What is creative nonfiction?

Creative Nonfiction – Is preferred by two writing communities – literary journalist and the creative
writers.
- Root said that” journalism are side by side, and the border area
sometimes;
1. That CNF is just a foreign term of a contemporary literary genre that is widely practiced in
the country, in the Native language called personal na sanaysay;
2. That CNF by a different name is an oral tradition that has been practiced even before the
first printing press was established I the country;
3. That CNF was galvanized in the Philippines through Nick Joaquin’s reportages

 Traditional editors did not allow dialogues- enclosed in quotation marks – in nonfiction
essays.

 Nonfiction - is a prose writing that is informative or factual rather that fictional.

- prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people, such as
biography or history.
 Prose – written or spoken language in its ordinary form without metrical structure

The following are examples of Nonfiction:

a. Academic Publications
 Academic paper – research or term paper submitted for class assignments.
 Academic article – research paper published in an academic journal, according to
academic discipline(scientific, humanities, law review, and the like)
 Conference paper – paper submitted to and /or read in a conference.
 Thesis – usually 30-100 pages of independent research.
 Dissertation- book-length independent research.
 Literary criticism- evaluation, analysis, description, or interpretation of literary works

b. Technical documents
 Instruction manual
 Self-help guide
 Project proposal
 Specification
 Description
 Software design document
 Business communication letter/
memo
 Resume, curriculum vitae, and cover
letter
 News statement and press release
 Evaluation report

c. References Sources
 Dictionary
 Thesaurus
 Encyclopedia
 Almanac
 Atlas
d. Mass Media
 Editorial
 News
 Feature
 Sports
 Column
 Letter to the editor.

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 FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

1. The personal and the Autobiographical

 A personal/informal/familiar essay tells a story, in most cases written in the first to illustrate a
universal truth, insight, or fact. It has a conversational and friendly tone.
 An autobiography is closely related to the nonfiction. Most notably, an autobiography is a
first person account of its author’s entire life.
o Writing an autobiography template isn’t an easy undertaking. When written, there will be
as many life stories as there are people. What will make an autobiographical essay stand
out are the essential topics. Those which will make it unique among the rest, sorting out
the most significant events in one’s life and writing about them are difficult. There is an
abundance of experiences to choose from.
In creative writing, when a fictional work is placed under scrutiny, its verisimilitude is put to the test.
 Verisimilitude “as the appearance of being true or real.” No matter how far you invent or imagine
your fictional work, the plot and images have to be lifelike.
 Verisimilitude is important to CNF writer, with the zest for creativity – employing various literary
elements and techniques – the story may end up not believable enough or not real at all. It is also
important for those who write personal essays.
 Expository prose essays have to be authentic. But they do not simply expose facts; they exploit
them to their own ends. This concern may raise questions on credibility. Authors may do the
following:
a. Make use of facts to perform analyses, speculations, and interpretation, which are subjective
productions of their own minds.
b. Deliberately introduce facts of questionable validity.
c. Accidentally or intentionally omit, overlook, misunderstood, or misrepresent facts.
d. Draw conclusions from facts that are incorrect or misleading.
e. Expose only facts that support their analyses, speculations, interpretations, and other
contentions.
f. Interpret, asses, and distort facts before using them.
g. Select only facts and make assessments that operate in their own favor and filter out facts
that do not.
h. Introduce raw, unverified and unsubstantiated facts and information.
i. Label a fact a “true” when it does not actually agree with reality or represent a complete
picture.
j. Unintentionally wrap facts because of biases and narrow or unbalanced perspectives.
Example of Verisimilitude
As Aaron stepped out of the house into the afternoon light, his hair seemed to change color;
the orange light of the setting sun reflected off hairs red, brown, blonde, and even a few white.

2. Testimonies
 Testimonio came from the Latin word testimonium. In Spanish, it is a statement an affidavit
or a “proof of evidence.” It is a detailed summary of the witness’s evidence prepared before
hearing. It can be used as aide-memoire during an examination-in-chief.
 “An authentic narrative told by a witness who is moved to narrate by urgency of situation (e.g.,
war, oppression, revolution). Emphasizing popular oral discourse, the witness portrays his or
her own experience a representative of a collective memory and identity. Truth is summoned
in the cause of denouncing a represent situation of exploitation and oppression or exorcising
and setting aright official history.” – George Yudice.
 “As in act of testifying or bearing witness in a legal or religious sense,” is important because it
distinguishes testimonio from recorded participant narrative, as in the case of oral history.”” –
John Beverly.
 Testimonio according to Beverly, “coalesced as a new narrative genre in the 1960s and
further developed I close relation to the movements for national liberation and the generalized
cultural radicalism of that decade.” whether it is explicit or not, testimonio belongs to a genre
that Barbara Harlow had called “resistance literature.”
 It has been categorized as a literary because it is a “testimonial narrative.” it has been
defined, not as a literary genre, but as a cultural concept and cultural practice.
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  The narrator is someone who is either functionally illiterate or, if illiterate, not a professional
writer, the production of a testimonio generally involves the tape-recording and then the
transcription and editing of an oral account by interlocutor who is an intellectual, often a
journalist or a writer.
 Testimonio promises to be primarily concerned with sincerity rather than literariness. The
intentionality of the narrator is paramount; the situation of narration has to involve an urgency
to communicate problems of repression, poverty, subalternity, imprisonment, and struggle for
survival and so on.
 Testimonio is testimonio because it suspends the literary at the very same time that it
constitutes itself as a literary act; as literature, it is liminal event opening onto a
nonrepresentational, drastically indexical order of experience. In other words, the attraction of
testimonio is not primarily its literary dimension-even though it remains true; the most
successful testimonies are also those that have a better claim to literary eminence.
 Because the authorial voice is erased, you read a testimonio with a sense of solidarity. It was
the intention of intention of both the testimonialist and the interlocutor.
 On the other hand, remember that the testimonio works as aide-memoire. Because of this
position of the reader of a testimonio is akin to that of a jury member in a courtroom.
 Not all testimonies are the same. They are similar because they are bearing witness to
atrocities and truth-telling through experiences. But each testimonio comes with its own
unique cultural nuances as each emerges from different cultural groups.
 Remember that testimonio calls for solidarity.

Role of Testimonio
a. As a means of representing an individual experience that has been erased or ignored but
connecting its individuality to the identity of a group community;
b. As such, it replaces “I” that may be at the forefront of a testimonio narrative with an
understood “we”; and
c. Aspect of resistance because “the narrator of a testimonial text belongs to an oppressed,
excluded, and/or marginal group and speaks/ writes as a member of that group.

Example of Testimony
 I came from a dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic and because of that, my
character and direction in life would be set for the next 30 years. There are not many childhood
memories in my life that are pleasant. These experiences reflect how I related to God after my
salvation. I will share a few major episodes that solidified my thinking. I remember one Christmas
morning. I had received a "Roy Rogers ranch set". I was so proud of that toy. My father was terribly
sick from a drunk and vomited all over it, stomped it, and cursed my mother when she came to my
defense. He wounded my spirit, and hardness began to build within me. This was the start of my
wrong understanding of relating to others.

3. Autobiographical Narratives/Personal Narrative

What is Autobiography or personal narrative?
 Is nonfiction written account or narrative essay of a person’s life. The author is narrator. As
the subject of the narrative in the author the emphasis is on the author’s developing self.
Therefore, it is written in chronological order.
 When you write an autobiographical essay, you tell a story about a particular event that had
happened to your life. It includes your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. You do not have
to start your story from your infancy.
 Because it is a personal narrative you must be mindful about using the elements of a
narrative, you are telling a story not just it happened in your life. You have to impart insights
to your readers.
 Be mindful personal narrative is written in the first person, you must not place yourself in the
center stage. You do not always have to use “I.” You have can use we.

Elements of Personal narrative

CHARACTERS are well developed in detail and are true-to-life.
SETTING is described vividly.
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 DETAILS are interesting.  Writers of autobiographies use objective and subjective details and
anecdotes to tell their life stories.
 Objective details can be proved.
 Subjective details are based on personal feelings and opinions and cannot be proved.
 Anecdotes are short, often humorous, stories that enliven writing and illustrate a point.
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER is the order in which real-life events occur and the order in which
most writers of autobiographies tell their stories.  Often events are arranged from childhood to
adulthood.
POINT OF VIEW is the perspective from which an autobiography is written.  Since
autobiographies are written by their subjects, they are told from the first-person point of
view and use the pronouns I, me, and mine.  Readers experience events through the writer's
eye-- knowing only what they think and feel about any given experience.
AUTHOR'S PURPOSE is the author's reason for writing.  Authors of autobiographies often
want to make sense of events in their lives and to communicate an important personal
statement about life.  They may also want to give credit to people who influence them. 
Controversial individuals often write autobiographies to explain or justify their actions.
Characteristics of Personal essay:
It has an informal style.
It has a casual meandering structure.
It has a conversational tone.
It has a clear imprint of the author’s personality.
It has a tendency toward the subjects of familiar and the domestic, the emotional middle of the
road.
4. Biography and Memoir
 Originated as an oral tradition. The writing is based on impressions of eyewitness and
supplemented by documents, especially letters.
 The creative process of writing a biography involves gathering “reams of note, letter, diaries,
and historical data to document the subject’s life as factually and completely as possible.”
 Biographies were treated as historical documents, their authenticity was considered over
their artistic merits.
 The structure of memoir or biography can be chronological or episodic.
 One way to distinguish a memoir essay from a personal narrative is WHAT and HOW the
story is told. Because memoir allows you to recount other events if they are connected to your
theme. It also allowed you to include indirect experiences, such as pocket stories of other
people’s experiences connected to your own, through theme or event.

5. Travel Literature/ Travelogue

 Travelogue, the dictionary says is after monologue, which is narrative with the aid of slides
and pictures before an audience. But nowadays all travel writing is included in the term
Travelogue. 
 Travel essays could be primarily informative, offering worthwhile information to readers who
wish to be travelers or tourists just as a hobby. As travel guides they are purely intended to
give information regarding availability of food, facilities for accommodation, food etc indicating
distances from various points to destinations, modes available for travel, places not be missed
for sight- seeing and such basic information. When writing a travel essay you may adapt
either two types of narrative strategies. Impersonal journey narratives usually have rather flat,
linear structure – flat in the sense that there is no rising and falling action, no organizing
dramatic strategy. The events are reported chronologically, following the itinerary of the trip.
On the other hand, a more consciously crafted work of travel literature, while usually existing
within chronological framework, often borrows from the world of fiction to establish motivation,
rising and falling action, conflict, resolution, and character.
 Your travel essay should contain a balance two elements – the impersonal (formal) and the
personal (informal). Successful travel literature according to Fussell, mediates between two
poles: the individual physical things it describe, on one hand, and the larger theme that it is
“about” on the other.
 Travel narrative according to Casey Blanton, is “a compelling and seductive from of
storytelling.” Purpose and style are two key points in writing a travel piece.
Characteristics of travel literature
 narrator /traveler who travels for the sake of travel itself;
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  a narrative style that borrows from fiction in its use of rising and falling action, character and
setting.
 a conscious commitment to represent the strange and exotic in ways that both familiarize
and distance the foreign.
 a writer concern with language and literature; and
 thematic concerns that go beyond descriptions of people and places visited.
Whether you are writing a travel journal or a guide book take note of the following:
 observations on manners, morals, and monuments;
 autobiographical and anecdotal digressions; and
 the flow of narrative incident, reminisce, and analysis.

6. New Journalism/ Literary Journalism

 Journalism and literature are side by side, and the border area sometimes confusingly allows
strategies to seep into journalism.
 according to Root, the journalistic strategies are as follows:
o emphasis on factuality;
o focus on currency and immediacy; and
o reportorial distance from the subject.
 Journalist can be creative and fictionists can be “historians” themselves.
 New journalism reads like fiction, but it is not fiction. It is reliable like reportage, but it seeks
larger truth than is possible through the mere compilations of verifiable facts, the use of direct
quotations, and adherence to the rigid organizational style of the older form.
Techniques of New Journalism
 Telling the story by scene - as a journalist, you must write a blow-by-blow description of the
event so your readers will experience it as it happened. To achieve this, you must not rely on
secondhand accounts and background information.
 Recording the dialogue in full - it establishes and defines character more quickly and
effectively that any other single device. You are not only reporting words, but also establishing
characterization. With the use of extensive dialogue, you will also involve your readers in your
text.
 Writing with multiples perspectives – you may want to write your story in the first person,
but you have to give your readers the feeling of being inside the character’s mind and
experiencing the emotional reality of the scene.
 Recording a detailed “status life” – this also involves revealing characterization. Bring your
characters by illustrating their “entire pattern of behavior and possessions through which
people expresses their position in the world.

Literary journalism
 Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting
with narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. This form
of writing can also be called narrative journalism or new journalism. 
 In basic journalism the concept of using the inverted pyramid by the editor is important to
excise the least important paragraphs at the latter part of the article. An article with 20, 000
word count, for example, may spell trouble for a newspaper’s printed space but no magazine
this is called long-form journalism.
 Literary journalism demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writers
surfaces to show readers that an author is at work. Authority shows through. The dramatic
details yield only to persistent, competent, sympathetic reporters. Voice brings the authors into
our world.
 Literary journalist must be accurate. Characters in literary journalism need to be brought to life
on paper, just as in fiction, but their feelings and dramatic moments contain a special power
because we know the stories are true.
 The literary quality of the works comes from the collision of the worlds. From a confrontation
with the symbols of another, real culture.

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7. True Narratives
 A true narrative essay, remember is a story, based on actual events. You are required to
compose a true narrative essay about an incident that you experienced or observed. The
form of the true narrative is undefined; the purpose in telling the story is to express a point or
observation.
 True Crime or true events is a nonfiction category where “most of the crimes investigated are
murders, and most murders have been solved. According to Carol, this genre “mirrors our
collective anxiety about the very definition of justice, let alone its realization.”
 True Crime is a category of murder narrative with the following characteristics:
o truth-claims are unchallenged by it audience;
o taken as real; and
o Produces deploy a widely used of narrative conventions and strategies.

8. Reportage
 Reportage refers to cultural and social reality, past developments, and current affairs.
 Reportage writers, with their immersion in the subject, bring unknown, hidden or forgotten
realities and intricacies to light. By witnessing with their own eyes and collecting and
consolidating a mass of information, in forming a picture of the whole, the reportage writer can
deliver a greater degree of accuracy than is generally possible with other media formats. This is
what gives reportage writing its significance and authority.
 Literature allows for the creation of complexity, density, depth and multiple layers. In the field of
reportage, creative nonfiction makes use of literary writing by taking advantage of its refinement
of composition and its devices of introspection, interior monologue, dialogue, and polyphony.
Literary reportage can draw on the visual arts, using changes of perspective, tempo and mood,
cuts and montages, and it can make use of metaphors, parables, and allegories. 
 Capote explained that reportage, “by necessity, demands that the writer be completely in
control of fictional techniques which means that to be a good creative reporter, you have to be
very good fiction writer.”
 Oxford English Dictionary defines reportage as follows:
o The reporting of news by press and the broadcasting media.
o The factual, journalistic presentation of an account in a book or other text: the area
where fiction borders with reportage.
 Reportage is based on the following:
o direct observation
o investigation
o thorough research and documentation

9. Profile
 A profile picture is a newspaper article that explores the background and character of a
particular person or a group. The focus should be on a news angle or single aspect of the
subject’s personal or professional life.
 Your profile feature could be about anybody as a subject interesting to the readers. But like
any article, it needs interesting introduction as well.
 Remember that when you write a profile, the narrative structure does not have to be
chronological. The theme of your profile can be political, but the tone can humorous and
candid.

10. Reflective Essays

 Reflective essay is an essay in which the writer examines his or her experiences in life. The
writer then writes about those experiences, exploring how he or she has changed, developed
or grown from those experiences.
 The format of a reflective essay may change slightly depending on who the audience is.
Reflective writing helps us to think more about ourselves, who we are, and how we have
changed.
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  Reflective essays, like reaction essays, ask your response on a subject. They also expect you
to give your insights based on your personal experiences. As such, the structure of this type of
essay is expected to have the same characteristics as most academic writing.

Methods of reflective essays are necessary process for your continuous learning. By way of
reflective practice you will be able to:

 look back on your corpus (your collection of past writing);

 assess your emotions, experiences, and actions;
 take a conscious appraisal of the feedback of your peers;
 categorize your writing style, principles, and assumptions within context of your works;
 increase your knowledge base and reach a higher level of understanding; and
 plan your future actions

11. Blog
 Blogs, or weblogs, started out as a mix of what was happening in a person’s life and what was
happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/news site.
 The word “blog” is a shortened version of web logs or weblogs. Besides being shorter and
catchier, “blog” seems less likely to cause confusion, as “web log” can also mean a server’s
log files.
 People maintained blogs before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the
rise of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com, which lowered the
technical barrier to entry for formatting and organizing posts. Now, self-hosted platforms such
as WordPress offer new levels of functionality, with a large ecosystem of talented designers
and developers serving the varied needs of millions of users.
 Despite its grassroots beginnings, blogging has also become a popular platform for business,
from companies trying to humanize their brand to solopreneurs seeking to make a full-time
income online. But with increased opportunity comes increased competition, and it takes more
to stand out now than in the early days of blogging. Still, there are so many more people online
today, so the potential rewards are higher for bloggers who break through.