Definition:
A branch of writing that employs the literary techniques usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on actual persons, places, or events.
The genre of creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction) is broad enough to include travel writing, nature writing, science writing, biography, autobiography, memoir, the interview, and both the familiar and personal essay.
See also:
- 100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction: A Reading List
- Advanced Composition
- Classic British and American Essays
- Nonfiction
Examples of Creative Nonfiction:
- "Coney Island at Night," by James Huneker
- "An Experiment in Misery," by Stephen Crane
- "In Mammoth Cave," by John Burroughs
- "Outcasts in Salt Lake City," by James Weldon Johnson
- "Rural Hours," by Susan Fenimore Cooper
- "The San Francisco Earthquake," by Jack London
- "The Watercress Girl," by Henry Mayhew
Observations:
- "Creative nonfiction . . . 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."
(Carolyn Forché and Philip Gerard, Introduction, Writing Creative Nonfiction. Story Press, 2001) - "[There] is a significant way in which creative nonfiction differs from journalism. Subjectivity is not required in creative nonfiction, but specific, personal points of view, based on fact and conjecture, are definitely encouraged. . . .
"I would like to recommend a code for creative nonfiction writers--kind of a checklist. . . .
"First, strive for the truth. Be certain that everything you write is as accurate and honest as you can make it. . . .
"Second, recognize the important distinction between recollected conversation and fabricated dialogue. Don't make anything up. . . .
"Third, don't round corners--or compress situations or characters--unnecessarily. . . .
"Fourth, one way to protect the characters in your book, article, or essay is to allow them to defend themselves--or at least to read what you have written about them."
(Lee Gutkind, "The Creative Nonfiction Police?" In Fact. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005) - "Practical nonfiction is designed to communicate information in circumstances where the quality of the writing is not considered as important as the content. Practical nonfiction appears mainly in popular magazines, newspaper Sunday supplements, feature articles, and in self-help and how-to books. . . .
"Literary nonfiction puts emphasis on the precise and skilled use of words and tone, and the assumption that the reader is as intelligent as the writer. While information is included, insight about that information, presented with some originality, may predominate. Sometimes the subject of literary nonfiction may not at the onset be of great interest to the reader, but the character of the writing may lure the reader into that subject.
"Literary nonfiction appears in books, in some general magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper's, the Atlantic, Commentary, the New York Review of Books, in many so-called little or small-circulation magazines, in a few newspapers regularly and in some other newspapers from time to time, occasionally in a Sunday supplement, and in book review media."
(Sol Stein, Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies. St. Martin's, 1995)
Also Known As: literary nonfiction, literary journalism, literature of fact
