Creative Nonfiction

PRINCIPLES, ELEMENTS, TECHNIQUES AND DEVICES OF CREATIVE NONFICTION o In the nineteenth century, a German novelist Gustav Freytag flushed
out these concepts and added two other key plot points into the model –
 Plot is a term used in literature to refer to the chronology of interrelated events
the rising and falling action, and created a pictorial tool to help
that make up a story.
visualize the concept.
o It serves as a foundation of a narrative – a novel, a short, story, or a
o Both Aristotle and later Freytag were describing trends that they saw in
drama.
the plays or novels of the time.
o It must be organized in a manner that the audience (readers or
o Some don’t have a “falling action” or a concrete “resolution”.
viewers) understand the sequence of events and how they relate to one
another.
Elements of Plot:

 Exposition or Introduction introduces the characters, the setting, and the

conflict or main problem.
o This part of the story sets the basic setting (time and place) and
characters of the story.
 Rising Action consists of incidents or events which build up until the climax is
reached.
o This is usually the longest section of the story (as demonstrated by the
segment labeled ‘rising action’ taking up the longest linear space in
the diagram).
 Climax is the most exciting part of the story because it provides the readers
some clues on how the conflict will be resolved.
 Falling Action is where the conflict is resolved.
o It usually includes the actions that are taken as a result of the climactic
fortune – reversal in order to resolve the conflict.
 Conclusion or Resolution ends the story either happily or unhappily for the
main characters.
o Either the protagonist succeeds in their goal that is developed in the
introduction or they fail.
 Denouement is a kind of debriefing period when the change that the
protagonist has undergone throughout the story is flushed out or analyzed.
 Freytag’s Pyramid is a method of structuring a story by mapping the
progression of conflict from inception to resolution.
o Founded in the theatrical drama of Ancient Greece, basic plot structure
for any narrative was laid out by Aristotle in Poetics.
o According to Aristotle, each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
 Characters are the persons, animals, and other beings that give life to the story.
o Major or Central Characters are vital to the development and
resolution of the conflict.
o Minor Characters serve to complement the major characters and help
move the plot events forward.
o Dynamic Character is a person who changes over time, usually as a
result of resolving a central conflict or facing a major crisis.
o Static Character is someone who does not change over time; their
personality does not transform or evolve.
o Round Character is anyone who has a complex personality; they are
often portrayed as a conflicted and contradictory person.
o Flat Character is the opposite of a round character.
o Stock Characters are those types of characters who have become
conventional or stereotypical through repeated use in particular types of
stories.
 Stock Characters are instantly recognizable to readers or
audience members (e.g. the femme fatale, the cynical but
Creative Nonfiction
moral private eye, the mad scientists, the geeky boy with
glasses, and the faithful sidekick).
 Stock Characters are normally one-dimensional flat characters,
but sometimes stock personalities are deeply conflicted, rounded
characters (e.g. the “Hamlet” type).
o Protagonist is the central person in a story, and is often referred to as
the story’s main character.
 They are faced with a conflict that must be resolved.
 The protagonist may not always be admirable (e.g. an anti-
hero); nevertheless, they must command involvement on the
part of the reader, or better yet, empathy.
o Antagonist is the character(s) (or situation) that represents the
opposition against which the protagonist must contend.
o Anti-Hero is a major character, usually the protagonist, who lacks
nobility of mind, and who struggles for values not deemed universally
admirable.
o Foil is any character (usually the antagonist or an important
supporting character) whose personal qualities contrast with another
character (usually the protagonist).
o Symbolic Character is any major or minor character whose very
existence represents some major idea or aspect of society.
 For example, in Lord of the Flies, Piggy is a symbol of both the
rationality and physical weakness of modern civilization; Jack,
on the other hand, symbolizes the violent tendencies (the Id)
that William Golding believes is within human nature.
 Direct Presentation (or Characterization) refers to what the speaker or
narrator directly says or thinks about a character.
 Indirect Presentation (or Characterization) refers to what the character says
or does.
o This mimics how we understand people in the real world, since we can’t
“get inside their heads”.
Ten (Direct or Indirect) Ways in which a Character Can Be Revealed:
1. By psychological description.
2. By physical description.
3. By probing what they think.
4. By what they say.
5. By how they say it.
6. By what they do.
7. By what others say about them.
8. By their environment.
9. By their reaction to others.
10. By their reaction to themselves.
 Point of View is the perspective from which a story is narrated.
o The most common points of view used in novels are first person singular
(“I”) and the third person (“he” and “she”).
o Point of View vs. Narrator
o Significance of Point of View in Literature
o Setting is the time and place in which the story takes place.
 Some settings are very specific (Wulfhall in Wiltshire England
in 1500), while others are descriptive (a boat out on the
ocean).
 Most pieces of literature more – or many more-than one
setting, either as the narrative progresses through time or to
include points of view from more than one character.
 Symbol is a word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what
it is on a literal level.
o Symbolic Characters are charactering whose primary literary function
is symbolic, even though the character may retain normal or realistic
qualities.
o Symbolism is frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that
mean something beyond what they are on a literal level.
 Irony is a figure of speech in which the writer states something but they mean
the opposite.
o Verbal Irony is employed when the writer expresses their meaning by
means of words which signify the opposite, typically for humorous or
empathic effect.
 For example, in the statement “You’re so pretty; you look like
Christmas tree,” the speaker means “the addressee is ugly”.
o Situational Irony is employed when the writer presents one of the
characters in a situation to which he does not fit.
 For example, in the story written by Mark Twain, “The Prince
and the Pauper,” the two main characters exchanged positions,
that is, the prince lived in the dwelling of the pauper and the
Creative Nonfiction
pauper resided in the palace so that they could experience what
it would be like in their new living conditions.
o Dramatic Irony, originally used in Greek tragedy, is a literary technique
employed by a writer who lets the audience know the circumstances
occurring in the story but keeps the character not knowing what is
happening.
 A good example is presented in the tragic play of Sophocles,
“Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King),” in which Oedipus did not
know that he killed his father Laius and married his mother
Jocasta.
 He learned about these from the blind prophet Teiresias only in
the latter part of the play.
 Dialogue is derived from the Greek word “dialogos” meaning “conversation.”
o Dialogue is a written or spoken conversation between two or more
people in a work of literature.
o It is commonly found in narratives (short stories, novels, other
fictional works, and nonfictional works); it is rarely found in poems
and non-literary essays.
o It highlights the relationships between characters in the narrative and
plausibly presents the manner by which they “interact, change, reach
conclusions, and make decisions to act.”
 Scene is a dramatic sequence which takes place within a single locale or setting
on stage.
o Theme is the central controlling idea or the unifying statement of an
entire literary work.
 It may be a one-word “idea such as “progress” (in many early
Victorian works), “order and duty” (in many early Roman
works), “seize-the-day” (in many late Roman works), or
“jealousy” (in Shakespeare’s Othello).
 Voice is the individual style in which a certain author writes their work.
o For example, one’s literal voice differs from that of another in terms of
speech patterns, vocabulary, inflections, turns of phrases, etc.
o Stylometry is used to distinguish the voice of one writer from the voice
of another writer.
 This was done to particularly of famous writers like
Shakespeare.
 The investigation proved that the works examined were written
by Shakespeare because of the consistency in the writing style.
 Figure of Speech are deviations from the standard or ordinary use of words for
the purpose of producing a special meaning or literary effect.
o They are classified into tropes (those figures which produce semantic
shift or change in meaning, for example, similes and metaphors)
and schemes (those figures which produce an effect in the
patterning of letters in a word or words in a sentence, for example,
anastrophe and parallelism).
The Same Story – Suzanne Roberts (Winner of the Best Essay Prize, “Mistakes”)
 Miss Goody Two Shoes is what the musician calls the graduate student.
 The Slut is what the graduate student calls the musician.
 The word mistake comes from the fourteenth-century Old Norse mistaka,
meaning “to wrongly take,” as in “to take the wrong course of action.”
Bipolar, Lithium, Suicide and The Lost years of My Life – Jason D. Hill
 Lithium Carbonate – a salt – is used to treat, among other things, bipolar
disorder.
Dog Days and Starlit Nights – Angie J. Mayfield
 Buddy is the family’s old Labrador.
 Charlie is a blue tick hound with one ear and eye that are completely black.
 Hunter is one of the children.
Dr. Jose P. Rizal: The Greatest Filipino Achiever – Jesus Z. Menoy
 Was born on June 19, 1861.
 First Filipino nationalist and reformist – not revolutionist.
 “Noli” he wrote in honor of his countrymen, lambasted the friars, and the
Spanish government.
 “Fili” he dedicated to Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora who were killed by
verdugos.
 “Mi Ultimo Adios,” truly patriotic; “A la Juventud Filipino,” a lot more.
 An ophthalmologist, he cured his mother’s eye; trained under Weckert, he’s
one of the alumni of the Universidad Central de Madrid; in Hong Kong and
Dapitan, a doctor in deed.
Creative Nonfiction
 He invented machine for making bricks and lighter called “sulpukan”.
 Discovered a small beetle, rare frog, and lizard; even engineered a system of
waterworks.
 In Dapitan, he was an educator, too.
 A polyglot, he knew twenty-two languages: Spanish, English, Latin Greek,
French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian,
Malayan, Italian, Arabic, and so on.
 He sculpted and painted and drew many sketches, and composed songs and
played musical instruments.
 From Uncle Jose, he learned to love various arts; from Uncle Manuel, he
learned to engage in sports like swimming, fencing, wrestling, boxing
playing; and from Uncle Gregorio, he learned to treat books, friends.
 He loved many women – Leonor Rivera, Osang, Segunda, Miss L, his wife
Josephine, Adeline, Gettie, who else?
 To Spain he went to study, to France for pleasure; in Germany, Hong Kong, and
Dapitan, he worked; around Europe with Maximo Viola, he toured.
 He let himself be shot at Bagumbayan.