What is Creative Nonfiction?

What sets creative nonfiction apart from fiction or poetry?

For starters, creative nonfiction is factual. A memoir is not just any story; it’s a true story. A biography is the real account
of someone’s life. There is no room in creative nonfiction for fabrication or manipulation of the facts.
So what makes creative nonfiction writing different from something like textbook writing or technical writing? What
makes it creative?
Nonfiction writing that isn’t considered creative usually has business or academic applications. Such writing isn’t
designed for entertainment or enjoyment. Its sole purpose is to convey information, usually in a dry, straightforward
manner.
Creative nonfiction, on the other hand, pays credence to the craft of writing, often through literary devices and
storytelling techniques, which make the prose aesthetically pleasing and bring layers of meaning to the context. It’s
pleasurable to read.
According to Wikipedia:

Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is a genre of writing truth which uses literary styles
and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as
technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft.
Like other forms of nonfiction, creative nonfiction relies on research, facts, and credibility. While opinions may be
interjected, and often the work depends on the author’s own memories (as is the case with memoirs and
autobiographies), the material must be verifiable and accurately reported.

Creative Nonfiction Genres and Forms

There are many forms and genres within creative nonfiction:
 Memoir
 Autobiography and biography
 Personal essays
 Literary journalism
 Speeches
 Journaling
 Any topical material, such as food or travel writing, self-development, art, or history, can be creatively written
with a literary angle
Let’s look more closely at a few of these nonfiction forms and genres:

Memoirs: A memoir is a long-form (book-length) written work. It is a firsthand, personal account that focuses on a
specific experience or situation. One might write a memoir about serving in the military or struggling with loss. Memoirs
are not life stories, but they do examine life through a particular lens. For example, a memoir about being a writer might
begin in childhood, when the author first learned to write. However, the focus of the book would be on writing, so other
aspects of the author’s life would be left out, for the most part.

Biographies and autobiographies: A biography is the true story of someone’s life. If an author composes their own
biography, then it’s called an autobiography. These works tend to cover the entirety of a person’s life, albeit selectively.

Literary journalism: Journalism sticks with the facts while exploring the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a
particular person, topic, or event. Biographies, for example, are a genre of literary journalism, which is a form of
nonfiction writing. Traditional journalism is a method of information collection and organization. Literary journalism also
conveys facts and information, but it honors the craft of writing by incorporating storytelling techniques and literary
devices. Opinions are supposed to be absent in traditional journalism, but they are often found in literary journalism,
which can be written in long or short formats.

Personal essays are a short form of creative nonfiction that can cover a wide range of styles, from writing about one’s
experiences to expressing one’s personal opinions. They can address any topic imaginable. Personal essays can be
found in many places, from magazines and literary journals to blogs and newspapers. They are often a short form of
memoir writing.

Speeches can cover a range of genres, from political to motivational to educational. A tributary speech honors someone
whereas a roast ridicules them (in good humor). Unlike most other forms of writing, speeches are written to be
performed rather than read.

Journaling: A common, accessible, and often personal form of creative nonfiction writing is journaling. A journal can also
contain fiction and poetry, but most journals would be considered nonfiction. Some common types of written journals are
diaries, gratitude journals, and career journals (or logs), but this is just a small sampling of journaling options.
Any topic or subject matter is fair game in the realm of creative nonfiction. Some nonfiction genres and topics that offer
opportunities for creative nonfiction writing include food and travel writing, self-development, art and history, and health
and fitness. It’s not so much the topic or subject matter that renders a written work as creative; it’s how it’s written —
with due diligence to the craft of writing through application of language and literary devices.

Guidelines for Writing Creative Nonfiction

Here are six simple guidelines to follow when writing creative nonfiction:
1. Get your facts straight. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing your own story or someone else’s. If readers,
publishers, and the media find out you’ve taken liberties with the truth of what happened, you and your work will
be ridiculed and scrutinized. You’ll lose credibility. If you can’t refrain from fabrication, then think about writing
fiction instead of creative nonfiction.
2. Issue a disclaimer. A lot of nonfiction is written from memory, and we all know that human memory is deeply
flawed. It’s almost impossible to recall a conversation word for word. You might forget minor details, like the
color of a dress or the make and model of a car. If you aren’t sure about the details but are determined to
include them, be upfront and include a disclaimer that clarifies the creative liberties you’ve taken.
3. Consider the repercussions. If you’re writing about other people (even if they are secondary figures), you might
want to check with them before you publish your nonfiction. Some people are extremely private and don’t want
any details of their lives published. Others might request that you leave certain things out, which they feel are
personal. Otherwise, make sure you’ve weighed the repercussions of revealing other people’s lives to the world.
Relationships have been both strengthened and destroyed as a result of authors publishing the details of other
people’s lives.
4. Be objective. You don’t need to be overly objective if you’re telling your own, personal story. However, nobody
wants to read a highly biased biography. Book reviews for biographies are packed with harsh criticism for
authors who didn’t fact-check or provide references and for those who leave out important information or pick
and choose which details to include to make the subject look good or bad.
5. Pay attention to language. You’re not writing a textbook, so make full use of language, literary devices, and
storytelling techniques.
 6. Know your audience. Creative nonfiction sells, but you must have an interested audience. A memoir about an
ordinary person’s first year of college isn’t especially interesting. Who’s going to read it? However, a memoir
about someone with a learning disability navigating the first year of college is quite compelling, and there’s an
identifiable audience for it. When writing creative nonfiction, a clearly defined audience is essential.

Ten Creative Nonfiction Writing Prompts and Projects

The prompts below are excerpted from my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts,  which contains fiction, poetry, and
creative nonfiction writing prompts. Use these prompts to spark a creative nonfiction writing session.
1. What is your favorite season? What do you like about it? Write a descriptive essay about it.
2. What do you think the world of technology will look like in ten years? Twenty? What kind of computers, phones,
and other devices will we use? Will technology improve travel? Health care? What do you expect will happen
and what would you like to happen?
3. Have you ever fixed something that was broken? Ever solved a computer problem on your own? Write an
article about how to fix something or solve some problem.
4. Have you ever had a run-in with the police? What happened?
5. Have you ever traveled alone? Tell your story. Where did you go? Why? What happened?
6. Let’s say you write a weekly advice column. Choose the topic you’d offer advice on, and then write one week’s
column.
7. Think of a major worldwide problem: for example, hunger, climate change, or political corruption. Write an
article outlining a solution (or steps toward a solution).
8. Choose a cause that you feel is worthy and write an article persuading others to join that cause.
9. Someone you barely know asks you to recommend a book. What do you recommend and why?
10. Hard skills are abilities you have acquired, such as using software, analyzing numbers, and cooking. Choose a
hard skill you’ve mastered and write an article about how this skill is beneficial using your own life experiences
as examples.

Do You Write Creative Nonfiction?

Have you ever written creative nonfiction? How often do you read it? Can you think of any nonfiction forms and genres
that aren’t included here? Do you have any guidelines to add to this list? Are there any situations in which it would be
acceptable to ignore these guidelines? Got any tips to add? Do you feel that nonfiction should focus on content and not
on craft? Leave a comment to share your thoughts, and keep writing.

What is Creative Nonfiction?

Lee Gutkind
The banner of the magazine I’m proud to have founded and I continue to edit, Creative Nonfiction, defines the genre
simply, succinctly, and accurately as “true stories well told.” And that, in essence, is what creative nonfiction is all about.
In some ways, creative nonfiction is like jazz—it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, and techniques, some of which are newly
invented and others as old as writing itself. Creative nonfiction can be an essay, a journal article, a research paper, a
memoir, or a poem; it can be personal or not, or it can be all of these.
The words “creative” and “nonfiction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the
techniques fiction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonfiction—factually accurate prose about real
people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make nonfiction stories read like fiction so
that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.
The word “creative” has been criticized in this context because some people have maintained that being creative means
that you pretend or exaggerate or make up facts and embellish details. This is completely incorrect. It is possible to be
honest and straightforward and brilliant and creative at the same time.
"Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen, reporting and describing what wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that
the writer has a license to lie. The cardinal rule is clear—and cannot be violated. This is the pledge the writer makes to
the reader—the maxim we live by, the anchor of creative nonfiction: “You can’t make this stuff up!” 
The Fastest-Growing Genre
Creative nonfiction has become the most popular genre in the literary and publishing communities. These days the
biggest publishers—HarperCollins, Random House, Norton, and others—are seeking creative nonfiction titles more
vigorously than literary fiction and poetry. Recent creative nonfiction titles from major publishers on the best-seller lists
include Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,
and Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle.
Even small and academic (university) presses that previously would have published only books of regional interest,
along with criticism and poetry, are actively seeking creative nonfiction titles these days. In the academic community
generally, creative nonfiction has become the popular way to write.
Through creative writing programs, students can earn undergraduate degrees, MFA degrees, and PhDs in creative
nonfiction—not only in the United States but in Australia, New Zealand, and throughout the world. Creative nonfiction is
the dominant form in publications like The New Yorker, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. You will even find creative nonfiction
stories featured on the front page of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
The Memoir Craze
In the 1990s, the controversy over the publication of a half dozen intimate memoirs triggered what the publishing
industry and the book critics referred to as the “memoir craze.” Angela’s Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt and This Boy’s
Life (1989) by Tobias Wolff were both made into major motion pictures; the British actress Emily Watson starred as
McCourt’s mother, Angela, and Academy Award winner Robert De Niro played Wolff’s stepfather, Dwight Hansen. The
Liars Club (1995) by Mary Karr, another of these best-selling tell-all memoirs, rode the new interest in the genre, as did
Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss.
Memoirs are not new to the literary world. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a classic of the form as is Isak Dinesen’s
Out of Africa, first published in this country in 1938. Today the memoir craze continues in full force. Celebrities,
politicians, athletes—victims and heroes alike—are making their private lives public. And readers can’t get enough of
these books. The literature of reality, with all of the pain and the secrets that authors confess, is helping to connect the
nation and the world in a meaningful and intimate way.
Literary Journalism
Memoir is the personal side of creative nonfiction but there’s a public side as well, often referred to as narrative or
literary journalism—or “big idea” stories. Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire) captures big ideas, for example, as does
Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat) through creative nonfiction.
One distinction between the personal and the public creative nonfiction is that the memoir is the writer’s particular story,
nobody else’s. The writer owns it. In contrast, the public side of creative nonfiction is mostly somebody else’s story;
anybody, potentially, owns it, anybody who wants to go to the time and trouble to write about it. These pieces, although
narrative, focus on fact, leading to a bigger and more universal concept.
In every issue, Creative Nonfiction publishes “big idea/fact pieces”—creative nonfiction about virtually any subject—from
baseball gloves to brain surgery to dog walking to immortality or pig roasting. There are no limits to the subject matter as
long as it is expressed in a story-oriented narrative way. These are stories almost anyone could research and write.
Because they’re so personal, memoirs have a limited audience, while the public kind of creative nonfiction—when
authors write about something other than themselves—has a larger audience. These “big idea/factual essays” are more
sought after by editors and agents and will more likely lead to publication.
The Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction 
Scenes and stories are the building blocks of creative nonfiction, the foundation and anchoring elements of what we do.
This is what I tell people who want to write but have no experience writing. And I tell the same thing to the graduate
 students in my writing classes—and PhD students. Writing in scenes is one of the most important lessons for you to
take from this book—and to learn.
The idea of scenes as building blocks is an easy concept to understand, but it’s not easy to put into practice. The stories
or scenes not only have to be factual and true (You can’t make them up!), they have to make a point or communicate
information, as I have said, and they have to fit into the overall structure of the essay or chapter or book. It is often a
daunting task. But it’s essential.
Writing in scenes represents the difference between showing and telling. The lazy, uninspired writer will tell the reader
about a subject, place, or personality, but the creative nonfiction writer will show that subject, place, or personality,
vividly, memorably—and in action. In scenes.

A literary convention is:

A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in
a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle. Literary conventions are defining features of particular
literary genres, such as the novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.

In other words, it is a cliche, device, or trope that acts as a defining feature of a genre. All Star Wars  movies begin with
the phrase "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." This helps place the viewer in the context of the Star
Wars  galaxy. Literary conventions can be aspects of prosody (rhyme and sound), structure (acts in a play), or content
(humor in a comedy). 

To elaborate on a few of the examples provided above:

 Chorus - In Greek tragedy, the chorus is a group of masked performers who provide context for the events that
unfold. They do not directly interact with the action performed by the actors but can provide prologues, epilogues, and
commentary for the benefit of the audience. 
 Moral - Fables are designed to communicate a moral lesson about how the audience should or should not act.
This moral is often communicated in the form of a single line or utterance that summarizes the lesson of the fable. An
additional convention found within fables is that the actors in the story are not human.
 Rhyme Scheme - Poems often use rhyme as a convention to distinguish themselves from prose. Such poems
follow a pattern of rhyming sounds—the first and third lines, for example, must rhyme, while the second and fourth do
not. Poetry does not require rhyme, however, and utilizes many different conventions based on style, language, and
purpose. 

A literary convention is the name given to a well-established technique or feature of a particular genre. Because it is
well-established, a convention is accepted and expected by the reader. Here are some examples:

 A soliloquy is a convention of Shakespeare's plays because it appears so frequently in his most popular works
like Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
 A moral message is a convention of a fable. There is a strong moral message in George Orwell's Animal Farm,
for example.
 Foreshadowing is a convention of short stories and novels and the reader recognizes that it is regularly used by
authors to hint at the events to come.
 It is a convention of satire that the author will employ humor and sarcasm to convey his message. 
 It is a convention of a sonnet that it will consist of fourteen lines. (See the reference link provided).
Non-fiction techniques are techniques used by writers of expository texts (texts which are designed to inform, persuade,
teach, instruct etc) to SHAPE meaning and  reader understanding.

Major things to consider

 Genre;
 Language ;
 Style (includes language elements as well);
 Point of view;
 Structure.

Non-fiction elements: (some of these may be included above):

1. Selection of detail, facts, events (selectivity as to what is included); 

2. Sequencing of events, facts etc; ordering and chronological arrangement;

3. Structure of information; format and presentation;

4. Use of persona, point of view;

5. xpanding boundaries of factual reporting ( exaggeration, embellishing, expanding);

6. Use of anecdotes, analogies, allusions, metaphors;

7. Descriptive language; figurative language and imagery;

8. Choice of words and use of language (eg colloquialisms in Dude), ; connotative and emotive language;

9. Use  and creation of tone (authorÕs attitude to subject);

10. Use of dialogue;

11. Use of humour, satire;

12. Interpretation of events, facts; opinionative response; versions of reality;

13. Use of facts, data, statistics, authority figures;

14. Foregrounding; use of repetition and rephrasing;

15. Rhetorical argument and user of rhetorical devices; questions, rhetorical questions; 

16. Use of narrative techniques (above).

 
Writers of  non-fiction texts may  include narrative elements:
Narrative or literary elements used in fiction :

1. plot (story) with narrative structure;

2. characterisation;

3. point of view

4. setting;
 5. theme;

6. dialogue;

7. tone.

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with some of

the narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. Also
called narrative journalism.
In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists (1984), Norman Sims observed that
literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer surfaces
to show that an author is at work."
The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction; more often,
however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.
Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Mark Singer,
and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past century include Stephen Crane, Jack
London, George Orwell, and Tom Wolfe.
Classic Examples of Literary Journalism

 "A Hanging" by George Orwell

 "The San Francisco Earthquake" by Jack London
 "The Watercress Girl" by Henry Mayhew

Observations

 "Literary journalism is not fiction--the people are real and the events occurred--nor is it
journalism in a traditional sense. There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and (often)
experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of literary
journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism explores the
lives of those who are affected by those institutions."  (Jan Whitt, Women in American Journalism: A
New History. University of Illinois Press, 2008)
 Characteristics of Literary Journalism
 "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion reporting,
complicated structures, character development, symbolism, voice, a focus on ordinary
people ... and accuracy. Literary journalists recognize the need for a consciousness on the
page through which the objects in view are filtered.
 "A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a formal
definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer used the term
'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules, Kramer included:

- Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds...

- Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor...
- Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
- Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

 "... Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined...
Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy--or mostly so--precisely because their
work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are imaginary." (Norman
Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism. Northwestern University Press, 2008)
  "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose whose
verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of narrative
and rhetorical techniques generally associated with fiction.' Through these stories and sketches,
authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the people and culture depicted.'
 Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting the genre itself allows readers to 'behold
others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts than we can bring to our own.' He goes on to
suggest, 'There is something intrinsically political—and strongly democratic—about literary
journalism—something pluralistic, pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E.
Hartsock points out, the bulk of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed
'largely by professional journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to
be found in the newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de
facto journalists.' Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work
itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be
emblematic of a larger truth."(Amy Mattson Lauters, ed., The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane,
Literary Journalist. University of Missouri Press, 2007)
 "Through dialogue, words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to the
reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A writer simply
gets things started." (John McPhee, quoted by Norman Sims in "The Art of Literary
Journalism." Literary Journalism, ed. by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer. Ballantine, 1995)

Background of Literary Journalism

 "[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary journalism.
Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary journalism should take--
that it should be situated in the ordinary world--even though her background was not typically
found in newspaper writing." (Carla Mulford, "Benjamin Franklin and Transatlantic Literary
Journalism." Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-1830, ed. by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning.
Cambridge University Press, 2012)
 "A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in their
egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have been
unthinkable a few generations earlier." (Arthur Krystal, "Slang-Whanger." Except When I Write.
Oxford University Press, 2011)
 "The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it was
used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism--muckraking on behalf
of immigrants and the poor--one found in the New York World and other papers...
"Although it was historically unrelated to [Joseph] Pulitzer's New Journalism, the genre of
writing that Lincoln Steffens called 'literary journalism' shared many of its goals. As the city
editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s, Steffens made literary
journalism--artfully told narrative stories about subjects of concern to the masses--into editorial
policy, insisting that the basic goals of the artist and the journalist (subjectivity, honesty,
empathy) were the same." (Robert S. Boynton, Introduction to The New New Journalism:
Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft . Vintage Books, 2005)