CREATIVE

NONFICTION
ADDING FLAVOR TO THE FLAVORLESS
WHAT IS CREATIVE NONFICTION?

• A personal essay (short writing about a particular subject) that uses

styles/techniques of fiction, such as in short stories, to impart ideas,
experiences and feelings on a real life event
• Also known through other names, “Literary Essay,” “The Fourth
Genre,” “Literature of Reality,” “The Art of Fiction,” and “New
Journalism”
• A mixture of fact and fiction
HOW IS CREATIVE NONFICTION
DIFFERENT/SIMILAR TO THE GENRES OF
FICTION AND NONFICTION?
• A different type of essay (IT’S FLAVORED, unlike
reports, historical accounts, documentaries,
biographies, memoirs, travel writing)
• Uses creative writing techniques and elements more
commonly found in fiction, poetry or drama
HOW DID CREATIVE NONFICTION COME
TO BE?
• Genres are not static. (e.g. Shakespeare’s Plays, Genres
of Other Arts)
• It started in the Philippines during the Spanish Era.
• It was repressed during the Martial Law Era.
• It has been flourishing since the end of the Martial Law
Era.
• Creative Nonfiction became accepted as a literary genre.
WHY DO WE (HAVE) TO READ/WRITE
CREATIVE NONFICTION TEXTS?
• Genres are not static.
• Memories may falter, fade, blur through time.
• Imaginative faculty may intervene in the rendition of facts
• It pursues the more potent way of telling a story, not
necessarily an objective one.
• Give us a chance to revisit and restructure our experiences.
GENERALIZATION

Creative nonfiction is considered creative

because, even though it is factual, it uses
creative techniques normally used in fictional
works.
 FIGURES OF SPEECH
• SIMILE – comparison of two things by using words like or as
ex. We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

• METAPHOR – a direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas

ex. Spending too much time with him is worse than swimming in a
sea of sharks.

• PERSONIFICATION – gives human traits to inanimate objects or ideas

ex. Lightning danced across the sky.
• HYPERBOLE – exaggeration
ex. I've told you to clean your room a million times!
• APOSTROPHE – a direct address to something inanimate or dead or
absent.
ex. “Oh nature, thou art my goddess.”
“Little lamb, who made thee?”
• OXYMORON – using contradictory terms
ex. The original copy is lying on the table.
This painting is pretty ugly.
• ALLUSION – refers to any scientific, historical, mythological, literary,
or biblical event or figure
ex. I am not Lazarus nor Prince Hamlet
Chocolate is my Achilles’ Heel!
 CREATIVE
NONFICTION
ADDING FLAVOR TO THE FLAVORLESS