Intro to Creative Non-Fiction

Laura Stanfill's "Breathing Lilacs"

• Does it provide a true description of someone or something?

• Does it extend your knowledge of our world?

Aspects for Analysis

• Does it have a compelling focus or thesis? (What is the point of this piece of writing--what is the author trying to show, attack, defend, or prove?)

• What characters are present?

• What is the narrative structure?

• How/why does the author use poetic devices like metaphor and imagery?

Why Structure Matters

Beginnings and endings are important! As the chapter from Literature: The Human Experience states, "What come between those beginnings and endings are often abstract issues," and the proficient non-fiction writer converts these "abstract ideas into concrete and illustrative detail" (32).

Because it mixes the literary with the actual, creative non-fiction asks us to consider both elements in our analysis.

This duality demands that we analyze not only the practicality of the work (Does it provide a true description of something or someone? Does it extend your knowledge of our world? Does it have a compelling focus or thesis?) but also its creative construction (What characters are present? What is the narrative structure? How/why does the author use poetic devices like metaphor and imagery?).

Grace Paley, who was an accomplished fiction writer, knew she had a good story when there were two threads, and one intersected with the first. The good essay is similar: there should be friction in the form, questions in the air, and it is our job to identify them.

Writing Your Own Non-Fiction!

For your Major Project in this module, you will be writing your own creative non-fiction essay modelled on one of the essays we read. This will give you the chance to be creative and tell your own true story, mixing the "actual" with the "literary"!

As you read the texts for this module and prepare to write your own creative non-fiction piece, here are some things to think about: What style and tone does the author use, and how can you use this style and tone in your own writing? What are the major divisions--the structure--of the piece? What structure most appeals to you and the story you want to tell? How does the author begin and end, and how will you begin and end? What imagery stands out to you, and why? How will you pay careful attention to your words as you develop your own world for your reader?

Intro to Creative Non-Fiction

Professor Henning, LIT 2000

What Is Creative Non-Fiction?

At its name implies, creative non-fiction is, most simply, works that are not fictive inventions; rather, they rely on real, personal experiences. Today, the genre often manifests in essays, memoirs, profiles, meditations, and certain types of journalism.

A Problematic Label?

"True Stories, Well Told"

Even though creative non-fiction is different from fiction, poetry, and drama, it still uses literary techniques to create vivid, compelling prose.

Some writers and critics see the label "creative" before non-fiction as problematic because it creates a false binary: non-fiction is either creative or not. This implies that some forms of non-fiction (newspaper articles, reports, etc.) do not involve creativity. But this is simply not true. Creativity is always in some way involved with good writing!

Lee Gutkind, the "guru" of the genre and founder of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction, describes the genre as "True stories, well told."

The "Reading Nonfiction" chapter from Literature: The Human Experience identifies four types of non-fiction: narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative. In this class, we will be focusing on narrative and descriptive forms, which are most often associated with the personal essay and memoir.

Narrating Your Life Story

The Presence of "I"

The Non-Fiction Contract

The Techniques of Literature

Because creative non-fiction is based on what actually happened, readers hold the genre to this contract: events cannot be made up and passed off as actual.

Unlike traditional journalism or expository non-fiction, creative non-fiction (specifically narrative and descriptive forms) uses literary techniques like setting, dialogue, characters, point of view, figurative language, poetic devices, and rhythm to create engaging prose.

You know how you've been told in many genres of academic writing to avoid the use of first-person? That is not the case in creative non-fiction! Instead, the genre embraces the use of "I," thereby encouraging a break from pure objectivity. This does not mean that creative non-fiction does not depend on facts; these facts are just processed through a first-person perspective.

Annie Dillard, a well-known writer of essays and short stories, explains, "The essay can do everything a poem can do, and everything a short story can do—everything but fake it. The elements in any nonfiction should be true not only artistically—the connections must hold at base and must be veracious, for that is the convention and the covenant between the nonfiction writer and his reader."

The Handy Literature Answer Book acknowledges that as a result, "nonfiction...calls attention to itself as constructed and written, no longer a transparent lens but a delivery system for expressive communication." Creative non-fiction thus both shows and tells: it illustrates--"shows"--us a specific world through the use of literary elements and skillful storytelling, but also "tells" through the use of commentary, analysis, reflections, opinions, and viewpoints.

As The Handy Literature Answer Book explains, this processing through the "I" perspective thus "becomes part of the story or analysis." The personal presence of the author also allows the author to directly speak to the reader in a voice that provides not only a window to their world, but also a window to the world as a whole, and therefore our shared human experience.

Key Characteristics of Creative Non-Fiction

Before we identify the key characteristics of the genre, we must first think about the purpose of the genre.

Why do we read it? Why do we write it? What does it contribute to literature as a whole?

As Literature: The Human Experience explains, "Writers turn to the essay form when they wish to confront their readers directly with an idea, a problem...an illuminating experience, an important definition, or some flaw (or virtue) in the social system" (30).

The Mutability of Form

A Sense of Intellectual Plot, Quest, Engagement, or Payoff

Although this is not mentioned in The Handy Literature Answer Book, another characteristic that distinguishes creative non-fiction is the mutability of form; in other words, the essay is able to assume many different structures and still maintain its forward motion. Many of the creative nonfiction texts we'll be reading in this class have fascinating forms, and that's part of why I chose them!

Ultimately, the point of a creative non-fiction essay is to take the reader on a voyage of discovery. The term essay comes from the French verb essayer, which means "to attempt, to try," and that verb comes from the Latin verb exigere, "to weigh out, to examine."

This voyage of discovery can manifest in a quest; it can come about from an intellectual plot, the author playing with an idea; it can come about from deep insight, a payoff via theme. The Portable MFA in Creative Writing explains it well: "An essay strives to reach a deeper comprehension of things at the end than was apparent at the beginning...[it's] the process of attempting to reach [a judgment]," process being the key word here.

Digressions are often a component of this mutability. The Portable MFA in Creative Writing explains, "In any digression, the writer has an eye on the narrative arc of the piece and the through-line of theme and keeps an eye out along the way for extra or subsidary meanings that may become apparent in the diversion" (89). Keep an eye out for how different forms give meaning to a piece, and how any wandering along the way also contributes to this meaning.