INTRO TO

CREATIVE
NONFICTION
LITERARY GENRES AND
LITERARY CONVENTIONS

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 Literary Genre
▧ Genre is French word which means a kind or
a type
▧ Therefore, literary genre means the type of
literature

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 Literary Genre
Paragraph Form Verse Form

Literal or General Figurative

Language Language
Prose Poetry
To entertain To amuse

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 Literary Convention
▧ Are the rules that governs a certain literary
piece
▧ It can be also called as literary elements.

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 CREATIVE
NONFICTION
What is it?

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 True stories
well told
-Gutkind

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 Written truth
with style
-Orlean

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It’s creative It’s nonfiction
because it still follows the because it is the true.
conventions of creative
writing such as its elements

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 What is it?
It is memory-or-fact-based writing that makes use of the
styles and elements of fiction, poetry, memoir, and essay. It
is writing about and from a world that includes the author’s
life and/or the author’s eye on the lives of others.

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 Types of CNF
PERSONAL
ESSAY

LITERARY
JOURNALISM
BIOGRAPHY

CNF

TRAVELOGUE MEMOIR

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CHARACTERISTICS OF CNF

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 Apparent and Deeper SUbject
▧ What the story is about– the actual person
or place
▧ What is significant to others about this
place or person

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 Timeliness and Timelessness
▧ Something about the subject that’
interesting /happening right now
▧ Something about the subject that endures,
is relevant at anytime

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 Narrative Frame
▧ Tells a good story

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 Reflection
▧ The writer
▧ Actually inserts himself in the story
▧ Tells the reader why it all matters
▧ Is thoughtfully reflective about the
“research of a lifetime”

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 Attention to the Craft of Writing
▧ The writer
▧ Actually inserts himself in the story
▧ Tells the reader why it all matters
▧ Is thoughtfully reflective about the
“research of a lifetime”

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Let’s look at this example!

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 Kaminari, beonge, foudre, kidlat, lightning, it goes in a lot of
names. It is attributed to Zeus of the Greeks, Jupiter of the Romans,
Thor of the Norse and Ribung-linti of the Visayans. For most, it brings
peril. Once struck, a life might be taken. But for others, it is a blessing.
To scientists, it holds a great role in the balance of the atmosphere. To
farmers, it serves as fertilizers to their crops. It appears in a blink of an
eye yet holds massive power. It cracks the sky for a moment but does
not leave a trace behind. It is amusing how this quirk of nature plays a
lot of roles in our lives.

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 Hairs
Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa's hair is like a
broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or
bands. Carlos' hair is thick and straight. He doesn't need to comb it. Nenny's hair
is slippery—slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like
fur.
But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little rosettes, like little
candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet
to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is
the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room
for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her,
the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama's hair
that smells like bread.

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 My Name
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters.
It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is
the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving,
songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a
horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is
supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie
because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild,
horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw
a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy
chandelier. That's the way he did it.

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 My Name
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window
her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if
she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be
all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't
want to inherit her place by the window.
At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of
tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a
softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--
which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and
become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a
new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as
Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.

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