Short Intro to Creative NF ENG 208 Prof. Valentine

Types of CNF In general, one can define creative nonfiction as any essay (or longer piece of writing) based on lived (sometimes verifiable) personal experience: – Auto/Biography – Memoir/Personal essay – Food/Travel writing – Literary journalism – Literary scholarship

Self-writing Much CNF is built on the concept of self- writing: writing primarily about the experiences of the inner self. Autobiography, personal essay and memoir are forms of self-writing Food and travel writing are more focused on conveying experience of the external world through a personal lens, but not nec. revealing the inner self.

Public vs. Private Writing about the self and one’s own experiences can take a public or private form. Journals and diaries are private forms - writing meant only for the self, not to be read by others). Personal essays, lit. journalism/scholarship are public forms, meant to convey one’s own intimate experience to a wider readership.

Public vs. Private In a journal/diary emotions may be stated clearly: “Today I broke up with my bf/gf and it made me really sad. I was heartbroken…” In a personal essay emotions must be evoked: “I got in bed and wrapped my blankets around me like I was in a cocoon. I let those words sink in my heart for a long while. I breathed in deep, sucking in gulps of air and crying more. Then I tried to make my mind go blank until the morning. I pretended that everything would be okay when the sun came up.” (Kevin Sampsell)

Public vs. Private The thing that distinguishes private self- writing from public forms of self-writing is structure: – Journals and diaries may be streams of consciousness, direct transmissions of thoughts and feelings about something that happened. – Personal essay must be grounded in scene. All experience must be conveyed as a literary scene that is then supported by research or supporting info.

Journalism vs. Lit. Journalism Traditional journalism has an objective “just the facts” style: Who, what, when, where, why. These should be presented in the clearest way possible, without interpretation from the journalist (hence “objective”) Literary journalism is intensely subjective: It presents world events from a personal POV.

Journalism vs. Lit. Journalism Literary journalism is intended to convey a personal experience of an important event. The focus is not on simply reporting all the facts, but on how experiencing that event changed or affected you as a person. Personal essays can do this too, so what makes an essay “lit. journalism” is often that the events are considered “newsworthy.”

A Word about Blogs Blogs and vlogs are a kind of go-between or fluid self-writing format that can take the form of a: – public diary or journal, – formal or informal critical writing, – product reviews and advertisements, – travel or food writing, or – literary or traditional journalism.

A Word about Blogs We are not going to consider blogs (or video blogs) in this course because their online format blurs the boundaries btw. public and private in a way that does not help us understand literary structure. However, blogs would be great to study from a structural perspective if you were taking a course on self-writing and the media or digital humanities.

How to evoke emotion Last class we briefly discussed some strategies for evoking emotion in CNF based on framing our own experiences through structure: – Pay attention to the pace of your writing (sentence and word length, choices about punctuation and register of language) – Include physical descriptions of fear, tension, anger, sex – intimate experiences that you might not share otherwise – Use the sounds of language to convey the tone of an experience (“Taketi vs. Uloomu”)

How to evoke emotion Emotion should build in your writing, not come all at once. Start in a general, neutral tone and let the intensity build, coming to a head at the end of the scene or paragraph: “Maybe I was saying these boastful things because it just feels good to help another human being. Or maybe I was saying them because by then my own life was spinning out of control.” (Kevin Sampsell)

How to evoke emotion Even if your writing is not “literary journalism” it still must bring in the outside world. In a personal essay, everything is seen through the subject’s emotional lens: descriptions of the outside world should reflect writer’s emotional state: “The more time I spent with her, the more conflicted I became. I felt a sweet glow of nostalgia with her, and we talked about the small town where we both grew up.” (KS)

How to evoke emotion Give words double meanings and create associations by using homonyms: – “[W]e stopped for a while to see if the heron was fishing for mice or snakes…” – “[B]ut as soon as we bet on mice or snake the kestrel vanished…” – “[H]e’ll snake the kid somehow, you watch…” – “And you remember that old man snaking that kid.” (Brian Doyle, “His Last Game”)

How to evoke emotion Bring the story full circle using the same or a similar setting at the beginning and end of your piece: First sentence of essay (guy works at info desk of bookstore): “People usually just ask me where the bathroom is or if we are hiring.” Last sentences: “Customers came in, looking for books, looking for stories. Looking for the bathroom. I sat there, feeling fresh- faced and feeling like a survivor. I was ready to help anyone who needed it.” (KS)