Modules in Creative Nonfiction

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Cainta Catholic College

A Bonifacio Ave., Cainta, Rizal
MODULE
IN
CREATIVE
NONFICTION
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MODULE 1
OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

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be able to:
1. Identify how Creative Non-Fiction started.
2. Distinguish the various information about Creative Non-Fiction
3. Familiarize with the examples of Creative Non-Fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Accomplish the advance organizer below by jotting down 8 terms

associated to the word Creative Nonfiction. Then write phrases or clauses below the advance
Module 1- Creative Nonfiction: An Overview
Creative
Nonfiction
DISCUSSION
CREATIVE NON-FICTION: AN OVERVIEW
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Does nonfiction exist in the Philippines?

 In the Philippines today, the field of nonfiction is incredibly varied, and it is located in
the pages of newspapers and magazines, as it was in the time of the first Filipino essayists
in English during the Commonwealth period.
 The essay in the Philippines enjoyed a kind of “golden age” before World War II.
 Most of the varieties of creative non-fiction, as practiced in the Philippines today are
already to be found in these early volumes-social commentary, reverie, reflection,
recollection, meditation, humorous sketch, journal entry, letter, travel sketch, profile
(Dear Devices, 1933; The Call of Heights, 1973; Literature and Society, 1940; Horizons
from My Nipa Hut, 1941)
 The 60’s and early 70’s were the Era of the Philippine Free Press, the Philippine Graphic
and Asia Philippine Leader, a high point in the Philippine journalism. These periodicals
are attracted as staff members and regular contributors some of the finest writers of the
time, including Nick Joaquin, Gregorio Brillantes, Kerime Polotan, Wilfredo Nilledo,
Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Ninotchka Rosca, Luis Teodoro, Jose Lacaba, Sylvia Mayuga,
Petronilio Bn. Daroy, Antonio Hidalgo, Rosario Garcellano.
 The most prolific, and certainly the pioneer, Nick Joaquin, has tried his hand at every
variety of nonfiction prose, including biography, history, profile, memoir, even an
almanac. And his production is so voluminous that the whole of it has yet to be properly
complied.
 Most of the creative non-fiction being published today still consist of essays (many of
them published as newspaper columns) and magazine feature articles. The column
themselves range from serious polito9cal commentary to historical trivia, from music
reviews to cooking tips, from political lessons on how to succeed in the corporate world
to highly personal reflections on a middle crisis.
 A few interesting examples:
o Jullie Daza’s An Ettiquette for Mistresses (1993)
o Barbara Gonzales’ How Do You Know Your Pearls Are True? (1991)
o Clinton alanca’s A Mad Tea Party (2002)
 Another worthy trend is the proliferation of what are called “glossies” magazines which
cater to specific markets with special interests.
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Is Creative Non-Fiction a new genre?
 It is used to be called personal journalism or literary journalism or new journalism or
parajournalism. These days it is labeled “creative non-fiction”.
 According to Theodore A. Rees Cheney, “creative non-fiction requires the skill of the
storyteller and the research ability if the reporter.” (1991)
 This type of writing, begins with the facts, but does much more. It elaborates on the facts,
interprets them, and more significantly, presents them in an interesting and engaging
way.
 It is more imaginative approach to reporting or, put in another way, it is “fact-based
writing that remains compelling, undiminished by the passage of time, that has at heart an
interest in enduring human values: foremost a fidelity to accuracy, to truthfulness.
 The key word is “personal.” The writer of creative non-fiction presents the world-or the
slice of it he wishes to focus on- through prism of his own personality. Thus he makes
contact with the reader in a different way from that of the traditional journalist. The
reader becomes involved, as he does in fiction. He gets to know the personalities, gets
caught up in the events.
Why did creative non-fiction develop?

 Perhaps more interesting than the question of when it got started is why it got started, and
why it has become so popular today.
 Trying to explain the phenomenon in the west (US), Cheney notes that, first, it addresses
a new kind of reading public in the west- a reasonably well-educated public.
“A large and growing public that feels it really should take an interest and is looking for
guidance as to what is, currently “The Real Thing”… a liberally educated public that has
been through the required surveys of literature yet was caught up in a contemporary
fascination with the new and topical.”
 And second, it addresses a public interested in non-fiction not only because is truer than
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fiction, but because it is often stranger than fiction.

 Reality itself has become so extravagant and weird, than conventional fiction cannot do it
justice.
Is creative non-fiction now a distinct field of study (like fiction or poetry)?

 According to Lee Gutkind (the godfather of Creative Non-Fiction) when he proposed
teaching a “creative non-fiction course” in the English Department of the University of
Pittsburgh in the early 70’s he was nearlu laughed out of the room.
 In both US and UK, academe has validated the genre as a field of study. Kings College in
the University of London not only offers general courses like “Literary Biography and
Autobiography”, but also a course like “Writing Lives: Literary Biography and
Autobiography in Theory, History and Practice”
 Interest in non-fiction is growing in our universities as well. The University of the
Philippines, the first institution in the country to offer degrees in Creative Writing, on
both undergraduate and graduate levels.
 Nick Joaquin commented on this new interest in his foreword to a collection of essays by
Marra Lanot, déjà vu, and Other Essays
“A great change in reading tastes is happening in our times; the decline in
popularity in fiction and growing preference for non-fiction. The switch is from the
novel and short story to the magazine and news column.. The essay that used to be the
literary Cinderella is now a star, rated more even financially than short story or poem..
The modern essay ranges from reportorial to intimately personal”
ACTIVITY
Directions: Observe your family members’ conversations and take note of the words and
expressions they frequently use. Choose five of these expressions.
1. Part one of your output will involve writing a definition for each word or expressions using
your own words, as if you are explaining them to someone who has not heard them before.
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Expression Meaning
2. Part two will ask you to defamiliarize yourself from what you know are the denotations or
connotations of these words and use them as if you were encountering them for the first
time. There is no one around to tell you what the words mean. You must rely on how the
words sound or even “smell” like to you, and incorporate them in your language.
MODULE 2
DEFINING CREATIVE NONFICTION AND ITS
TYPES
be able to:
1. Define what is Creative Non-Fiction
2. Identify the Types of Creative Non-Fiction
3. Distinguish various examples of Creative Non-Fiction.
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WARM UP ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Based from your answer in Module 1. WARM UP Activity, write a short
paragraph discussing your answers there.
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DISCUSSION
CREATIVE NON-FICTION: AN OVERVIEW
 Creative Non-Fiction is non-fiction prose which utilizes the techniques and strategies of
fiction.
 Creative Non-Fiction combines the authority of literature and the authority of the fact. It
demands spontaneity and imaginative approach, while remaining true to the validity and
integrity of the information it contains.
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 Creative Non-Fiction differs from fiction because it is necessarily and scrupulously
accurate in the presentation of information, a teaching element to the readers, is
paramount.
 Creative Non-Fiction differs from traditional reportage, however, because balance is
unnecessary and subjectivity is not only permitted but encouraged.
TYPES OF CREATIVE NON-FICTION

By now, you should have a sense of how this genre can be both creative and nonfictional: it
stands on the twin pillars of high style and unimpeachable truth. But as a literary form, it’s
incredibly capacious, making it a little hard to pin down. After all, the label encompasses works
from food writing to science blogs, and ranges from Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander
Hamilton — the inspiration for the hit musical — to Natalie Beach’s viral essay on her toxic
friendship with the Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway. It can be as long as a book, or short
enough to fit on the back of a cereal box.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the most common types of creative nonfiction — and some of
the best examples of each category. This isn't an exhaustive list of every subgenre under the CNF
umbrella, but it will help you identify and understand what creative nonfiction has to offer.
 Memoirs
This nonfiction genre carries a patina of commercialism, which tarnishes it in some
writers’ eyes. Think of the word “memoir,” and what comes to mind? Ghostwritten
celebrity tell-alls lining the shelves of airport bookstores or lurid accounts of abuse and
addiction topping the bestseller lists. Most damning of all, rom-com icons keep getting
tapped to star in blockbuster adaptations of someone’s journey of self-discovery in the
Global South.
It’s true that this space is a little overcrowded, and the memoirists that make it big — big
enough for Julia Roberts to play them, that is — often season their life stories with a
heavy dose of sensationalism. But that doesn’t mean the genre is full of pulpy dreck.
Plenty of memoirists have elevated the genre through their deft storytelling and
thoughtful reflection.
Examples
Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, a great example of memoir as creative
nonfiction.The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. This meditation on mourning
is at once cerebral and heartrending, as Didion interweaves her own experience of
widowhood with research on the nature of grief. The result is the definitive exploration of
loss — and one of The Guardian’s 100 best books of the 21st century.
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The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang. Mental illness memoirs have been
a virtual cottage industry since the ‘90s, when books like Prozac Nation and Girl,
Interrupted became household names — and box-office hits. Wang’s subtle, incisive look
at her own experience with schizoaffective disorder brings this well-worn genre to new,
insightful heights, making it one of the best books of 2019.
 Personal Essays
Personal essays condense the first-person focus and intimate scope of the memoir into a
smaller, tighter package. As a result, they tend to be more restricted in scope — tunneling
down into a single theme or narrative strand within the vast library of the author’s
personal experience.
Like its long-form equivalent, the personal essay has had to contend with a reputation for
clumsy confessionals and cheap sensationalism. Just think of the clickbaity personal
essay boom from the late aughts, which saw young, inexperienced internet writers —
mostly women — go viral for baring their darkest secrets online.
Still, as with their full-length counterparts, personal essays have a lot to offer writers
hoping to learn the art of telling the truth as a mesmerizing story. The internet is full of
eloquent, incisive examples of such work. But there are also numerous essay collections
worth digging into as well.
Examples
Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, a great example of personal essays as creative
nonfiction.The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. This widely acclaimed collection
tackles big ideas (Why is pain so often performed? Can empathy be put to harmful use?)
by grounding them in the personal. Whether she’s talking about the justice system or
reality TV, Jamison writes with both vulnerability and poise, using her own lived
experience as a jumping-off point for thinking deeply about the nature of empathy itself.
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Sedaris’s witty essays are a masterclass in
voice. You’ll find yourself clutching your sides on the first read-through, only to go back
and figure out how he got you to laugh so hard. This collection proves that personal
essays don’t have to trade in misery and sensationalism to hit hard — humor can be just
as powerful when it comes to forging a connection with your reader.
 Biographies
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Biographies can be monumental works of historical scholarship, written in the dense,
chalk-dusted prose of the academy and filled with painstaking endnotes in Latin and
Greek. They can also be narratives so captivating they border on literary necromancy,
bringing long-dead luminaries to life more vividly than Keira Knightley in a hoop skirt
and stays.
Of course, rigorous accuracy doesn’t mean you have to write in a sleep-inducing style.
The best biographies stand on a bedrock of careful scholarship. But they also interpret
their evidence with imagination and present it in the form of a story, brandishing a
novelist’s skill for plot and characterization to make their subjects feel as real as your
next-door neighbor.
Examples
American Prometheus, a great example of biography as creative nonfiction.American
Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. This erudite — but eminently readable
— biography shows you just how to render a larger-than-life historical figure on a human
scale. It follows J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, from his
childhood as a bashful dreamer to his attempts, late in life, to grapple with the violence of
his legacy.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Exhaustively researched and
lively in style, this unconventional biography turns its gaze on a different kind of
scientific hero: not an intrepid researcher, but a woman whose genetic material saved
countless lives — all without her knowledge or consent. A poor black farmer from the
American South, Henrietta Lacks died in 1951, but her cells live on, harvested from her
cervix during cancer treatment, live on, used as fodder for scientific research. Skloot
delves into all the issues at play in her remarkable story, from racism and poverty to
medical ethics.
 Literary criticism
Like “biography,” the very term “literary criticism” can conjure up something tweedy
and dull: more suitable for a grad school syllabus than a civilian bookworm’s must-read
list. But not all works of lit-crit read like jargon-laden dissertations — some of them are
as engrossing as the books they analyze blurring the lines between literary criticism and
literature, period.
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Many of the sharpest critics are also poets and poetry editors, novelists, and short story
writers themselves, giving them deep awareness of literary technique and the ability to
express their insights with elegance and flair. Delving into their work can feel profoundly
intimate: you’re invited to share in their experience as a reader — just about the most
private experience there is.
Examples
Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet, a great example of literary criticism as creative
nonfiction.Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. A poet and translator known for her
scintillating, knife-sharp verse, Carson lavishes all her facility for language on this
examination of erotic love in literature and philosophy, from Sappho to Plato. The
resulting criticism is as gorgeous as the poetry it critiques.
Passions of the Mind by A.S. Byatt. A renowned novelist, Byatt snagged a Booker for her
brainy historical romance, Possession. In this beautiful essay collection, however, she
shows off her considerable skills as a literary critic, writing with insight and, of course,
passion on writers from Toni Morrison to Sylvia Plath. She interweaves her analysis with
discussions of her own approach to craft, making this collection especially valuable to
writers.
 Literary journalism
Maybe you’ve already got a taste for "longform," the kind of nonfiction you find on
outlets like Longreads and Narratively — it's rich in both intoxicating, real-life details
and literary intrigue. If so, then you’re a fan of literary journalism. Also known as
narrative journalism or reported essays, this category encompasses subgenres like travel
writing, science writing, food writing, and even true crime. But all of it combines
journalistic integrity with haute-literary attention to crafting scenes and communicating
themes.
Reporters are generally expected to remain objective, taking a birds-eye view of breaking
stories as they unfold. But literary journalists are allowed to make room in their writing
for their own perspectives: they immerse themselves in the very action they recount.
Think of them as both characters and narrators — but every word they write is true.
Examples
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Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, a great example of literary journalism as creative
nonfiction.The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. A
masterclass in literary journalism, The Body of Desire sits at the intersection of food
writing and science writing. It also helped establish Pollan as the expert on all things
culinary. Though it purports to offer a “plant’s-eye view of the world,” it’s as much about
human desires as it is about the natural world.
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino. A Jezebel alum and New
Yorker mainstay, Tolentino is one of the most insightful internet writers in the game,
turning out addictive hits on all things pop culture — all without sacrificing strong
analysis and original thought. No wonder she’s been called the millennial Joan Didion.
The pieces collected in Trick Mirror show Tolentino at her best, tackling hot topics like
scammer culture and online virtue signaling with her characteristic wit.
ACTIVITY
Directions: Read the essay below by Karen Kunawicz, and evaluate it in terms of whether
it contains the right balance of information and imagination, facts and personal
information.
Shaking the City:

Twenty-Seven Months of Club Dredd, Lower Timog
by Karen Kunawicz
Red Rocks
It was in 1990. Two guys I knew from the late night carpool ride asked me if I wanted to
go to this little joint along Timog called Red Rocks. I was done with my last exam and
hey, I love rock and roll. I said yes.
And I got my rock and roll served to me along with chicken ass on a stick (from the
Bahay Inihaw next door) in a dim-lit joint small enough so you could see the band
through the purple haze. "Ito ba ang ating mga anak?" asked a comic bubble painted on
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the mural behind the stage area-I remember Batman and Jim Morrison done in bold solid
colors. That night we got to see Dean's December with frontman Binky
Lampano jumping and twisting in his music-driven seizures like a
madman. Then we got to see the Skavengers, then fronted by Dominic Gamboa a.k.a.
"Papadom" (The line included Mally Paraguya on bass, Patrick Reidenbach on drums,
Aye Ubaldo on keyboards, Noel Garcia on guitar and Maryana on sax). They were doing
covers by the Specials, English Beat, the Clash, etc. Speaking of covers, we paid P20 at
the foot of the staircase to get in.
School was out; I did not earn my driver's license after hitting the gate of my driving
school but when there's a will, there's a way made it back to Red Rocks to bring friends, as if to
say, "Sisters, brethren, I have found the promised land!" I also made it back to watch the
audition of a new band called Color It Red. I sat in the audience with the high school
buddies of their then bassist, Hank Palenzuela.
Two of my first new friends at Red Rocks were experimental filmmaker Regiben
Romano, and band manager, lover of manga and cyberpunk (yes, even then) Jing Garcia.
Regi had longish hair that resembled pasta twists and Jing's hair was-and still is-viciously
spiky. The powers that be at Red Rocks fell in love with the band and scheduled them for
more gigs. Unfortunately, the promised land shut its doors in the mid '90s.
Club Dredd
By early December of 1990, Club Dredd stood where Red Rocks once did. It's run by
Patrick Reidenbach with the help of Robbie Sunico. Rock and roll drove me to get my
license. I couldn't think of anything better to do on a free night than just slowly make the
trip to Timog from my old home in Makati and just hang out and be myself at the club.
Two months later, on January 31, 1991, it had its official opening with AfterImage and
The Dawn among the headliners.
For a lot of musicians and music lovers, Club Dredd became a second home. It got to a
point when we would hardly call each other up to ask, where to go that night; it was just
understood-we were all going to meet each other at Club Dredd.
Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here
Band members from Color It Red, Tame the Tikbalang, Poppyfield, Feet Like Fins,
Afterlmage, Eraserheads, Skavengers, Inquisitions, Advent Call, then fronted by some
livewire named Karl Roy, and members of the Dredd Poets Society, hung out at Club
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Dredd even on nights they weren't playing. The folks from the Racket Music Group met
there like Jing and the late Dodong Viray (whose cut and paste art are the trademarks of
many a gig schedule, concert poster, logo and album art). There was David Lava
(formerly of Rage) who was playing with Big Thing, musicians Bobby Taylo and Joey
Quirino, band manager, concert producer-turned-photographer Eddie Boy Escudero.
Harmonica playing redhead New Yorker Joe Sick who married a Kalinga woman would
always make a stop at Dredd when he was in Manila. Joey Ayala would also drop by
when he was still shuttling back and forth from Davao, Arthur Pimentel a.k.a. Judge
Dredd would be on hand to get into a heavy philosophical debate about life, art, politics
or music with anyone who fell prey. Other than that, he was also known to shout, "Put
Ano ba yan, kulang kayo sa libog!" whenever one of his favorite bands had an off night.
Waiter Joey Navarro had the muscles to carry stacks of cases of beer up and down the
steps and pick up banged slam dancers by the collar off the floor; he was known for his
words of wisdom, "Act like human, not like animal."
Even with my advertising job in full swing must have managed to go to Club Dredd three
to four nights a week while it was open at the Scout Tobias address. If wasn't there on a
weekend, it only meant was either sick or I had to work out of town. I sometimes look
back and wonder how I got away with it-it must've been love and the intensity and the
folly of youth that made me travel all those flyover less miles there, in a beat-up car
almost as old as I was-across EDSA, along Ortigas, E. Rodriguez to Morato, Timog and
finally to Dredd. Family
One of the things I truly loved about Dredd Timog at the time was, I felt I found another
family there. You didn't have to dress to impress at all. Remember too, grunge had burst
out of Seattle at around the same time with its no-nonsense "fashion" of jeans, plaid
shirts, work boots and anything old, reworked or right about to go clothing heaven. It was
a place where I didn't have to explain myself and everyone else spoke the same language.
I wasn't afraid of showing up alone because I knew I could just pull up a chair, hang out
and talk and shoot the breeze. Everyone knew everyone. We knew who had a crush on
whom, who was going out with whom, who was courting whom, and who was making
bola" whom. We also knew how everyone behaved when they were drunk, who was
obnoxious, who would pass out, who would wear a silly grin.
A few regulars would even hang out until Patrick closed shop which would normally
mean any time between 2:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. I recall the night when Patrick had to
pretend he had closed the bar for the night just so we could get rid of an irritating, loud
mouthed customer and chill out to some Rolling Stones records in peace. Or one sunrise
when some of us found ourselves in a pool playfully washing off the smell of smoke and
beer.
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A Past Life
By February 1993, Club Dredd at Scout Tobias had closed and it sounds like a cliché but
it was the end of an era. You might be thinking two years and a few odd months don't
make an era but hey, it wasn'tthe quantity, it was the "quality. We thought, did and said a
lot of castle with a fantastic things we probably couldn't get away with now or probably
wouldn't say in our minds but we were kings in temperamental sound system. I miss the
Dredd days, they happened at a time after I had paid my dues as an adolescent and
scholar and before I had to seriously pull my weight as an adult.
It was a time when all these interesting young, daring, unaffected musicians started
coming out of the woodwork playing their songs and bonding. It was a time when no one
had cellphones (anyone who had a beeper also didn't brag about it because you'd be made
fun of and when you wouldn't be too paranoid about the characters criss crossing the side
streets of Timog like born-again Christians selling chicken empanada for PS early in the
morning or kids wanting to hustle a game of pusoy dos. Impeachment and narcopolitics
were still not part of our everyday vocabulary and People Power did not have any sequels
yet. Some strange, fun, crazy kind of magic brought us to that place at that time. And
we're still somehow caught in its spell.
- Karen Kunawicz, "Shaking the City," People Asia (November 2001, 46-47)
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MODULE 3
GETTING STARTED

be able to:
1. Define the steps needed prior to Creative Non-Fiction writing.
2. Distinguish the various preparations a writer should deal with.
3. Express one’s ideas through writing.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Make a graphic organizer about the things you do before you go to school.
Be creative with your work.
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DISCUSSION
GETTING STARTED
Before you get down to actually writing an essay or story, a certain amount of preparation
is in order.
PLANNING THE PROJECT
1. SELECTING A TOPIC
a. The beginning writer often complains that he has “nothing to write about”. How is
this possible? Material for writing us everywhere. Where do subjects otr topics came
from? From Everywhere.
b. As Jacobi puts it :”From walking. From Talking. From Listening. From Observing.
From doing. From reading. From believing. From disagreeing. From dreaming. From
scheming. From asking. From having an open mind. You should begin with
something close to home, but that shouldn’t stop you from reaching out to the rest of
the world.
c. You would do to choose a subject you are familiar with and interested in, or which
you are curious about and can readily gain more information on because you have
access to the sources. But you should also make sure that the subject has some
appeal-or that you can make that you can make more appealing to a larger audience.
2. DETERMINING THE AUDIENCE

a. What is going into the essay or article, how it is to be handled, and how it is to be
organized will depend to a large extent on who target audience is. Even the language
to be used, the choice of words, the length of sentences, the images, the allusions-
should keep prospective readers in mind.
b. All the facts in the world would be wasted on readers who are unable to appreciate
them, for whatever reason.
c. Let’s say your chosen topic is paranormal experiences. This is broad subject and can
be approached from any number of ways, depending on whether the article is to be
submitted to a women’s magazine, the youth section of a newspaper or a cultural
journal.
d. The amount and type of information that the essay or article should contain will also
depend on the audience’s capacity to absorb it, and will therefore determine how
much and what sort of research you need to.
3. DOING RESEARCH
a. An important thing to remember is: no matter how great your way with words, or how
engaging the personality you project, the bottom line is how much do you know about
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your subject?
b. Before you begin gathering information, consider what kind of information you need:
and that determine where is the best place to get it. Your investigation will tell you
what work has already done on your subject. This is very important.
c. You need to keep current and you need to keep up with the competition. The creative
non-fiction writer wishes to be published in magazines “selling” a product. Therefore
he or she is in competition with everyone else who also has a product to sell.
d. Writing is impossible for anyone who doesn't READ extensively, even voraciously.
e. Research doesn't just consist of reading. Research can be done in the library, on the
net through an interview, through immersion.
f. It is immensely important to develop in yourself the art of listening (and this includes
eavesdropping)
g. A note on Interviewing:
 Do your homework first.
 Put your subject at ease.
 Make it very clear—to yourself first, and then to your subject—what the point
of the interview is.
 Put yourself in your subject shoes.
 Ask probing question tactfully.
 Don’t ask more difficult or sensitive questions right away.
 Respect your subject and allow him or her to hold center stage.
 Listen carefully
 Use a tape recorder
 Make sure you have enough details
 Observe your subject closely but not obviously
 Ask your subject if there’s anything he or she would like to tell you that your
questions have not covered
4. ACCESS IMMERSION
a. Access and immersion are the keywords. Remember that it isn't enough to know
something about your topic. You need to know more and you need to be willing to
spend some time acquiring that knowledge.
b. You may decide that your particular circumstances make specialization a good move.
Magazine editors appreciate those who have near-expert knowledge of something it
can be related to food, health, business, home interiors, sports, etc. It gives their work
some kind of authority which inspires confidence in readers.
c. Gutkind an American writer, speaker, and literary innovator, founder of the literary
magazine Creative Nonfiction suggests that while a traditional journalist is a reporter,
committed to facts behind a person, place, or situation, rather than the insight or
rationale behind the facts, the essayist—the writer of creative nonfiction must be a
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thinker, a critic, a social commentator.

d. Light writing does not mean superficial writing (mababaw) Lightness refers to the
treatment of the material the style of the presentation. Serious ideas need to be
presented in ponderous, pompous, or dull prose.
ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Think of a subject you would be interested in writing about. List down
three persons you could interview for essay or article. Write down a set of questions and
discuss it.
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MODULE 4
APPROACH AND POINT OF VIEW

be able to:
1. Define the use Approach as a strategy of creative non-fiction.
2. Explain the use of Point of View as s strategy of creative non-fiction.
3. Display the information learned from the discussion.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Directions: There are few more things to settle before you actually
begin writing. Make a list of the things you think need to be considered before writing.
THINGS TO BE SETTLED BEFORE WRITING
64
DISCUSSION
All of us interested in learning to communicate more effectively. And some of us do
it instinctively. We use words to do more than just denote plain meanings. We
manipulate them as to convey nuances. We use them in particular contexts so as to
suggest connections that
APPROACH AND POINT OF VIEW
1. APPROACH:
 It has to do with how the writer handles his subject, the angle used.
 Approach may be either objective or subjective.
 The decision on which approach to use is sometimes simply determined by
the writer’s circumstances. A military strategist describing the war in Iraq
would probably choose an objective approach and include number of bombs
dropped on Baghdad and the number of casualties. An officer of the Red Cross
or UNICEF might choose to focus on his own experiences in trying to distribute
relief goods to groups of civilians. This account would naturally include the
writer’s own emotions and the emotions of the people he encountered as he
went about his job.
 Sometimes, a piece seems to be written in the objective manner, because no
narrator is immediately identifiable. A good example is “Solita Monsod: Spunk
and Substance” by Conchitina Cruz. However, a more careful reading will
reveal that the approach here is not really objective.
 For instance when Cruz says, “Dressed smartly in a green pantsuit and
brimming with eloquence and enthusiasm as she speaks, Monsod is a
refreshing contrast to the dry stagnant air of a hot and sleepy afternoon,”
And when she says, ”People know and remember her as part of a dying breed
of leaders whom they can completely trust,”
 Approach may also refer to angle or handle. For example, an editor may ask
you: “How are you going to approach your proposed essay on fiestas?” Your
reply would be something like this: “I’m going to tie it up with the old
campaign to abolish fiestas altogether.” That’s your angle, your “take” on
the subject.
2. POINT OF VIEW:
 Point of view is the perspective from which a narrative is told. It indicates who
is telling the story and how the information is being filtered to the audience:
(i) First person employs the I or we pronouns
64
(ii) Second person is told through the pronoun, you

(iii) Third Person uses he, she, and they
 Refers to who is telling or narrating the story. Writers use pov to express the
personal emotions of either themselves or their characters.
 Putting yourself in the shoes of writers of fiction you can’t help but to
constantly ask:
(i) whose story is this?
(ii) who can best tell it?
(iii) what is the relation of the narrator (POV character)
 Not every point-of-view should be focused on the main character.
 Pov’s may come from a participant (either playing a major or minor role) or just
from an observer.
 Perspective:
1. First person and third person is often used in narration.
2. First person perspective is still effective even if a minor character is
the one narrating
3. Third person works even if used with the main character.
4. Writers sometimes use second person perspective to make readers feel
that they are a part of the story.
 Writers occasionally use indefinite pronoun “one” as a substitute for first-person
pronoun “i” or “we”.
 Second person POV as used to engage readers as if they were at the scene.
 First person narration that does not describe the speaker but rather someone they
are with.
64
ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Read the essay below. Had it been written from the perspective of a
straight person, what would it have been like? What would it lose? What would it gain?
Could be an interesting piece even written by an outsider? Analyze the Approach and
Point of View used in this essay.
REMOTE CONTROL By DANTON REMOTO

The Filipino gay empire has struck back at the center, using a language full of slippages
and cracks—a language at once sophisticated and vulgar, serious and light, timely and
timeless
I want to raise three points in this essay. First, that gay language serves as a mediator in
the universe of Philippine languages. Second, that this language comes form a carnival of
sources, a bricollage, as Claude Levi-Strauss would put it. Third, that this language has
been appropriated by the heterosexual mainstream.
But they never considered the fact that Philippine gay language is a language of
slippages: it sits on a site full of fractures and fissures.
Since the 1960s, Tagalog, the mother lode of Filipino, has metamorphosed into another
variant called Taglish, or Tagalog English. Taglish has become the language of the
educated elite and the middle class. One of its steady sources has been gay language,
which has generated so many words and idioms that have been inserted in the mainstream
of the everyday Taglish.
In fact, since the 1970s, gay language has even become a mediator among the many
languages spoken in the country. In a sense, it is like the mestizo, the fair-skinned
progeny of the brown, Malay ancestors with the Spanish or American colonial masters.
The mestizo speaks Taglish, a mélange of languages which, according to Dr. Vicente
Rafael, "evokes yet collapses the colonial relationship. It is the most unstable, and thus
the most malleable, of languages."
Gay language belongs to this realm. It has the "capacity to disrupt" because of its colorful
associations, its elements of parody and spirit of play, its sheer jouissance. Moreover, Dr.
Rafael adds it is capable of "embodying the possibilities of language."
In short, it is a language forever advent, forever beginning, forever new. The gay words
of the 1970s still exist, but they are continuously updated--in the beauty parlors and
64
offices, the universities and the streets, the media and boutiques.
Break the code
What are the springs of this language?
Gay language comes from a carnival of sources, like the costumes that the lesbians, gays,
bisexuals and transgender people wear during the rambunctious annual Pride March held
every December in Manila. The gays in the Philippines speak a common tongue. It is
their code, their very sword. It is their way of communicating without letting the straight
world understand the drift of their words.
Turning things on their heads, gay lingo is a way of barring the straight world from
intruding into the warm circle of gay conversation, and by extension, their lives.
In the very gay manner of subverting the order of things, gays have appropriated the
names of people in show business and entertainment, geography and the sciences, media
and politics, culture and the arts--and began using them in their daily lives. Let us now
discuss this typology.
In the 1980s, gay men looking for casual sex in the darkness of the Mehan Gardens
beside the Metropolitan Theater would suddenly shout "Jullie, Jullie Yap Daza" when a
policeman came within sight. Jullie Yap Daza is a famous newspaper editor and
television talk-show host. "Jullie" is the gay word for "huli," which in Tagalog means "to
get caught."
Thus, the gay men avoided the policemen, who would quickly book them for vagrancy or
any other imaginary offense, then ask the gay men for a bribe in exchange for freedom.
Dream factory
Show business is another colorful spring of gay lingo. We are influenced rather heavily
by the dream factory that is Hollywood. In Philippine gay lingo, "Winona Ryder" means
"to win," referring to a gay man lucky in both life and love. The American TV talk-show
host "Oprah Winfrey" has unwittingly lent her name to "OPM," which is gay lingo for
someone who always makes promises.
Metring David is a female comic with big, flat feet. Her name has been appropriated to
mean taxicabs with fast meters, as in "Metring." Beauty contests have also spawned the
term "Thank you, girls," to refer to the losers in a beauty contest. After the ten
semifinalists have been announced, the emcee will tell the girls whose names were not
64
called: "Thank you, girls." That is their signal for them to leave the stage and return to the
dressing room.
Melanie Marquez is a Filipino model who is tall, graceful, and beautiful. She won the
Miss International beauty pageant in Tokyo in 1979. A few years later, she was first
runner-up in the Supermodel Search in New York, and was once voted the most beautiful
face in Italy during a modeling stint in that country. Gay lingo has played a pun on her
name. Now, Smelanie Marquez means to smell bad, or to have halitosis.
From Dakota to Medusa
Science and geography are also wellsprings of Philippine gay lingo.
Shopping malls are famous cruising places in whatever continent and country. One such
mall is Harrison Plaza, located in the heart of Manila. The distance from Harrison Plaza
to Dakota Street (note the colonial American names) is quite lengthy. Thus, in the 1970s,
a man with a big penis was called "Dakota Harrison." "Dakota" is also a pun for "dako,"
which means "big" in the Central Philippine Visayan language.
The 1970s gay icon, Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman, also gets a place of honor in
Philippine gay lingo. Miss Wagner mesmerized Filipino gay men with her slow-motion
way of running, and her bangs that flipped from one side of her head to the other. Now,
"Bionic Woman" means "magbayo," or to masturbate. A sample sentence is: I did a
Bionic Woman last night because I am afraid of Tita Aida [AIDS]." A synonym for this
would be "Biogesic," which is an analgesic and antipyretic drug.
"Ahas" means "snake" in Tagalog. The root word for this is "anaconda." A sample
sentence is: "You are so anaconda. You stole my jowa (boyfriend)." Synonyms for this
would be "serpentina" and "Medusa." To have pointed lips implies somebody who loves
to sow intrigues. It also gave rise to the query: "Why do gays have pointed lips?" The
answer, supposedly, is "Because they have a phallic pout. Their lips are already molded
outward."
At present, more and more straight-acting gays and gays from the professions are coming
out of the closet, giving a literary, sophisticated quality to gay language. Waiting for a
taxicab is no longer a dull activity. It has now become, "Let’s go, let’s take a Taxina
Hong Kingston so we’ll reach our destination faster!" The allusion is to the Asian-
American writer Maxine Hong Kingston.
Widespread
64
A dumb person in the Philippines is called "bobo" or "boba." In the academe, she would
be called "Bo-Vita Sackville West," the alleged lover of modernist writer Virginia Woolf.
"Psycho-ningning" is somebody on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She is also called
a "Blanche Dubois."
The elegant Filipino essayist Chitang Guerrero Nakpil has her name emblazoned in gay
lingo on two counts. First, if the customer in a restaurant wants to get the "chit," or the
bill for the food. Second, if the gay man is in a fighting mood, or "guerrero" from the
Spanish word "guerra," which means "war."
However, this carnivalesque has been appropriated by the heterosexual mainstream. Gay
lingo has now become more widespread. Even the most straight-acting heterosexual can
now ask, "Was the movie your type?" He can now use the word "type," which is a signal
for gay discourse, without feeling that his masculinity has been diminished.
Movie stars, media people, academics, even politicians now use a gay word or two to
prove a controversial point or to score some points with the masses. But the words they
use are outdated, for like an organism, gay language in the Philippines changes and grows
every day, as if it wants to outpace the straight majority that desperately wants to contain
—and control—it.
Language and integration
What are the implications of Philippine gay lingo?
One, it is a way of fictioning the nation. What is otherwise dismissed as a trivial and
dross aspect of popular culture has been used to language the existence of a particular
group of people.
Two, this gay language is the homosexuals’ way of fictioning their integration into
society, in their own terms. There is the notion, then, of wholeness—that this society is
not shattered but even made whole by the assertion of this powerful discourse.
Third, the serious is satirized; the trivial is treated with seeming seriousness. In a way,
then, this is a grand burlesque: language as an act of subversion.
Thus, homosexuals in the Philippines now have a way of languaging their desire. By
implication, they now have a way of languaging their lives. This bricollage of disparate
elements is an act of subverting the existing, heterosexual power relations. In a sense, the
Filipino gay empire has struck back at the center, using a language full of slippages and
cracks—a language at once sophisticated and vulgar, serious and light, timely and
64
timeless.
A longer version of this essay was first read at the Internatonal Conference on Queer Politics,
University of Amsterdam, July 1998. Comments can be sent to danton_ph@yahoo.com or to
www.angladlad.org
64
MODULE 5
TONE, VOICE AND STRUCTURE

be able to:
1. Define the use Tone and Voice and Structure as a strategy of creative non-
fiction.
2. Explain the use of Tone and Voice and Structure as s strategy of creative
non-fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Using a Venn diagram identify the difference and similarity of Tone to
Voice.
Tone Voice
64
DISCUSSION
TONE AND VOICE
 Related to approach and point-of-view is tone. Tone in literature is a metaphor from the
human voice. When we say “I don’t like your tone,” we are referring to something in the
speaker’s voice which indicates an attitude that is somehow offensive. Thus, we speak of
a whimsical tone, sarcastic tone, a reverent tone, an apologetic tone, etc. Tone has to do
with the writer’s attitude towards his subject.
How are different tones communicated?
Through one’s choice of words.
For example, Person A comes back from the dentist and says: “I can’t believe it. In just a
few moments, Dr. Paredes extracted my tooth and relieved me of a problem that had been
plaguing me for weeks.”
Person B comes back from the dentist and says: “There I lay, helpless on this reclining
chair, my mouth wide open, and this ma in white plunged sharp, cold instruments into my
mouth and forcibly parted me from my tooth.”
Deciding on approach, perspective, and tone, is very important. These decisions
determine what details are to be included in your essay or narrative, and how they are to
be presented. Ultimately, it is these things that will convey your meaning.
 Voice is related to tone. It is also related to style, which is very difficult to define.
Personal style is the mark of personality upon the work, thus, in literature, style would
be the writer’s particular way of using language. Style is the result of many factors –
gender, class, books, films, m.t.v., everything which makes up the writer’s environment.
 You cannot copy someone else’s style, it comes from within. But you can learn from
stylists; which is why writers must read. By reading the verbal stylists – of fiction as well
as nonfiction – you’ll come to understand what writers can do with words, how they can
make them “work.”
REMEMBER….
Voice, like tone, is obviously a metaphor from the human voice. We say: “the voice in this essay is an
engaging one” or “the voice comes through loud and clear” or “this writer hasn’t found his voice yet.”
We are referring to certain images, metaphors, allusions, etc. – which reveal a particular personality, a
particular attitude
The voice in Torrevillas’ “Coming to Face to Face with Pieces of Myself” is romantic, even lyrical. The
tone is bemused, tolerant, nostalgic. Polotan’s voice in “Filipinos in America” is no-nonsense, dry. This
person has not been taken in by the American dream. Her tone is sarcastic, even scornful.
64
It is important to remember that the speaker or narrator – the persona – in a piece of creative nonfiction is
not the author. The voice we “hear’’ is that of a “character” created by the author, much as fictionists and
poets create characters or “speakers.”
THE STRUCTURE
 Is as important in creative nonfiction as it is in fiction. You need to have a plan before

you actually sit down to write.
 At the very least, they help the writer to focus and to be coherent.
 Your subject will itself suggest a type of structure. You can’t just impose a particular type
of structure on your material
TYPES OF STRUCTURE:
1. CHRONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE - Is the most natural amongst the structures. This
refers to an arrangement of events in a linear fashion, as they occur in time The events
may be organized by time or date, by arranging events as a series of steps or by following
a list-like structure.
2. EXPLANATION-OF-A-PROCESS - As the term suggest, this is a step-by-step type of
organization. Most manuals (how-to books) would not be considered literature at all.
3. FLASHBACK STRUCTURE - This means beginning at some point in recent time, and
then moving back into the past.
4. PARALLEL STRUCTURE - This type of structure has several stories, running side by
side, with occasional cross-cutting or convergence.
5. COLLAGE OR MOSAIC STRUCTURE - Is an convenient structure for accounts of
disasters. It involves a pasting together of small fragments, which all together build up to
the total picture of what happened. A great example of collage or mosaic structure is “
The ruby Towers Earthquake” by NiCk Joaquin.
6. DIARY OR LOG BOOK STRUCTURE – a variation of the chronologically structure
and gives a sense of immediacy to the narrative.
7. QUESTION AND ANSWER STRUCTURE – is favoured by many magazines and is a
logical choice for interview stories.
8. THE FRAME – it is a pod structure to use when you wish to tell two stories-say, in a
travel narrative, where the actual physical journey is paralleled by an inner journey.
64
ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Read the essay below. Had it been written from the perspective of a
straight person, what would it have been like? What would it lose? What would it gain?
Could be an interesting piece even written by an outsider? Analyze the Approach and
Point of View used in this essay.
REMOTE CONTROL By DANTON REMOTO

The Filipino gay empire has struck back at the center, using a language full of slippages
and cracks—a language at once sophisticated and vulgar, serious and light, timely and
timeless
I want to raise three points in this essay. First, that gay language serves as a mediator in
the universe of Philippine languages. Second, that this language comes form a carnival of
sources, a bricollage, as Claude Levi-Strauss would put it. Third, that this language has
been appropriated by the heterosexual mainstream.
But they never considered the fact that Philippine gay language is a language of
slippages: it sits on a site full of fractures and fissures.
Since the 1960s, Tagalog, the mother lode of Filipino, has metamorphosed into another
variant called Taglish, or Tagalog English. Taglish has become the language of the
educated elite and the middle class. One of its steady sources has been gay language,
which has generated so many words and idioms that have been inserted in the mainstream
of the everyday Taglish.
In fact, since the 1970s, gay language has even become a mediator among the many
languages spoken in the country. In a sense, it is like the mestizo, the fair-skinned
progeny of the brown, Malay ancestors with the Spanish or American colonial masters.
The mestizo speaks Taglish, a mélange of languages which, according to Dr. Vicente
Rafael, "evokes yet collapses the colonial relationship. It is the most unstable, and thus
the most malleable, of languages."
Gay language belongs to this realm. It has the "capacity to disrupt" because of its colorful
associations, its elements of parody and spirit of play, its sheer jouissance. Moreover, Dr.
Rafael adds it is capable of "embodying the possibilities of language."
64
In short, it is a language forever advent, forever beginning, forever new. The gay words
of the 1970s still exist, but they are continuously updated--in the beauty parlors and
offices, the universities and the streets, the media and boutiques.
Break the code
What are the springs of this language?
Gay language comes from a carnival of sources, like the costumes that the lesbians, gays,
bisexuals and transgender people wear during the rambunctious annual Pride March held
every December in Manila. The gays in the Philippines speak a common tongue. It is
their code, their very sword. It is their way of communicating without letting the straight
world understand the drift of their words.
Turning things on their heads, gay lingo is a way of barring the straight world from
intruding into the warm circle of gay conversation, and by extension, their lives.
In the very gay manner of subverting the order of things, gays have appropriated the
names of people in show business and entertainment, geography and the sciences, media
and politics, culture and the arts--and began using them in their daily lives. Let us now
discuss this typology.
In the 1980s, gay men looking for casual sex in the darkness of the Mehan Gardens
beside the Metropolitan Theater would suddenly shout "Jullie, Jullie Yap Daza" when a
policeman came within sight. Jullie Yap Daza is a famous newspaper editor and
television talk-show host. "Jullie" is the gay word for "huli," which in Tagalog means "to
get caught."
Thus, the gay men avoided the policemen, who would quickly book them for vagrancy or
any other imaginary offense, then ask the gay men for a bribe in exchange for freedom.
Dream factory
Show business is another colorful spring of gay lingo. We are influenced rather heavily
by the dream factory that is Hollywood. In Philippine gay lingo, "Winona Ryder" means
"to win," referring to a gay man lucky in both life and love. The American TV talk-show
host "Oprah Winfrey" has unwittingly lent her name to "OPM," which is gay lingo for
someone who always makes promises.
Metring David is a female comic with big, flat feet. Her name has been appropriated to
mean taxicabs with fast meters, as in "Metring." Beauty contests have also spawned the
64
term "Thank you, girls," to refer to the losers in a beauty contest. After the ten
semifinalists have been announced, the emcee will tell the girls whose names were not
called: "Thank you, girls." That is their signal for them to leave the stage and return to the
dressing room.
Melanie Marquez is a Filipino model who is tall, graceful, and beautiful. She won the
Miss International beauty pageant in Tokyo in 1979. A few years later, she was first
runner-up in the Supermodel Search in New York, and was once voted the most beautiful
face in Italy during a modeling stint in that country. Gay lingo has played a pun on her
name. Now, Smelanie Marquez means to smell bad, or to have halitosis.
From Dakota to Medusa
Science and geography are also wellsprings of Philippine gay lingo.
Shopping malls are famous cruising places in whatever continent and country. One such
mall is Harrison Plaza, located in the heart of Manila. The distance from Harrison Plaza
to Dakota Street (note the colonial American names) is quite lengthy. Thus, in the 1970s,
a man with a big penis was called "Dakota Harrison." "Dakota" is also a pun for "dako,"
which means "big" in the Central Philippine Visayan language.
The 1970s gay icon, Lindsay Wagner as the Bionic Woman, also gets a place of honor in
Philippine gay lingo. Miss Wagner mesmerized Filipino gay men with her slow-motion
way of running, and her bangs that flipped from one side of her head to the other. Now,
"Bionic Woman" means "magbayo," or to masturbate. A sample sentence is: I did a
Bionic Woman last night because I am afraid of Tita Aida [AIDS]." A synonym for this
would be "Biogesic," which is an analgesic and antipyretic drug.
"Ahas" means "snake" in Tagalog. The root word for this is "anaconda." A sample
sentence is: "You are so anaconda. You stole my jowa (boyfriend)." Synonyms for this
would be "serpentina" and "Medusa." To have pointed lips implies somebody who loves
to sow intrigues. It also gave rise to the query: "Why do gays have pointed lips?" The
answer, supposedly, is "Because they have a phallic pout. Their lips are already molded
outward."
At present, more and more straight-acting gays and gays from the professions are coming
out of the closet, giving a literary, sophisticated quality to gay language. Waiting for a
taxicab is no longer a dull activity. It has now become, "Let’s go, let’s take a Taxina
Hong Kingston so we’ll reach our destination faster!" The allusion is to the Asian-
American writer Maxine Hong Kingston.
64
Widespread
A dumb person in the Philippines is called "bobo" or "boba." In the academe, she would
be called "Bo-Vita Sackville West," the alleged lover of modernist writer Virginia Woolf.
"Psycho-ningning" is somebody on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She is also called
a "Blanche Dubois."
The elegant Filipino essayist Chitang Guerrero Nakpil has her name emblazoned in gay
lingo on two counts. First, if the customer in a restaurant wants to get the "chit," or the
bill for the food. Second, if the gay man is in a fighting mood, or "guerrero" from the
Spanish word "guerra," which means "war."
However, this carnivalesque has been appropriated by the heterosexual mainstream. Gay
lingo has now become more widespread. Even the most straight-acting heterosexual can
now ask, "Was the movie your type?" He can now use the word "type," which is a signal
for gay discourse, without feeling that his masculinity has been diminished.
Movie stars, media people, academics, even politicians now use a gay word or two to
prove a controversial point or to score some points with the masses. But the words they
use are outdated, for like an organism, gay language in the Philippines changes and grows
every day, as if it wants to outpace the straight majority that desperately wants to contain
—and control—it.
Language and integration
What are the implications of Philippine gay lingo?
One, it is a way of fictioning the nation. What is otherwise dismissed as a trivial and
dross aspect of popular culture has been used to language the existence of a particular
group of people.
Two, this gay language is the homosexuals’ way of fictioning their integration into
society, in their own terms. There is the notion, then, of wholeness—that this society is
not shattered but even made whole by the assertion of this powerful discourse.
Third, the serious is satirized; the trivial is treated with seeming seriousness. In a way,
then, this is a grand burlesque: language as an act of subversion.
Thus, homosexuals in the Philippines now have a way of languaging their desire. By
implication, they now have a way of languaging their lives. This bricollage of disparate
elements is an act of subverting the existing, heterosexual power relations. In a sense, the
64
Filipino gay empire has struck back at the center, using a language full of slippages and
cracks—a language at once sophisticated and vulgar, serious and light, timely and
timeless.
1. Analysis in the Approach used:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Analysis in the Point of View used:

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
64
MODULE 6
A STRONG AND DRAMATIC BEGINNING AND
RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES

be able to:
1. Define the use A Strong and Dramatic Beginning and Rhetorical
Techniques as strategies of creative non-fiction.
2. Explain the use of A Strong and Dramatic Beginning and Rhetorical
Techniques as strategies of creative non-fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Answer the question below.
Why do you think, stories commonly started with the phrase “Once upon a time”?
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
64
DISCUSSION
A STRONG AND DRAMATIC BEGINNING
Please see the attached power point slides here for your reference.
RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
 If have decided to write an essay or a magazine article, you will need to become adept at
several techniques, variously referred to as “methods of development”, or “rhetorical
devices”.
 They are techniques which you will be able to use in other types of writing essays as well,
but they are particularly important for the essay.
 Usually you will combine several of them in the same piece. Among the most important
are: definition, comparison and contrast, examples and illustrations, cause and effect,
classification, enumeration or cataloguing, and analogy.
KINDS OF RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES:
1. DEFINITION - The device of definition is particularly important for the essay and other
types of expository writing, where a major concern is explaining a concept or idea or
issue. You might give the “common definition” of a term, and then proceed to discuss it, or
to demonstrate how it isn’t really an adequate definition, by showing how many other
“meanings” the term may have, though these may not be immediately apparent.
2. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST - The device of comparison-and-contrast is useful
for several reasons. First, it is easier for readers to understand a strange idea or practice or
phenomenon if it is compared to something they are already familiar with. An example of
this is Ernest Hemingway’s famous description of bullfights in Spain by comparing them
with baseball games in the US. Second, it is a useful technique for building a case for new
idea, which is what happens in the example given below, from an essay by Sylvia Mayuga.
- When using this method, remember not to compare and contrast more than two items at
the same time. Otherwise, you may confuse, instead of enlighten, your reader. It is also
important to compare and contrast things that belong to the same general class.
Bullfighting and baseball are both sports, so the comparison is not all that far-fetched,
when you think of it.
64
3. EXAMPLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS - The function of the device of illustration or
examples is obvious. It clarifies. It makes abstract ideas or general statements more
concrete. Examples and illustrations may be simple enumerations. Or they may be more
complicated and extended, taking the form of anecdotes or quotations or analogies
(extended metaphors). You should try to make sure that the relation between your example
and the idea you wish to clarify is immediately apparent to your reader. Otherwise, you
defeat the purpose of the example.
4. CLASSIFICATION - Classification is a good device for organizing complex material.
However, you need to think this through. There must always be a principle behind the
classification, and this principle must be meaningful. You may classify food according to,
let us say, country of origin; but not according to ingredients used (there are simply too
many). And there should be no overlapping among the different items.
5. LISTING OR CATALOUGING OR ENUMERATION
6. ANALOGY - extended metaphor, which is not so easy to manage. Poets, who are used to
working in this manner, are perhaps the most successful at it.
ACTIVITY
Directions: Answer the following questions. Write your answer on a clean bond paper.
1. As a writer, enumerate the reasons why do you need to create a strong and dramatic
beginning?
2. Why writers need to seek for Rhetorical techniques before writing? Justify your argument.
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MODULE 7
CHARACTER, CONCRETE AND EVOCATIVE
DETAILS
be able to:
1. Define the use Character and Concrete and Evocative Details as
strategies of creative non-fiction.
2. Explain the use of Character and Concrete and Evocative Details as
strategies of creative non-fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Do the following tasks given below.
Describe a room (garden or street or bar) which you associate with a particular person.
Try your hand at the writing of reportage on an event that interests you. Focus on one
particular audience, e.g., parents of young children housewives, yuppies, senior citizens,
young adults etc.
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DISCUSSION
CHARACTER
 In writing a narrative, a major concern of a writer will be the character/s.

 Even when a narrative seem to be mainly about events, the events involve people.
 Characters are an important element of creative nonfiction.
 Fictionists invents his characters (although, of course, many fictionists base their
characters on real people while Nonfiction writers are given his characters.
 The devices utilized by the nonfiction writer in “creating”, developing, or more
accurately revealing characters are the same ones familiar to the fictionist.
1. CHARACTER IN ACTION - Illustrates how and what happens when the character does
a certain action.
The passage on Eman Lacaba, from Rowena Torrevillas' essay is a good example of how
this is done by showing the character in action. The reader hears Lacaba "furiously
muttering apologies," sees him "putting his foot through a Spanish guitar from stumbling
in the darkness" and "choosing to sleep alone on an outrigger boat," etc.
2. DESCRIPTION OF PHYSICAL APPEARANCE - Describes how the character looks

like or appears as.
The alcalde of Manila (to revive a title that survives only in the Vernacular -the English-
language press prefers such terms as Hizoner), is a six-footer with a middle-aged spread
at 34 and a large face in which, however, the features are closely grouped together in the
center. The effect is of a small face with a lot of margin all around it. The jaw is massive,
the mouth swells stubbornly, the eyes grip; a big mole bristles on the left cheek. In spite
of the premature paunch, Antonio Villegas exudes boyishness; he is full of maxims and
muscle. His talk is solemn but his movement is fleet. He is clearly another young man in
a hurry.
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The night he became mayor of Manila, the whirlwind began moving, in a haze of tears
and salutations, prayers and orders, plans and conferences. He sped from one point of the
city to another, he had no sleep, almost no supper. But before that night was over, he had
a grave ready for his predecessor, had completed arrangements for the funeral, had visited
the bereaved, had talked with the late mayor's men, had conferred with city officials, had
completed his oath of office, had summoned advisers and alerted Deity. He had lost no
time at all taking over. There was no pretense at coyness, or of being too stunned to act.
The moment he knew for sure he was mayor, he started acting as one.
3. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT’S SPECIAL SETTING OR AMBIENCE -

Emphasize how the surroundings of the character looks like.
As in times past, this store does well enough to help cover the rent. So that when
scandalized friends like Panorama editor Letty Jimenez Magsanoc exclaim, "Naku
naman, Bibsy, why do you have a sari-sari store? Nakakahiya naman!" she is quick to
retort, "Bakit, anong nakakahiya diyan?“
Her office isn't much to look at either, if you're looking for a public relations outfit that
oozes pizzazz. The paint on the wall -it must have been pristine white when Bibsy moved
in 12 years ago is dirty white and peeling off. The batik tapestry draped over a tall shelf is
faded. The desks and chairs are functional and mismatched. One surmises the driftwood
chair is there to complement the seashell and coral arrangement atop a steel cabinet. A
top an cabinet are volumes of Blair and Robertson's The Philippine Islands, some of them
still partially wrapped in brown paper.
A volume of The Best of Life lies beside discarded photography equipment on a high
shelf. A touch of pop art is provided by a Del Monte tomato juice waste can in red and
green. And looking bewildered in the midst of all this earthly business is a three-foot-tall
santo.
The office derives its character mainly from the pictures cover the walls: photographs by
prizewinning lensman and cinematographer Romy Vitug, mounted advertisements of
films Bibsy has promoted, several small H.R. Ocampos, an Edwin Diamante surrealist
painting, two portraits of Bibsy by Alfredo Roces and Tiny Nuyda, a Stevesantos
rendering of an air mail envelope addressed to Gerry Delikhan.
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4. PRESENTING THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHER PEOPLE - Giving a glimpse of the
character from ones’ point of view.
Maya Valdes getting out of bed at 3:30 in the afternoon, might still be tired, drowsy and
dazed from a hangover. But what the heck, she faces you with no makeup or glamorous
clothes on to flatter her figure, perhaps just as a mother would attend to a baby in the
middle of the night. Off-stage and off- screen, Maya exudes an air of naturalness. She puts
you at ease, doesn't waste your time, and looks at you expectantly while seeming to wonder
if the interview is all a joke.
Larawan, Nick Joaquin's Portrait of the Artist as Filipino translated into Pilipino, had
ended its extended showing at Fort Santiago the evening before. As Susan, a vaudeville dancer,
Maya stole the show, and everybody felt happy she did.
Her director, Lino Brocka says, "She simply bursts with energy. She fills the whole court
with her presence. Directing her is fun. She doesn’t have to strain or lower the volume of her
voice, it's naturally loud enough for the stage.“
Author Nick Joaquin thinks Maya "terrific! I loved her. I told Lino I want her to appear in
more of my plays. I think she's been neglected. They should exploit her talent. She has stage
presence. Hers was only a bit role but she played her part to the teeth!" Now that comment
coming from a National Artist is no joke!
5. MONOLOGUE AND DIALOGUE - What the character says and how the character says
it.
Well into her 70s, my mother had a dance instructor named Bobby. Ballroom dancing
was her only exercise, and she was good at it. On Christmas when we went shopping, Mommy
would get a present for Bobby, too. It was always an inconsequential gift-a necklace, a box of
handkerchiefs or a lighter. Puzzle: Usually a generous giver, why was my Mommy so
stingy with Bobby?
"Why not an expensive dancing shirt or a good watch?" I asked. "After all, Bobby dances
with you all year, and he takes care that you don't get a slipped disc or sprain an ankle."
"Because, because," the old lady said falteringly, "I don't want to be talked about!"
And I laughed out loud and said, "Although you're very pretty, Mommy, you're going on
78. If your friends think that you have a lover, you should be so lucky!" And she gave me an
annoyed but friendly slap on the arm.
On December 18, 1977, People was born. Julie was assigned to the magazine, she moved
out of the Times Journal where she had worked for almost seven years. Suddenly she had to
unshackle habits developed in 18 years of newspaper work as desk person and copy editor.
She has gotten used to waiting for reporters to gather and bring her the news, and to
verifying the facts and rehashing the copy. "The news happens whether you are there or not. But
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in a magazine, you have to create your own happening.” Although she admits magazine
work is more challenging, more creative, and needs more time and planning, she still
prefers a newspaper job.
6. IDIOSYNCRATIC BEHAVIOR - Presenting or Higlighting the peculiar behavior of the

character.
Beng ... now can't abide anything that once had a bloodstream and that takes an hour in
the pot or oven to make presentable-or, worse, that gets eaten the way I (and Brad Pitt and
Tom Cruise, among others) like it, with blood streaming down both corners of my mouth. Her
idea of a feast is a plate of eggplants and radishes and tomatoes cut up, mangled, and tossed
five different ways, with a sprinkling of iodized salt to remind her, I think, of the flavorful
joys of her past as a regular, meat-eatin' gal. Her idea of an ideal birthday present (as our
friend SV Epistola discovered on his 70th, last week) is a book hailing Garlic: the Magic
Ingredient. She looks at a vegetable garden, like the one of Gourmet's Café on the road to
Tagaytay, with the same longing and anticipation that touches my carnivore heart when I see a
mother hen and her brood of chicks- the whole proteiny, finger-lickin' farm-cross the street.
CONCRETE AND EVOCATIVE DETAILS
 The most successful pieces of creative nonfiction are rich in details, Bare facts are never
enough. They need to be fleshed out; they need to be humanized.
For example, in the passage below, when Marge C. Enriquez says of the new Inno Sotto
collection that "the designer's trademarks are all there," she immediately follows it up
with details.
The collection is a paradox, Although the clothes are inspired by the world of make-
believe, they are very practical and salable. The designer's trademarks are here, such as
the sharp pantsuit that goes beyond the lapel and button-front, the halter gown whose
back takes the deep plunge, his penchant for jersey and crepe, his unique color
combinations and interesting details that liven a simple silhouette.
After stating that "Nothing can beat the folk technology of the pinoy," Gilda Cordero-
Fernando adds:
It's incredible, it's ingenious, it's funny. A sewing machine treadle with attachments here
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and there whips up cotton candy. A bicycle runs a grinder for professional knife and
scissors sharpening. A hand drill attached to an egg beater churns up a luscious pink
crushed ice concoction called a "scramble." A gasera or kerosene stove and a covered
kettle are a popcorn machine.
 But, besides giving information, details serve other purposes. Details should be accurate
and informative first. And then, they must be suggestive or evocative. The right details
arouse emotions, evoke memories, help to produce the rightresponse in your reader.
 Note the precise choice of words used in describing physical detail in each passage such
as the “gargoyles perched above the sidewalk,” the “rusting neon sign,” the “singer” …
luminous in the garish spotlight,” the “mother gnawing at a drumstick.”
Note also the reference to a Lina Wertmuller film in Garcellano’s piece. What purpose
does the allusion or reference serve?
 Details are also extremely useful in evoking a sense of time and place. Below are three
examples of passages that evoke a period as well as a location.
 Descriptive details are of particular importance for travel writing, the point which is, to
begin with, to literally transport the reader to the place to which the traveler has been.
Which is what this passage, from Kerima Polotan’s travel essay on Legazpi City, does:
ACTIVITY
Directions: Answer the following questions. Write your answer on a clean bond paper.
1. Do you think CHARACTERS are still needed for a narrative essay? Yes or No and Why or
Why not?
2. Enumerate the reasons why injecting details are important in Creative Nonfiction.
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MODULE 8
SCENE

be able to:
1. Define the use Scene as strategy of creative non-fiction.
2. Explain the use of Scene as strategy of creative non-fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Retell the most striking scene you’ve watched/read from a movie/book and
explain why.
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DISCUSSION
SCENE
 Scenes are the building blocks of creative nonfiction— the primary factor that separates
and defines literary and/or creative nonfiction from traditional journalism and ordinary
life prose.
– examples: vignettes, episodes , slices of reality
 Some non-fiction narrative like autobiographies, biographies, accounts of personal
adventures etc have plots which are constructed as they are in fiction.
 But even exposition can be livened up with anecdotes or short narratives. These involve
the use of narrative techniques like scenes, suspense, foreshadowing and etc.
 The chief distinction between traditional reportage and creative nonfiction is the use of
scenes or dramatic writing.
 The effectiveness of "new journalism" is precisely its ability to heighten the feeling of
being "right there" in the thick of what happened. This is done by presenting the news,
NOT through summary and exposition as in the ordinary front page news story but
through scenes.
Examples:
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THE MIDWIFE IN THE PAMPANGA
● Dialogue is an important part of a scene.

● Kerima Polotan’s The Midwife from Pampanga relies almost completely on dialogue. It reads
almost like a play. Note that there are practically no passages or description. And certainly no
comment from the narrator as a spokesperson for the author. Nor are any such passages
necessary. The dialogue is all the reader needs to get the point.
The next morning, I got a call, urgent, mysterious, and it annoys and upsets me. It is confidential, the
girl headed for New York says insistently. But she must meet me.
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I repeat my name: That is my name I tell her, are you sure it’s I you want to see?
Positive, she says.
We meet at Hanken’s, across the street from the Y. Although it’s time for lunch, she will not have any,
though I press her repeatedly. I’ll treat you, I say. Let me buy you lunch, I urge, and wonder why other
Americanese I can use to reassure her she need not worry who’s going to pick up the bill. In America
half a day after you’ve landed, you begin watching your dollars.
Just coffee, she says and looks away. I still think she has the wrong person.
All right, I say, what can I do for you?
It’s confidential, she says, and her eyes begin to redden.
If it’s confidential, I say, perhaps you should not tell me.
I’m here on a tourist visa, she begins, and it;s good for three months. But I’m going to New York
where a school will take care of having my status changed from tourist to student.
Yes, I say, what school is this?
She won’t say. Just a school.
What studies? IBM, and the way she says it --- she’s weepy and I’m nervous --- it sounds like missile
training until she pulls out an ID from some school in Mabalacat, Pampanga, which certifies she has
finished a course in the computer.
Frisco has been bitter cold although summer started officially two weeks ago. The shops have put out
their pots of wisterias and rhododendrons.It’s summer, the store streamers say. The paper says it’s
summer. The TV says it’s summer. Everyone says it’s summer but there’s a killing wind in the streets.
The hippies are at Union Square selling trinkets.
Where do I come in? I ask.
My husband, she says.
I don’t know your husband, I say.
No, but help me bring him to America, she says.
(This is a little too abrupt for me.)
How many people do you know in America, she says.
The doorman at St. Francis, I say, playing it straight. The ticket seller at the Regency. Also the plumber
at Y. Yesterday, I continue, he knocked on my door and said: Honey, is your tubes okay? My tubes is
okay, I told I never met her until last night, but suddenly I must try to make her laugh because tears in
a cafeteria on Sutter are the last thing I want.
No, she says, blowing her nose on a paper napkin. I mean big people, Filipino big shots. You’re a
writer, you must know them.
I know them, but they don’t know me, I say. Look, have lunch. Whatever it is, terminal cancer or
abortion, you’ll feel better after lunch.
Just one, she says. One Filipino big shot.
I know a Filipino ambassador in New York, but he’s not a big shot, only an old friend.
That one, she says. Write him and tell him to bring my husband as his servant or his bodyguard or his
driver.
And then?
Once my husband gets to New York, we can both work and send for the children later and become
permanent residents.
I push my plate away, my appetite suddenly gone. Let’s start all over again, I suggest.
him, but the bathtub won’t drain, and he said, That’s what I meant.
VENERABLE UNCLE
In the middle of her homework one day, there was a telephone call for Wendy. She talked into the
phone, then came back.
“Who was that?” I asked, thinking it was a classmate.
“Oh,” she said, “the tito.”
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“What tito?” I asked (I have only one brother-in-law, and he doesn’t call Wendy).
“The tito that’s in the grocery.”
“Who’s that” I asked. “What does he want?”
“He wanted to know if I had already taken a bath.”
I was alarmed! “Does he call you often?” I asked calmly, not wanting her to get frightened.
“Sometimes,” she said dismissively, as if she considered the caller a pest.
“And what else did he want to know?”
“He wanted to know if I had soaped my hair.”
“What else?” I asked, trembling with fear and rage. She sighed as if terribly bored with the subject.
Sometime later, my husband and I tried to interrogate Wendy again, but she could neither identify nor
describe the stalker.
“Once,” said our five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, “he gave me one peso.”
“Where?” I asked.
“In the grocery where Melody and I wait.”
My husband and I were in near panic. We cross-examined the maid, who said she had never noticed
any man talking to Wendy. We asked the other help if the man called often. They said they didn’t
know of any man phoning Wendy! (We were exasperated and hopping mad.)
 The scene, with its juxtaposition of the bored, innocent child and her increasingly alarmed
mother, is more powerful than any tirade on the dangers lurking where unsuspecting parents
would least expect them.
MY MOTHER’S GARDEN
● A mother-daughter scene where the narrator has gone with her sister and brother-in-law to visit
her mother in her house in Tagaytay, “where mother keeps the faith so fresh.”
We found her sniffing the thick parsley nd Chinese kinchay that have just shot up with the upo on the
volcanic soil. She didn’t give anyone a chance to finish glum prognostications on world affairs. Right
away, she demanded that everyone recall all the dishes they knew using these fragrant herbs.
She didn’t even have time to let anyone complain about the state of the roads including the
famous Cavite coastal road we’d just navigated to get to her. “Cut the gabi leaves, so we can have
some laing,” I was ordered summarily. “Do you suppose we should try making some tea from this
parsley?”
I had to slosh through the mud of the vegetable patch at the far end of her garden---full of trees
and flowers from all over the country and more distant parts from the world---to pull the gabi leaves
from their soft, precious stalks.
Mother was not entirely oblivious to my uncomplaining obedience. As I presented her with the
giant leaves, she held crushed tiny ones to my nose---the fragrant sweet basil, solasi as she calls it, that
the Palawanan tribe uses for their trace-chanting, wordlessly driving home the point that there is more
to life than wars and headlines.
ACTIVITY
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Read the excerpt from "What Dreams May Come" by Cora Llamas. Does it give you some
idea of what Liza Macuja Elizalde is like as a person? Can you identify some qualities which
might have been communicated through scenes? Imagine that you are the interviewer and
invent such a scene.
Great things can come from hidden dreams.

A year and a half ago, premiere Filipina ballerina Lisa Macuja Elizalde, still busy adjusting to the
new demands of being wife and mother, found herself wishing for:
1) The chance to reprise her favorite role, Juliet of the famous Shakespearean romantic tragedy.
Lisa had already performed thrice Romeo's ill-fated other half-as the principal guest artist of
the Royal New Zealand Ballet; with the Atlanta Ballet's rendition of Thomas Pazik's
choreography, and in the 20-minute Tschaikovsky overture during the first anniversary
concert of her own company, Ballet Manila (BM).
2) The chance to perform with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) to be conducted by
longtime Russian friend, Alexander Vikulov.
3) Ballet Manila to perform in the grand Main Theater of the CCP
4) A lavish ballet production that will combine the best of Russian and Filipino talent.
Finally, Lisa wished for a big bang celebration for her next birthday By the end of this month,
scant days before her natal day, the dancer's dreams are coming true. Romeo and Juliet, a big-
budget three act musical, will be playing at the CCP Main Theater. Vikulov will be conducting the
PPO to Sergey Profokiev's music. Ballet Manila, trained by Macuja herself in the Russian
Vaganova style of dance, will execute the choreography of Serguei Vikulov, Alexander's father,
and a prominent ballet artist of Mother Russia. Pinoy design masters Eric Cruz and Mio Infante
will craft the scenery and the costumes. And, yes, Lisa Macuja-Elizalde will play Juliet.
Sweetening it further is the Order of Friendship conferred upo her by no less than Russian
President Vladimir Putin. The Award recognizes Lisa's many collaborative ventures that
strengthened the cultural ties between the Philippines and Russia, the latest of which is Romeo and
Juliet.
"It's the first time that the PPO will accompany BM under a very personal project. The
choreography has never been seen anywhere in the world; the ballet was created specifically for
this show. Ballet Manila students playing the extras will fill the stage. Actors from Bulwagang
Gantimpala will do characters like the Duke of Verona and Friar Laurence. Nonoy Froilan, my
former ballet partner in Ballet Philippines will do Lord Capulet."
From the start, Ballet Manila's artistic director made it clear to the creative team that the
production must meet the highest standards of excellence. There must be glitter, pomp, and
pageantry. I don't want the set to look Third World or recycled; it must be plush and lavish. I want
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each scene change to be met with gasps from the audience. I want them to be in tears at the end of
the crypt scene when the double suicide takes place."
The production is a reunion, in more ways than one, for Lisa and the Vikulov family. Also
involved is Tatiana Udalenkova, Serguel's wife and Alexander's mother, who mentored Lisa in her
first years in what is now known as the Russian Ballet Academy. "Sergeui was a star while I was
still a new graduate of the Kirov Ballet. Tatiana basically molded me, and had to reteach me
everything because my Philippine training, though adequate, was different. Philippine ballet did
not require me to turn out 180 degrees, but the Russian did; theirs is more demanding and a lot
more painful."
Cora Llamas, "What Dreams May Come,' Sunday Inquirer Magazine (23 September 2001)
MODULE 9
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A CONVINCING ENDING
be able to:
1. Define the use A Convincing Ending as strategy of creative non-fiction.
2. Explain the use of A Convincing Ending as strategy of creative non-
fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Among of the movies you watched. Choose one and write your own version of
the ending.
Title of the Movie:
The Ending:
Your own version of Ending
DISCUSSION
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A CONVINCING ENDING
 It goes without saying that your ending must be the logical conclusion of the flow of your
narrative or of the development of your ideas.
Examples:
CONTAINS THE ESSAY’S THESIS

There is a good side to the Extra Bed. It is a source of much of the emotional security
famous the world over us one of the attributes of the Filipino character. Because the sick
Filipino never left alone, because wether he likes it or not-he is lavished with so much
attention and kindness-he is, the most charming and demonstrative person in the world.
Once he is well. If he gets well. If not, I am sure there will be in his own olympus an
extra bed occupied by someone who will stroke his back and hold his hand, on the days
when, even in heaven, he might have to be in hospital.
-Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, “The Extra Bed”
The Manila Chronicle (27 August 1967)
A question of identity (Vessel 1973, 24)
A NOTE OF QUIET LYRICISM

Ten, twenty years ago, this house had its share of ceremony. Tables were set, walls
scrubbed, furniture moved around to make way for friends to come to celebrate a child’s
graduation or the father’s birth day. To day the children are married, the father is six
months dead, and some friends turned out to be not friends after all. But the the house
retains that singular power, the power to remind. Rain trickles down a window and once
again I am a child coming home from school. A full moon soars above the balcony and
again it is that evening when I still in garden, shaken by a dream. Marriage, death, or
betrayal will never claim this, and with it, houses like this go on as they should-just like
old people, without flourish, tranquil in old age.
-Katrina T. Quimbo, “Old House”
The Evening Paper (2 December 1997)
DRAMATIC DENOUMENT
Once I protested that, born in America, I had a right to stay. She said, “You were born
here by a accident, because I arrived here by accident.” Once she pleaded, “Your
education is my gift to my country. My hardest years are in your head. As I have been
true to your country, go back, be true to mine.” Once, she declare, ”If you go back there,
it will make it alright, my coming year. “Speaking or silent I refused. What I really
thought was, “Nuts!”
-Yay Marking, Were a country begins
(Araneta University 1962, 41)
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I didn’t want to think of what my mother had again to had had to give up, for herself, or
my little brother, asleep in his cot on the far side of my room. What had it cost her, this
one last hope for me? Softly, behind me, her voice said, ”It’s your own…” I didn’t want
to cry, and I could think of nothing to say anyway. ”this is what you want to do?” she
asked, and said, “ Then do it. It is something you can do anywhere.”
With the bright new portable typewriter in front of me, with that odd, undefeated, brown
woman at my back, I made my first confession” What’s it li like over there?”
“ I don’t really know,” said this person who had slowed away at ten years of age from
Cebu direct to America. “ I didn’t see much of it…I wasn’t there very long..”
Thus between us, the determined woman and the defiant child, came the moment of
grace. It would be years yet before I saw the Philippines but this was the beginning of
willingness.
-Yay Marking, Where a Country Begins
(Araneta University 1962, 43-44)
JOKE
” Life is so dull.” the 17-year-old boy complained. He had spent half the day sleeping and
the other half watching a movie made for morons. He wanted to know whether, like him,
I sometimes got sick and tired of life.
He blinked when I said I was also getting sick and tired, waiting for Sluggishness to
move its butt and get into gear.
-Norma Miraflor (January 1982)
One Woman’s Opinion (Media Masters 1990, 13)
I am a parent an older, I hope more mature person charged with the upbringing of
children I spawned and hatched myself. I must teach them three basic things to be
responsible to themselves, to be sensitive to others and to live by what they believes is
right. If I fail at cooking lessons, I hope at least to succeed in these.
Through my “ Travails” I have remained cheerful and, yes, happy, My children are the
main reason for that. Also a naturally sunny disposition and a very important change in
my philosophy.
Once I believed that the point of life was to hold on to people and things forever. Now I
know that we, and with us, all things, must pass away. So I enjoy everything and
everyone I have while we are here. This makes working and parenting bearable on the
worst days, enriching and rewarding the rest of the time.
-Barbara Gonzalez, “ An Imperfect State,”
How Do You Know Your Pearls Are Real (April 1991, 130)
ANECDOTE
I am a parent an older, I hope more mature person charged with the upbringing of
children I spawned and hatched myself. I must teach them three basic things to be
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responsible to themselves, to be sensitive to others and to live by what they believes is
right. If I fail at cooking lessons, I hope at least to succeed in these.
Through my “ Travails” I have remained cheerful and, yes, happy, My children are the
main reason for that. Also a naturally sunny disposition and a very important change in
my philosophy.
Once I believed that the point of life was to hold on to people and things forever. Now I
know that we, and with us, all things, must pass away. So I enjoy everything and
everyone I have while we are here. This makes working and parenting bearable on the
worst days, enriching and rewarding the rest of the time.
-Barbara Gonzalez, “ An Imperfect State,”
How Do You Know Your Pearls Are Real (April 1991, 130)
POINT MADE AT THE BEGINNING OF THEIR ESSAY

Just after Christmas, John and I flew to Chicago to visit my brother and his wife. They
welcomed us with a streaming bowl of dinuguan at sili and rice fresh out of the
microwave, warm puto on the side, and a square of food for the gods to finish. I could
have cried from sheer nostalgia.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled the tangy scent of stewed pig’s blood, lifted a spoonful to
reverent lips, and chewed avidly as the taste buds exploded in a rapture of remembered
flavors. Forget Star trek. With the first mouthful, I had been beamed straight back to the
mother land.
-Marivi Soliven Blanco, “ Foraging for Filipino food,”
Suddenly Stateside (Milflores 2002, 128)
ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS: Space is a particularly important constraints where writing for newspapers

(and for some magazines) is concerned. Look for an article (in local magazine) whose
ending is unsatisfactory. Write a one to two paragraph ending for it.
MODULE 10
A NOTE ON REVISING
64
be able to:
4. Define the use A Note on Revising as strategy of creative non-fiction.
5. Explain the use of A Note on Revising as strategy of creative non-fiction.
WARM UP ACTIVITY
Directions: Among of the movies you watched. Choose one which you want to revise and
explain why
Title of the Movie:
Your Revision
Explanation
DISCUSSION
A NOTE ON REVISING
64
 Revising is an intergal part of writing. Some writers revise as they go along, returning each day to
work done the previous day, and rewriting it. Other writers complete the first draft, let it rest for a
few days ( or a few weeks or a few months), and then return to it and revise, sometimes tossing
the entire thing into the trash can and beginning again from scratch.
 It is difficult to prescribe one method. Each writer will discover the one most suited to his/her
temperament and personal circumstances. But whichever method is finally selected, certain basic
principles will apply. They are the same principles which guide editors.
 Remember that the professional writer is his or her own harshest critic.
a. Edit for grammar and syntax

Watch out for trouble areas: lack of agreement between subject and verb, lack of
agreement pronouns and their antecedents, inconsistency in tense and mood,
wrong prepositions, missing articles, unnecessary articles, unintentional sentence
fragments, run-on sentences, commonly misused words and phrases, dangling or
misplaced modifiers, misused idioms, etc.
b. Edit for Clarity

 Is your essay/narrative readable? Is it focused? Is the point you want to make
made clearly and precisely?
 Is your essay/ narrative cohesive? Are transitions smooth? Does each part lead
naturally to the next one?
 Are ideas developed with concrete details or do you rely on general statements
and abstractions?
c. Edit for Conciseness
Are you using too many words? Are there redundant passages? Is the writing
cluttered?
“ Discipline is at the heart of a successful article, the discipline to stick to the

64
subject, to make every word, every sentence fit, and to leave out those words and
sentence that do not. To leave out also those ideas, those pieces of information
that prove nonessential, tangential” (Jacobi 1991, 228).
d. Edit for Style

Since style is the writer’s personal signature, this is the most difficult part of
revision. Style influences everything—the way you structure your ideas, the
illustrations you select, your choice of words. The temptation is strong to dismiss
criticism with the flippant “well, that’s my style.” Needless to say, this attitude is
counterproductive
Attached as you may be to certain aspects of your personal style, you need to ask yourself
whether they are appropriate or effective in the context of this particular piece. Keep in mind the
following:
• Your subject
your purpose
• Your audience
The polemical style may come naturally to you, but is it the most suitable approach to this
particular subject? You may favor biblical or classical Greek allusions, but are they weighing
down your article? You may have a preference for long sentences replete with subordinate
clauses, but are they likely to confuse your reader?
Having said all that, let us look at something which is less tangible. You need to ask yourself
whether what you have written is interesting. Is it vivid? Is it engaging? Is it likely to entice
readers from beginnin, and sustain their interest thoroughout the piece? Successful performances
have high energy levels, and a pieces of writing is a performance. How high is the energy level
of your performance? Is it the sort of thing that readers will not want to put down? Is it exciting?
It is enough to be clever. Readers needs to be convinced that what you have to say is important,
that they will gain something from reading your work—a new idea, a new way of doing
something, a new way of looking at something.
ACTIVITY
64
DIRECTIONS: Read this essay and revise it.

REFERENCES
HIDALGO, Christina,. Creative Non-Fiction, A Manual for Filipino Writers, Quezon City: The
University of the Philippines Press, 2005
64
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Modules in Creative Nonfiction

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64

Cainta Catholic College

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

DIRECTIONS: Accomplish the advance organizer below by jotting down 8 terms

Does nonfiction exist in the Philippines?

Why did creative non-fiction develop?

fiction, but because it is often stranger than fiction.

Is creative non-fiction now a distinct field of study (like fiction or poetry)?

TYPES OF CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Shaking the City:

Lampano jumping and twisting in his music-driven seizures like a

Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

2. DETERMINING THE AUDIENCE

thinker, a critic, a social commentator.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

THINGS TO BE SETTLED BEFORE WRITING

(ii) Second person is told through the pronoun, you

REMOTE CONTROL By DANTON REMOTO

What are the springs of this language?

From Dakota to Medusa

Science and geography are also wellsprings of Philippine gay lingo.

Language and integration

What are the implications of Philippine gay lingo?

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

 Is as important in creative nonfiction as it is in fiction. You need to have a plan before

REMOTE CONTROL By DANTON REMOTO

Break the code

What are the springs of this language?

From Dakota to Medusa

Science and geography are also wellsprings of Philippine gay lingo.

Language and integration

What are the implications of Philippine gay lingo?

2. Analysis in the Point of View used:

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

Directions: Answer the question below.

KINDS OF RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES:

Directions: Do the following tasks given below.

 In writing a narrative, a major concern of a writer will be the character/s.

2. DESCRIPTION OF PHYSICAL APPEARANCE - Describes how the character looks

3. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT’S SPECIAL SETTING OR AMBIENCE -

6. IDIOSYNCRATIC BEHAVIOR - Presenting or Higlighting the peculiar behavior of the

CONCRETE AND EVOCATIVE DETAILS

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of the module, you should

● Dialogue is an important part of a scene.

Great things can come from hidden dreams.

Title of the Movie:

Your own version of Ending

CONTAINS THE ESSAY’S THESIS

A NOTE OF QUIET LYRICISM

POINT MADE AT THE BEGINNING OF THEIR ESSAY

DIRECTIONS: Space is a particularly important constraints where writing for newspapers

Title of the Movie:

a. Edit for grammar and syntax

b. Edit for Clarity

“ Discipline is at the heart of a successful article, the discipline to stick to the

d. Edit for Style

DIRECTIONS: Read this essay and revise it.

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