If you happened to take any creative writing classes in college, you probably saw Truman Capote’s iconic book In Cold Blood somewhere on the syllabus.

A chilling account of the Clutter family murders, Capote’s writing is built on the facts of the case. But what makes In Cold Blood so remarkable is how Capote uses a novelist’s skill set to create narrative tension with elements like imagined conversations between the killers.

In Cold Blood is perhaps the most famous example of what is usually called creative nonfiction: a book that uses the tools of fiction to tell a nonfiction story in a compelling way. Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, a posthumously published account of her quest to identify the Golden State Killer, is a more modern example of how well true crime is suited to this genre.

But there are plenty of other genres that work well for creative nonfiction. History is a fantastic fit for this kind of writing, as anyone who has read Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra—a propulsive book about the end of the Russian monarchy—can tell you. And what is a memoir if not a true story told more creatively than as a simple timeline of events? Carmen Maria Machado’s devastating memoir In the Dream House is anything but straightforward, but it tells a true story. A creative nonfiction author could also use a wider lens to shine a light on systemic issues like opioid addiction, as Beth Macy did with Dopesick.

Creative nonfiction might be ideal for writers who feel creatively restrained by short-form journalism but don’t feel drawn to creating characters from scratch. Even more importantly, a well-told story can bring much-needed attention to social problems, marginalized groups, or even just a wild story that has absorbed your friends at cocktail parties for years.

Here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re considering this genre.

Choose Your Subject Wisely

If you’ve never tried your hand at nonfiction writing before, you might feel a surge of freedom. After all, if you’re writing about real people and events, you don’t have to painstakingly build characters with needs, desires, and secrets from the ground up.

But how do you pick which true story to tell?

If you’ve worked hard at writing fiction, you know that the best way to approach a book is to tell the story you’d most want to read. The same is true of creative nonfiction. What is the story you need to hear? What topic is no one thinking enough about? What’s an issue, person, or event that you know is important?

Maybe you want to shine a light on the lives of transgender kids in a hostile political climate. Maybe your grandmother’s fight against misogyny and poverty to eventually become the mayor of her small town is the most encouraging story you’ve ever heard.

Avoid picking a random subject simply for easy material. Consider what makes your heart beat faster, and find a story you think the world needs to know.

Journalistic Ethics

If you’ve never had any experience with journalism, it’s worth your while to educate yourself on ethics. When you’re writing about real people, you have a big responsibility to do things right, and there can be consequences if you don’t take that seriously.

If you want to be a true crime writer like Capote or McNamara, do the victims and their families consent to your digging around in their trauma? When you asked the school board member to tell you what they know about local government corruption, did you make it clear that you intend to use their information in a published book? Did you respect requests to change their name if they asked?

If you’re writing a memoir, you’ll be writing a lot about the people in your life. How do your parents feel about you airing their dirty laundry in print? Does your spouse want strangers reading about your ongoing domestic arguments about whose job it is to unload the dishwasher?

On the other hand, a good nonfiction writer will need to put aside personal biases. Just because Mayor Grandma is your personal hero, that doesn’t make it OK to ignore people in your hometown who opposed her political agenda all those years ago. And if you really want to write about your marriage woes, you need to include your own bad habit of forgetting which day is trash day.

If writing a good novel involves killing your darlings, writing compelling nonfiction means being honest, fair, and responsible.

Tell a Good Story

Which is more interesting: a dry paragraph about one family’s bad luck with a weirdo who sent odd notes to their house, or Reeves Wiedeman’s ultra-absorbing The Cut article about an incredibly frightening stalker who scared a young family out of their own home? And speaking of famous articles in The Cut, if you’re the kind of person who scoffs at people who are so gullible as to join a cult, try reading Ezra Marcus and James D. Walsh’s chilling piece on the Sarah Lawrence students preyed upon by the enigmatic Larry Ray.

Whether it’s a full book, a long-form article, or even a classic podcast like Serial, everyone knows at least one or two pieces of creative nonfiction that fascinated their friend group for a few weeks.

You might complain that it’s easy to be the writer who sold film rights to their latest long-form article or nonfiction title when they have a subject like Elizabeth Holmes or a frightening serial killer. But one of a successful journalist’s two greatest talents is the ability to know that a good story is a good story before Twitter is tweeting about it. The other talent is to tell that story in a way that will grab on to readers and never let go.