember happening, and telling them in an interesting, way, that accurately portray the emotions that you felt while going through the events.

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You have travel stories that sound like they could be interesting, but it doesn't follow that seeing or doing interesting things will make interesting stories unless you tell them as a story, with beginnings, middles, endings, etc.

A lot of this depends on who your audience is. If you're giving an after action report to an Incident Commander after spending the day fighting a wildfire, the type of writing you'll use is completely different than the type of writing you'd use as you describe to your friends how you were driving through the forest road escaping from a flareup and the stupid bear wouldn't get out of your way.

You say that it's against your ethics to make stuff up, and that would be appropriate in an after action report or other kinds of reporting, where the facts of what happened rule over emotional impact and enjoyment, but in a story you can't use dry factual reporting and keep people's attention. This isn't making things up, it's being true to the essence of what happened and helping your readers feel as if they're in your shoes experiencing the things you're telling them.

So the question is, are you writing a story or a report, and who is your audience? If your audience is expecting a story and you give them a report, then you'll lose your audience. If your commanding officer, or your editor is expecting a report and you give them a story, they might enjoy it, but still be unhappy because they had to dig through your writing to find the facts.

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Although the following might seem obvious, some of the things I tell my students include: don't use 'then'. If you have written it well one thing follows from another.

Secondly, avoid starting sentences in the same way. Particularly avoid starting with 'I' or a similar pronoun.

Thirdly, vary the structure of your sentences for effect. Use simple sentences for pace, etc.

Fourthly, try to use some similes and metaphors to make your writing more interesting.

Fifthly, vary your vocabulary and definitely avoid repeating most words.

Sixthly, include more details. For example, what did the explosives smell like?

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I don't want to embellish, and it would go against my ethics to stray into creative writing in a non-fiction account

I think you're off-base here. Memoirs (which is what you're writing) are not transcripts of history. Yes, they are recitations of actual facts and events which occurred to the writer, but nobody remembers every detail of first grade with photographic precision (unless you happen to have eidetic memory). The writer is going to add, trim, and edit to make it work as a story.

There's nothing wrong with smoothing out the dry facts of your narrative into something readable and interesting. That's not embellishment or what you dismiss as "creative writing." That's editing.

If the dry fact is "I caught two trout," embellishment is "I caught four monstrous trout!" and creative writing is "After two days at sea, with no power, no GPS, and diminishing supplies, I finally sighted the great white shark. He reared out of the water and fixed me with one fathomless black eye. I took aim with my trusty flare gun..."

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I like to use a lot of dialogue. It allows you to avoid narrative information dumps and will prevent you from being too opinionated compared to simply being selective about presented material.

Narrative:

Ben-Yaden relaxed his grip on the trigger. He couldn't be sure if the man within his sites was Jew or Palestinian. He knew his orders, but he was a human being, after all. Even if there was a shred of doubt ... He didn't complete the thought before an explosion rocked the ground and shrapnel flew in all direction. Ben-Yaden didn't even take cover, awaiting his marks next move.

Dialogue:

Ben-Yaden yelled in Hebrew, "Show me a Star of David or you're a dead man!"

His adversary stood silent. Ben-Yaden tried again in Arabic--he could swear better than speak. "Listen to me, motherf--ker! Show me your fu--ing hands!"

BOOM!

Ben-Yaden didn't even flinch. He knew what had just happened. He looked his mark square in the eye and demanded in Arabic, "Don't you move. Don't you fu--ing move."

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