Why is Creative Nonfiction So Hard to Define?
It's that word 'creative' that should set it apart. Yet a lot of nonfiction, including journalism, can be creative without becoming CNF. So, what then?
I know we’ve talked about this before, but the questions about creative nonfiction keep coming up. I’m no expert by any means, but since I have chosen to align Writer Everlasting with creative nonfiction, I feel the need to defend it or maybe justify it or maybe just bring it up here as a subject to talk about again.
I came across my thoughts in a comment to a piece I’d written long ago at Constant Commoner about my need to be near water. The piece itself didn’t mention creative writing, but one of my favorite writers, Nicci Kadilak, read it and wanted to talk about the writing of that piece.
(Several of my CC subscribers are also writers who subscribe to Writer Everlasting (Thank you, writers!), and as we read each other’s work, we often talk about those things that might trigger us into thinking about our own writing.)
I’m bringing this up now because someone at the retreat I attended last week asked for a definition of Creative Nonfiction, and those of us who write it struggled to come up with a short answer that might make sense. I wish I’d remembered our exchange from that Constant Commoner piece, where Nicci asked me what I thought the takeaway was for that particular essay. I answered it this way. I think it’s pretty close to what CNF is. See what you think:
I honestly have never thought of a purpose or takeaway for my creative writing pieces. I'm not even sure I know what that means. I write these pieces because something nudges me, and one thing leads to another and then another...
Most creative nonfiction pieces aren't written for a reader. They're written because the writer feels the need to express a thought or a notion or a dream. And they read that way if they're done well.
The reader should feel they're witness to a reverie. They're not participants and were never meant to be. That's the magic of CNF. It's to make the reader feel as if they've happened upon something special; something that would have been there whether or not they had seen it, and weren't they lucky to have found it?
It's mood writing and the writer's work is to make sure nothing breaks the mood. The ending has to satisfy, has to leave the reader grateful to have had the experience.
I’ve written about creative writing several times, including this piece called “The Art of Nonfiction”, where I wrote:
Creative Nonfiction appeals to the heart, to emotions, and tells a compelling story designed to make the reader feel something. There’s a passion to it. It’s usually told in First Person and is written in a conversational tone, as if you were talking to a group of friends and not standing on a podium delivering a speech.
The word “Creative” tells you that it’s different from ordinary nonfiction. The writer comes through as a personality and isn’t hidden from the essay. No matter what the creative nonfiction writer writes, a part of them shines through, and, if they do it well, the reader comes away appreciating the writer as well as the story.
CNF writers understand that no matter what they write they have to be in there. It doesn’t have to be about them, it only has to reflect their personality. Whether it’s politics or activism or reminiscences or humor or first world problems, the reader will know it all comes from the feelings of that particular writer.
The CNF writer insists the readers become involved in their story. That takes a special kind of talent, and it requires a kind of bravery.
It means you have to open yourself up to your audience in ways you’re not used to if your background is straight nonfiction. Our hearts have to be in it, and, since our natural inclination is to protect our hearts, it’s not easy to lay it all out there to an audience that may or may not be receptive.
But this is what makes CNF special and why not everyone is successful at it. When it’s done well, it soars, it inspires, it makes us laugh or cry or think or take action. It’s what turns non-fiction into art.
So there are some of my thoughts on creative nonfiction. What are yours? If someone asked you for a CNF definition in a setting where you didn’t have time for a long answer, what would you say? How would you define it? Does it even need a definition beyond what we call it?
CREATIVE NONFICTION.
Does it speak for itself? What isn’t creative nonfiction but often disguises itself as CNF? Is it okay to allow it into that genre?
Oh, wait… Is CNF a genre?
Do you have a minute? Can we talk?
I think we humans have a tendency to overcomplicate. I think of creative non-fiction as true stories, well told. Creative non-fiction is the difference between memoir and biography. It's the difference between story and history. It's powerful writing on true things. It reads like literature, but it's truth not fiction.
Discussions of “creative nonfiction” typically focus on the word “creative.” Is it true in every detail or is it creative — meaning it is made up. Some scholars claim that it is not the actual truth that matters but the “emotional” truth. I myself believe a better category would be “literary nonfiction,” where the quality of the writing is such that it reveals both actual truth and is universal in its appeal.