CREATIVE NONFICTION
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:33 am
I think maybe I’ve done too many of these lessons—last week I wrote a lesson on paragraphs when it appears that I posted one almost exactly like it last October. And I was sure that I’d already done one on creative nonfiction, but I can’t find it anywhere. So here goes, but if you’re a regular reader of these lessons, a lot of this will be familiar to you, as I’ll be drawing from some ideas that I tend to hammer at over and over again.
Creative nonfiction is a relatively new term in the writing world. It’s nonfiction (that is, it’s writing based on truth), but it uses writing techniques that are more usually associated with fiction; those techniques will be the focus of this lesson. Not all nonfiction will fit well into this definition—nonfiction that’s written for academia, or journalism (in most cases), or things like instructions and manuals and the like don’t really lend themselves to the kind of originality that’s characteristic of creative nonfiction.
However, there are many kinds of writing that lend themselves well to the techniques of creative nonfiction, including these:
• Memoir and autobiography
• Travelogue
• Inspirational writing
• First person essays
• Literary journalism
So…what are these literary techniques? Nothing as intimidating as it might sound. Think about what’s excellent about your favorite fiction; those are the sorts of things that can easily be incorporated into creative nonfiction. (Note—not every piece of creative nonfiction will have all of these elements, nor is this an exhaustive list. It’s just to give you the idea of what’s possible.)
1. Characters who interact with each other. Especially if you’re writing about something that happened to you or to someone you know, you can recreate dialogue and reactions to other’s behavior. Don’t worry that you can’t remember the conversations word-for-word, or if you have to speculate on something that happened while you were not ‘on stage.’ This will be understood by your reader; if you’re not sure about that, you can include a statement to that effect.
Here are two different accounts of the same instance—you decide which is more creative.
We went out to a restaurant that evening, and we got back about 7:00. Soon after we got home, the phone rang, and the doctor on the other end told us that our daughter had been injured and that we should come to the hospital soon. We quickly put our jackets back on and headed for the hospital, which was three hours away. We didn’t talk much on the way there, both silently wondering what the future would look like for us now.
***
I was just hanging up my jacket when the phone rang. My husband answered it, and immediately I could tell that there was no home siding salesman on the other end. I stood with the hanger in my hand and listened as our world shattered.
“I work with disabled people,” Ben said. “I’ve seen this kind of injury. How bad is it?” He looked at me, mouthing our daughter’s name. Then: “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
We stumbled to the car and somehow drove across the state to where our daughter lay, still on her gurney. I took her hand and held it to my face. “I feel at peace, Mom,” she said.
***
Granted, those paragraphs cover slightly different material, but I think you can see that the second example—while totally true—does more to show the reader what that phone call and its aftermath were like, and it also develops the characters a bit more. In fact, it reads like fiction.
2. Interesting word choices. I think some nonfiction writers are stuck in “school report” mode, not realizing that just because a piece is nonfiction doesn’t mean that it can’t be interesting. One way to make your writing more interesting is to choose your words well. In the examples above, the first paragraph has no interesting words whatsoever; if you’ve been reading these lessons for a while, you know that I refer to ordinary words as “rice cake” words.
On the other hand, the second example has shattered and mouthing and gurney. These are “salsa” words—words with a bit of a kick.
Closely related to this concept of word choice is the importance of avoiding clichés. There’s a lesson on clichés in this forum, so I won’t go into a lot of detail on that here. But stay away, stay away, stay away from phrases that you’ve seen before.
3. Varied sentence structures and varied paragraph structures. I’ve got lessons on these concepts, too—look in the index on the forums page for more instruction on how to do add variety to your writing. But really, it’s self-explanatory: your sentences should be both simple and complex, long and short. Learn to use semicolons and dashes. Work on using short sentences to increase the pace and longer ones to slow the pace down. Experiment with using repetition and parallel structure to emphasize a point. Use occasional sentence fragments.
Similarly, some of your paragraphs can be very short—just one sentence, even—while others might be quite long. Study the paragraphs of excellent writers to see how they can be used to make the writing more interesting.
4. Flashbacks and flash forwards. Just as fiction isn’t always told in a linear fashion, creative nonfiction does not have to follow a strict chronological timeline. If I were writing a longer piece about my daughter’s story, I might choose to start with the paragraphs above (getting the phone call, seeing her on the gurney) and then flash back to a time when she was a particularly active toddler. Alternatively, I might start with her as a little child, flash forward to her walking with two canes toward her groom, and then flash back again to her accident.
For an example of a well-written piece of literary journalism, you might want to read this interesting (but longish) profile of a teenager with an unusual condition, written by Jessica Testa for BuzzFeed.com. As you’re reading, look for examples of each of the four points above.
I think I’m done posting homework assignments, but as always, I welcome comments or questions about this or any other writing-related topic. Also, there won’t be a lesson next week; my husband and I will be visiting the sweetest little granddaughter ever in sunny Florida.
Creative nonfiction is a relatively new term in the writing world. It’s nonfiction (that is, it’s writing based on truth), but it uses writing techniques that are more usually associated with fiction; those techniques will be the focus of this lesson. Not all nonfiction will fit well into this definition—nonfiction that’s written for academia, or journalism (in most cases), or things like instructions and manuals and the like don’t really lend themselves to the kind of originality that’s characteristic of creative nonfiction.
However, there are many kinds of writing that lend themselves well to the techniques of creative nonfiction, including these:
• Memoir and autobiography
• Travelogue
• Inspirational writing
• First person essays
• Literary journalism
So…what are these literary techniques? Nothing as intimidating as it might sound. Think about what’s excellent about your favorite fiction; those are the sorts of things that can easily be incorporated into creative nonfiction. (Note—not every piece of creative nonfiction will have all of these elements, nor is this an exhaustive list. It’s just to give you the idea of what’s possible.)
1. Characters who interact with each other. Especially if you’re writing about something that happened to you or to someone you know, you can recreate dialogue and reactions to other’s behavior. Don’t worry that you can’t remember the conversations word-for-word, or if you have to speculate on something that happened while you were not ‘on stage.’ This will be understood by your reader; if you’re not sure about that, you can include a statement to that effect.
Here are two different accounts of the same instance—you decide which is more creative.
We went out to a restaurant that evening, and we got back about 7:00. Soon after we got home, the phone rang, and the doctor on the other end told us that our daughter had been injured and that we should come to the hospital soon. We quickly put our jackets back on and headed for the hospital, which was three hours away. We didn’t talk much on the way there, both silently wondering what the future would look like for us now.
***
I was just hanging up my jacket when the phone rang. My husband answered it, and immediately I could tell that there was no home siding salesman on the other end. I stood with the hanger in my hand and listened as our world shattered.
“I work with disabled people,” Ben said. “I’ve seen this kind of injury. How bad is it?” He looked at me, mouthing our daughter’s name. Then: “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
We stumbled to the car and somehow drove across the state to where our daughter lay, still on her gurney. I took her hand and held it to my face. “I feel at peace, Mom,” she said.
***
Granted, those paragraphs cover slightly different material, but I think you can see that the second example—while totally true—does more to show the reader what that phone call and its aftermath were like, and it also develops the characters a bit more. In fact, it reads like fiction.
2. Interesting word choices. I think some nonfiction writers are stuck in “school report” mode, not realizing that just because a piece is nonfiction doesn’t mean that it can’t be interesting. One way to make your writing more interesting is to choose your words well. In the examples above, the first paragraph has no interesting words whatsoever; if you’ve been reading these lessons for a while, you know that I refer to ordinary words as “rice cake” words.
On the other hand, the second example has shattered and mouthing and gurney. These are “salsa” words—words with a bit of a kick.
Closely related to this concept of word choice is the importance of avoiding clichés. There’s a lesson on clichés in this forum, so I won’t go into a lot of detail on that here. But stay away, stay away, stay away from phrases that you’ve seen before.
3. Varied sentence structures and varied paragraph structures. I’ve got lessons on these concepts, too—look in the index on the forums page for more instruction on how to do add variety to your writing. But really, it’s self-explanatory: your sentences should be both simple and complex, long and short. Learn to use semicolons and dashes. Work on using short sentences to increase the pace and longer ones to slow the pace down. Experiment with using repetition and parallel structure to emphasize a point. Use occasional sentence fragments.
Similarly, some of your paragraphs can be very short—just one sentence, even—while others might be quite long. Study the paragraphs of excellent writers to see how they can be used to make the writing more interesting.
4. Flashbacks and flash forwards. Just as fiction isn’t always told in a linear fashion, creative nonfiction does not have to follow a strict chronological timeline. If I were writing a longer piece about my daughter’s story, I might choose to start with the paragraphs above (getting the phone call, seeing her on the gurney) and then flash back to a time when she was a particularly active toddler. Alternatively, I might start with her as a little child, flash forward to her walking with two canes toward her groom, and then flash back again to her accident.
For an example of a well-written piece of literary journalism, you might want to read this interesting (but longish) profile of a teenager with an unusual condition, written by Jessica Testa for BuzzFeed.com. As you’re reading, look for examples of each of the four points above.
I think I’m done posting homework assignments, but as always, I welcome comments or questions about this or any other writing-related topic. Also, there won’t be a lesson next week; my husband and I will be visiting the sweetest little granddaughter ever in sunny Florida.