Creative Non-Fiction is Alive and Well
Diana M. Raab -- November 24, 2006
My fiction-writing friends probably won't like to hear this -- but the memoir is still alive and well. Many people thought The James Frey issue would send the memoir to the back burner and bring fiction the forefront. But if you've read any recent Sunday New York Times Book Reviews, you'll see that for at least the past year there's been a serious imbalance between fiction and non-fiction books -- more than two-thirds being reviewed are non-fiction.
Honestly, as a non-fiction writer, I am delighted by the trend, but my sympathy does extend to my fiction-writing colleagues who struggle to find homes for their short stories and novels. Actually, most of my literary friends are fiction writers, so I can appreciate their plight.
The 1960s and 1970s marked the beginning of what we now call 'creative nonfiction writing.' Most people would agree that the pioneers of this genre were writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and Joan Didion. What these writers did was tell a true story while embracing the drama in a narrative form, allowing the author's attitude and assumptions to readily come forth on the page, in contrast to the traditional journalistic, objective way of telling a story without the author's sentiments. In other words, the emotional truth in a piece was not allowed to poke through the narrative.
An example of emotional truth and having the writer's personality shine through is in one of Joan Didion's earlier essays, (1979) "In The Islands," where she writes: "We spend, my husband and I, and the baby, a restorative week I paradise. We are each the other's model of consideration, tact, restraint at the very edge of the precipice. He refrains from noticing when I am staring at nothing, and in turn I refrain from dwelling at length upon a newspaper story about a couple who apparently threw their infant and themselves into the boiling crater of a live volcano in Maui."
In this essay, Didion is providing us with the facts, how she and her husband behaved during their unhappy, week-long Hawaii vacation, but she also adds insight into her apparently strained marriage.
Lee Gutkind, who in most nonfiction circles has been thought of as the "Father of Creative Nonfiction," and editor of the first non-fiction literary journal, "Creative Nonfiction," has just released his latest special issue (29) of the journal which he cleaverly called, "A Million Little Choices: The ABC's of CNF."
This comprehensive and philosophical issue not only gives the ABC's of Creative Nonfiction, but includes a potent essay written by Gutkind entitled, "Creative Nonfiction: A Movement, Not a Moment."
Even though he enjoys being thought of as the father of creative nonfiction, he admits that he doesn't know who coined the actual term. He says this about creative nonfiction, "It offers flexibility and freedom while adhering to the basic tenets of nonfiction writing." He claims that since the 1990s there has been an explosion of creative nonfiction in both the publishing and academic worlds. For example, magazines such as, The New Yorker, Harper's, Vanity Fair and Esquire now publish more creative nonfiction than fiction and poetry combined.
He says that the genre of creative nonfiction is open to anyone with a curious mind and a sense of self. The research phase, he says launches and anchors the creative effort, whether it is for an essay or a full-length book.
In my last column I discussed writers who work in multiple genres, (also the focus of my panel at this year's Book and Author Festival held in Santa Barbara in September). Gutkind says that writers crossing genres is a significant hallmark of the creative nonfiction genre and one of the reasons for its apparent popularity. As a matter of fact, he reports, that many of the writers whose works appeared in his publication over the years, have made their literary marks in other genres.
He says that writers flexibilities in crossing genres lies in their ability to apply fiction and poetic techniques into creative nonfiction. He believes that this has made some writers uncomfortable, particularly those who solely write creative nonfiction.
The successful creative nonfiction writer tends to incorporate all of the tools and techniques which make fiction powerful -- such as scene, dialogue, research and reflection. Another critical element which I stress in the personal writing classes I teach at UCSB, is the importance of showing and not telling, regardless of the genre you choose to write in.
Gutkind understands the line between fiction and nonfiction, thus he devised a code for creative nonfiction writers. First and foremost, he believes in treating others with courtesy and respect. His list goes on to include -- striving for the truth, recognizing the important distinction between recollected conversation and fabricated dialogue, not rounding corners or compressing, situations or characters unnecessarily, and protecting your characters by allowing them to read what you've written about them.
I've always made a habit of having my subjects read my manuscript before sending it off to my editor. Perhaps this gesture stems from my years as a medical journalist and my determination to deliver accurate information. My experience has taught me that in general, people are honored to be asked.
Creative nonfiction writing can create more of a challenge for the writer as she tries to communicate the truth without hiding behind the mask of fiction; however, there are days when the possibility of hiding has a strong appeal!