Writers, Lawyers, journalists... lend me your skills! Need assistance writing my magnum opus

Please bear with me here people.. I am trying to deal with a nearly impossible task. I am someone who really has no business writing a book yet I feel I am in a position where I have to do the best I can to attempt it.

What I am trying to do - write two books, one fiction one non-fiction - detailing important information I feel I have.

What I need from people here - I need anyone who can help to try to help me solve problems along the way and get this information out to the world.




The biggest issue I am having right now...

How do I write a non-fiction book using other people's sources without breaking copyright laws?

Basically what I need to do is piece together many discoveries to show people what I feel is going on... but to do this I need to use as much of these puzzle pieces as possible. As much info from these sources as possible


Does anyone have experience writing a non-fiction book and could you help walk me through the process? I have many other issues with this but maybe I should just bring them up later as they come to me.

If anyone has any tips that they feel might help me or any recommendations at all please let me know. Also.. I am going to try to be as secretive as possible regarding the subject matter because if I start getting into that I think this thread will just devolve into a big guessing game.

To reference another book would require permission from the Author/Entity that owns the book.

Reference the book/author/date and providing you have not changed anything, it can be referenced(as it is factual). Ignore my previous statement as I was thinking in terms of fiction.

As to writing a non-fiction book...

Start with a general plan of how the story will progress in point form.

reply to post by OccamAssassin


Hi OccamAssassin. Thanks for the response!

The non fiction book is essentially taking books, videos and website and compiling all the info I need to show people what is going on.

But the problem I have is I have heard you can get in trouble even using info from a non fiction book. This is why I am struggling to know what I can and can't use..

The fiction book will be using this same kind info but with a little fiction mixed in.

I am worried if I don't follow the rules precisely then this could be used to prevent me from getting this info out.


Imagine I was using info someone provided in a web site and I wanted to relate as much info as possible from their site... how do I do this without them being able to claim I infringed on their work?

What process could I use to convert their work to my own? I have heard "re-wording" as in a school project isn;t enough but unsure.

reply to post by TheKeyMaster


It doesn't really matter if you reference it properly (it might pay to go to a university website and have a read up on their guidelines for referencing another's work as they have to be on par with copy-write legislation).


I would be more concerned about directly/indirectly defaming individuals if you are writing a non-fiction book.

Saying something like the "Mr X lied about yadda....." can leave you open to litigation if Mr X can prove he did not. However, saying "I think that it is possible Mr X lied about yadda...." is less a statement and more of an opinion, which makes a significant difference in court and protects yourself from being sued for defamation.

reply to post by OccamAssassin


Yeah.. the libel issues is something I was planning on getting into more when I wrote the fiction part. That is something I have definitely been concerned about. And I don't have the money to get a lawyer to advise me. I also have to worry about who I can trust.

Regarding the non-fiction element... What if I do this.. what if I go through the info and simply write down all the facts and re-word the facts in my own words.. then is it completely legal no matter how much info I use? Though I think the order the info is presented is also key.

Also.. anyone who offers advice I realize this is all done at my own risk and no one is responsible for offering their advice.

Try reading a few non-fiction books that deal with the same area you're interested in to get an idea of how they might be formatted.

Generally, to write a book you have to write. So in the case of having a lot of information that you've gathered from various sources, you will have to distill/rewrite their concepts or words into your own words. You can also quote from other sources, there are books/sites that you can easily find which will tell you how much you can generally quote at a time, and how to correctly attribute the quote.

Since just quoting a lot of material from others rarely makes for a very good read, you may need to partner with someone. Perhaps your strong suit is the research end of writing. In this case partnering with someone who's strong suit is structuring information and communicating it may be best.

There may be more people willing to help you if you could give a general idea of the types of material you're trying to integrate/correlate.

reply to post by Empyreal


Thanks for the response Empyreal. I definitely need help. I feel lost. I was someone who HATED doing written assignments in school.. yet I was off the charts on test scores even though I never studied. I am great at taking in information and terrible and putting it out for others to understand.

One of my fears though is that as paranoid as this sounds it seems there are many people trying to suppress this info. Most people outside of these types of groups would not be interested in this subject matter because of the stigma.. which is why places like this make it easy to target people like me who may gave discovered the info they are trying to suppress.

Let me give you an idea of the problem I am having..

Let's say I wanted to take a website that was about an engineering theory.. their site consisted of all the facts they had amassed.. the experiences they had discovering what they did.. photos and drawing illustrating their theory and other information...

Then let's say I wanted to convey this info to others in my own copyrighted book to help make my own similar yet slightly different case...

But what I did was to reword all they wrote and made my own images very similar to their illustrating what they did... but it was all just a tiny bit different.. I even followed nearly the exact format they used to make their web page... how do I know if it is different enough to not get in trouble?

I could just play it safe and use as little info as possible from these sources while trying to make my case..

BUT if I don't use enough info people may not be compelled to dig deeper...

This is the problem I have.. and it is very difficult o find any kind of definitive answer to solve this problem searching online.

reply to post by TheKeyMaster


Perhaps another form of media would work.

You could create a blog where you can extensively quote and comment on other sites content without the copyright issues you'd have with publishing a book.

Alternately, or in addition to the blog, maybe you'd be more comfortable explaining things verbally, so recording audio/video comments or creating a radio show or lecture series is the way to go.

Just for yourself, it would be very beneficial to write down in your own words a paragraph or two summary of your thesis. State what the primary insight you've had is. You may find this task difficult, which would be an indication of its importance in helping you have personal clarity on the issue.

reply to post by Empyreal


I have thought about those possibilities.. but if go in depth discussing these issues in any format if the groups that are trying to suppress the information have those copyrights couldn't they get the sites removed?

What I am thinking of doing is to make a fictional story but this has problems as well because if I show the people I feel are involved then I could also get sued...

I have thought of making one fictional character to represent the different people who have made separate but related discoveries... I am concerned they could complain about using their info in a fictional story too but it might make things easier for me.