What is creative nonfiction?

It involves writing about personal experience, real people,

or events. It is writing about fact, rather than fiction. The writer can write about anything,
such as a personal experience, current events, or issues in the public eye. The writer
can also inject personal thoughts, feelings, or opinions into the writing. Often, the writer
uses the first person “I.” Popular types of creative nonfiction include the personal essay,
memoir, autobiography, literary journalistic essay, travel writing, and food writing.
Creative nonfiction is also known as “Literary Journalism.”

This article identifies the techniques of creative nonfiction, defines the various types of
creative nonfiction, provides some guidelines, and lists several popular books and
several resources to help the aspiring writing learn the art and craft of writing creative
nonfiction.

How to Write Creative Nonfiction

The creative nonfiction writer produces a personal essay, memoir, travel piece, and so
forth, with a variety of techniques, writing tools, and methods. He/she is required to
use the elements of nonfiction, literary devices of fiction, and what Lee Gutkind called
“the 5 Rs of Creative nonfiction.” The following is a brief explanation of each:

Elements of Creative Nonfiction

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The creative nonfiction writer often incorporates several elements of nonfiction when
writing a memoir, personal essay, travel writing, and so on. The following is a brief
explanation of the most common elements of nonfiction:

Fact. The writing must be based on fact, rather than fiction. It cannot be made up.

Extensive research. The piece of writing is based on primary research, such as an

interview or personal experience, and often secondary research, such as gathering
information from books, magazines, and newspapers.

Reportage/reporting. The writer must be able to document events or personal

experiences.
Personal experience and personal opinion. Often, the writer includes personal
experience, feelings, thoughts, and opinions. For instance, when writing a personal
essay or memoir.

Explanation/Exposition. The writer is required to explain the personal experience or

topic to the reader.

Essay format. Creative nonfiction is often written in essay format. Example: Personal
Essay, Literary Journalistic essay, brief essay.

Literary Elements

Creative nonfiction is the literature of fact. Yet, the creative nonfiction writer utilizes
many of the literary devices of fiction writing. The following is a list of the most common
literary devices that writers incorporate into their nonfiction writing:

Storytelling/narration. The writer needs to be able to tell his/her story. A good story
includes an inciting incident, a goal, challenges and obstacles, a turning point, and
resolution of the story.

Character. The nonfiction piece often requires a main character. Example: If a writer is
creating his/her memoir, then the writer is the central character.

Setting and scene. The writer creates scenes that are action-oriented; include dialogue;
and contain vivid descriptions.

Plot and plot structure. These are the main events that make up the story. In a personal
essay, there might be only one event. In a memoir, there are often several significant
events.

Figurative language. The writer often uses simile and metaphor to create an interesting
piece of creative nonfiction.

Imagery. The writer constructs “word pictures” using sensory language. Imagery can be
figurative or literal.
Point of view. Often the writer uses the first person “I.”

Dialogue. These are the conversations spoken between people. It is an important

component of creative nonfiction.

Theme. There is a central idea that is weaved through the essay or work. Often, the
theme reveals a universal truth.

The 5’Rs of Creative Nonfiction

Lee Gutkind, who is a writer, professor, and expert on creative nonfiction, wrote an
essay called “The Five R’s of Creative Nonfiction.” In this essay, he identified five
essential elements of creative nonfiction. These include:

Creative nonfiction has a “real life” aspect. The writer constructs a personal essay,
memoir, and so forth, that is based on personal experience. He also writes about real
people and true events.

Creative nonfiction is based on the writer engaging in personal “reflection” about what
he/she is writing about. After gathering information, the writer needs to analyze and
assess what he/she has collected. He then must evaluate it and expression his
thoughts, views, opinions. Personal opinion is permissible and encouraged.

Creative nonfiction requires that the writer complete research. The writer needs to
conduct research to learn about the topic. The writer also needs to complete research to
discover what has been written about the topic. Even if a writer is crafting a personal
essay, he will need to complete secondary research, such as reviewing a personal
journal, or primary research.
READING AND WRITING POETRY

Poetry is a literary work to express feelings and ideas with the use of distinctive style
and rhythm. In poetry, sound and meaning of words are combined to express feelings,
thoughts and ideas. The poet chooses words carefully. Poetry is usually written in lines.

TYPES OF POETRY

1. Narrative – a poem that tells a story, and has the elements of a story.

Types of Narrative Poetry

 Epic - an epic is a long unified narrative poem, recounting in dignified language the
adventures of a warrior, a king or a god, the whole embodying the religious and
philosophical beliefs, the moral code, customs, traditions, manners, attitudes, sciences,
folklore and culture of the people or country from which it came.

Metrical Romance – it recounts the quest undertaken by a single knight in order to gain
a lady’s favor.

Metrical Tale - is a simple, straightforward story in verse.

 Ballad - is a narrative poem which is meant to be sung, usually composed in the

ballad stanza.

2. Dramatic – a poem where the speaker is someone other then the poet themselves. A
Dramatic poem often includes characters and dialogue. A Dramatic Monologue is often
from a fictional character’s point of view.

Types of Dramatic Poetry

Dramatic Monologue - is a literary device that is used when a character reveals his or
her innermost thoughts and feelings, those that are hidden throughout the course of the
story line, through a poem or a speech.

 Soliloquy - is the act of speaking while alone, especially when used as a theatrical
device that allows a character’s thoughts and ideas to be conveyed to the audience.

3. Lyrical – a poem that expresses emotions, appeals to your senses, and often could
be set to music.
Types of Lyric Poetry

 Ode - is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem praisingand glorifying an

individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than
emotionally.

 Elegy - is a lyric poem, written in elegiac couplets, that expresses sorrow or

lamentation, usually for one who has died.

 Sonnet - is a short poem with fourteen lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. For
example, the word "remark" consists of two syllables. ... A foot is an iamb if it consists of
one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, so the word remark is an iamb.
Penta means five, so a line of iambic pentameter consists of five iambs - five sets of
unstressed and stressed syllables.

 Song - is a lyric poem which is set to music. All songs have a strong beat created
largely through the 3R’s: rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.

 Simple Lyric - is a short poem expressing the poet’s thought, feeling, or emotion.

Elements of Poetry

1. Speaker – is the narrative voice of the poem. The persona/ voice of a poem can be
the first person “I”, second person “you”, the third person “he or she”, or the public
person (large audience, like society).

2. Subject – is the topic of the poem such as nature, love, death, and other life events.

3. Theme - It is defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that

may be stated directly or indirectly.

4. Tone - the attitude you feel in it - the writer's attitude toward the subject or audience.
The tone can be formal or informal, serious or humorous, sad or happy.
5. Form - refers to a type of poem that follows a particular set of rules, whether it be the
number of lines, the length or number of stanzas, rhyme scheme, subject matter, or
really whatever rule you can think of.

6. Sound - rhyme, rhythm, alliteration

7. Rhythm - a literary device which demonstrates the long and short patterns through
stressed and unstressed syllables particularly in verse form.

8. Rhyme - a repetition of similar sounding words occurring at the end of lines in poems
or songs.

9. Stanzas - a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter or rhyming
scheme. Stanza divides a poem in such a way that does not harm its balance but rather
it adds to the beauty to the symmetryof a poem.

 couplet (2 lines)

 tercet (3 lines)

quatrain (4 lines)

 cinquain (5 lines)

 sestet (6 lines) (sometimes it's called a sixain)

 septet (7 lines)

 octave (8 lines)

10. Imagery – uses its 5 senses to point a picture on image in the reader’s mind.

11. Diction – Diction can be defined as style of speaking or writing determined by the
choice of words by a speaker or a writer.

12. Meter- a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse, or within the lines of a
poem. Stressed syllables tend to be longer, and unstressed shorter.

13. Symbolism– is the use of a specific object or an image to represent an abstract

idea. A symbol is a word or phrase that represents something other than its literal
meaning. Examples of symbolism include a rose to represent love, a dove to represent
peace, the owl symbolizes wisdom and the cross to represent Christianity.