WTF! Creative non-fiction is FICTION.
Open mouth, insert foot, wiggle toes...
You probably should have googled it. Granted, you seem to be proudly ignorant and are not afraid to show it....
The banner of the magazine I’m proud to have founded and I continue to edit, Creative Non?ction, de?nes the genre simply, succinctly, and accurately as “true stories well told.” And that, in essence, is what creative non?ction is all about.
In some ways, creative non?ction is like jazz—it’s a rich mix of ?avors, ideas, and techniques, some of which are newly invented and others as old as writing itself. Creative non?ction can be an essay, a journal article, a research paper, a memoir, or a poem; it can be personal or not, or it can be all of these.
The words “creative” and “non?ction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques ?ction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present non?ction—factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make non?ction stories read like ?ction so that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy.
The word “creative” has been criticized in this context because some people have maintained that being creative means that you pretend or exaggerate or make up facts and embellish details. This is completely incorrect. It is possible to be honest and straightforward and brilliant and creative at the same time.
"Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen, reporting and describing what wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that the writer has a license to lie. The cardinal rule is clear—and cannot be violated. This is the pledge the writer makes to the reader—the maxim we live by, the anchor of creative non?ction: “You can’t make this stuff up!”
creativenonfiction.org |
