What is Creative Nonfiction?

The banner of the magazine I’m proud to have founded and I continue to edit, Creative Non?ction, de?nes the genre simply, succinctly, and accurately as “true stories well told.” And that, in essence, is what creative non?ction is all about.

In some ways, creative non?ction is like jazz?it’s a rich mix of ?avors, ideas, and techniques, some of which are newly invented and others as old as writing itself. ?Creative non?ction 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 “non?ction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques ?ction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present non?ction?factually accurate prose about real people and events?in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make non?ction stories read like ?ction 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 non?ction: “You can’t make this stuff up!”?

The Fastest-Growing Genre

Creative non?ction 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 non?ction titles more vigorously than literary ?ction and poetry.? Recent creative non?ction 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 non?ction titles these days. ?In the academic community generally, creative non?ction has become the popular way to write.

Through creative writing programs, students can earn undergraduate degrees, MFA degrees, and PhDs in creative non?ction?not only in the United States but in Australia, New Zealand, and throughout the world. Creative non?ction is the dominant form in publications like the New Yorker, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. You will even ?nd creative non?ction 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 the 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, ?rst 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 non?ction 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 non?ction 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 non?ction?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 non?ction, 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 ?t 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 non?ction writer will show that subject, place, or personality, vividly, memorably?and in action. In scenes.

? Lee Gutkind?

Excerpted from:?

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction?from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between
 

You Can't Make This Stuff Up is "the essential and definitive guide to creative nonfiction," according to New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin, Susan Orlean. "It's as engaging to read as it is useful. Any writer or reader will find it indispensable and, frankly, inspiring."
 

READ MORE ABOUT CREATIVE NONFICTION?HOW TO READ IT, WRITE IT, UNDERSTAND IT AND PUBLISH IT?IN LEE GUTKIND’S NEW BOOK, YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP