With Creative Nonfiction, Reality Meets Great Storytelling

Creative Nonfiction

Recently, I was giving my PowerPoint presentation on memoir writing to a small audience of residents at a retirement community. When I said that memoir is a form of creative nonfiction, gentle laughter trickled around the room. “What?” I said. “Creative nonfiction? Does that sound weird?” Some thought I’d made up the term. One woman said what the others were thinking—creative nonfiction sounds like an oxymoron. How can writing be creative and nonfiction simultaneously?

Poor misunderstood creative nonfiction. Let’s explore this genre further.

Creative + Nonfiction

Everyone knows the distinction between the two major categories of writing: fiction and nonfiction. In regard to writing, creative typically means that people, places, and events in the prose have been invented. Therefore, fiction comprises imaginary events and imaginary people in an invented story. Creative writing requires using one’s imagination to craft every aspect of the story and its characters.

Nonfiction is writing based on facts, real events, and real people. Nonfiction itself has two main categories: informative nonfiction and literary nonfiction. When most people think of nonfiction, they think of informative nonfiction books or articles: self-help, how-to, academic, scientific, technical, and more. Creative nonfiction is literary nonfiction.

What do you get when you merge the mechanics of creative writing with factuality of literary nonfiction? Creative nonfiction, or CNF. Here are a few of the CNF categories:

• Personal essays

• Memoir

• Journals and diaries

• Literary journalism

• Lyric essays

• Nature, city, and travel writing

In its simplest terms, CNF involves the application of the elements of creative writing—plot, conflict and resolution, character development, setting, voice, dialogue, and point of view—with the telling of true events featuring real people and places.

Personal Essay

The two most closely related of these CNF categories are the personal essay and memoir.

Personal essays are usually written in the first person, as are memoir. But the focus of a personal essay is a topic (or subject) pertinent to the author and, unlike memoir, that topic is current or recent. The subject matter of a personal essay is typically a single contemporary issue as opposed to the recounting of a life event or series of related events that constitutes a memoir.

Memoir

This category of CNF is often referred to interchangeably with autobiography. Memoir and autobiography are not the same. The simplest distinction I can offer is this:

An autobiography is the story of a life.

A memoir is a story from a life.

Autobiographies explore the details of a person’s life in chronological order. You would read an autobiography to learn about the person. Autobiography is not a form of creative nonfiction.

Memoir, while a story from a person’s life, is constructed in the same way fictional prose is. But the plot (or story) is factual, the main character is the author, the other characters are real people from the author’s life, as is the setting (the locations where the story take place). The purpose of a memoir is to reveal what a person has learned after what they have been through.

With a personal essay and a memoir, the author’s challenges, struggles, and failures are laid bare. It’s one thing to create a fictional character who makes mistakes and suffers pain and loss. But with these two forms of CNF, the author must have the courage to expose their good and bad times.

Literary Journalism

While journalism is about being objective and factual, literary journalism takes the position that people cannot be objective because anything they have seen, heard, or experienced has been changed through their personal, subjective filters. For this reason, literary journalism uses the techniques of journalism (observation, interviews, and reviews) to look beyond the straightforward facts to probe meaning outside of the facts.

Lyric Essay

The lyric essay is much like the personal essay; it deals with a topic that has affected the author. As the word lyrical means musical, melodic, or poetic, this type of writing relies heavily on descriptive imagery to tell the story.

Other Categories

Journals and diaries are written to document the day-to-day events of a person’s life. But, as you know if you have kept a journal or diary, feelings are a vital component of these, and observation and reflection are welcomed.

Nature, city, and travel writing are popular forms of CNF. Again, the author describes the facts of the environment, but must make the reader share the experience of the places. Reality mingles with subjectivity and the result entertains and informs.

Merging Boundaries

What distinguishes a piece as creative nonfiction is writing that merges the real (the facts) with the mechanics of storytelling; real people, places, and events told in the style of fiction, employing character development, setting, voice, and tone.

If the author writes a piece of CNF, which deals with something and someone real, they have the freedom to take the storytelling in any direction they please.

CNF as a Career

Have you written creative nonfiction? Are you hoping to be published as an author of one of these CNF categories? Personally, I specialize is memoir, teaching memoir writing to residents of senior living communities. Please share your experiences with me.

Till next time. keep it creatively real. #creativenonfiction #personalessay #memoir

In addition to my business, Strike The Write Tone, I am an editor, book coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word, a memoir publisher in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Not a Weekend Project: How to Build an Author Platform, Part 1

If you self-publish, you won't make many sales without an author platform. If you want a contract with an agent or a publisher, they will first check to see if you have a platform. Pre-orders help with sales rankings, but without a platform, you won't get any.

I know, I am a self-published author and here’s my story.

The life of a writer, especially a part-time one like me, is not glamorous. I spend so much time in front of my computer that I use an alarm called Stretchly to make me stand up occasionally. Otherwise, I'd plant myself in my chair and keep chugging along, gradually getting stooped over and as gnarly as a bonsai tree.

Oh, it's not writing books that keeps me in my chair. It is all the tasks associated with being an author—maintaining my author platform.

What is an Author Platform?

An author platform is the social media, brand, and presence you use to market your book. As James McCrae says, "In today's DIY multimedia world, authors are expected to be online personalities and savvy marketers."

I am not a personality or a savvy marketer. But I have a platform. My focus is on being the go-to person for my book topic, activism.

Mistake #1: Starting Late

When I wrote my first book, What's On Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world, I had no idea I'd need an author platform. A few months into the writing process, I read an author platform article, which advised me to start building my presence three years before I publish. Rats. Mistake #1. Here I sat, two years and four months too late.

Mistake #2: Continued Procrastination

Then I made Mistake #2. I should have started my author platform that instant. But I didn't. Since I was already late, I decided I might as well get the book finished. I was way more motivated to do that anyway. Starting my author platform motivated me about as much as cleaning the kitchen sink drain.

I was wrong. Take my advice. Stop reading this blog post and start your author platform. Now. Bye!

The only reason you should be reading this sentence is that you already have an author platform.

Start Your Author Platform Now

You’re still here. Fine. Let’s get busy. Getting your author platform up and running is critical; better late than never. I'm not gonna lie—it isn't that much fun. But once it is up and running, keeping it vibrant and up to date is pretty straightforward.

Excellent articles about what elements should be part of your author platform can be found at here. So, instead of discussing those, I want to tell you why it takes three years to get up and running, so I can convince you to stop reading this darn post and get started.

Elements of an Author Platform

The goal of an author platform is to find people who will:

1. buy your book,

2. encourage others to buy your book,

3. share your posts, and

4. recognize your name as the go-to person for your topic.

You do these by creating a platform using these elements: a good brand, blog, social media presence, and in-person event. Let’s look at these.

Blog

“What, I have to write more, every week?” Yep. Your blog is part of your brand, and you'll use it to attract readers to your website and send them to purchase your book. If you wrote a book about clothing in the Middle Ages, you want people who Google "clothing in the Middle Ages" to see your website pop up on the first results page. Google will only put you on their first page if you are a reliable provider of information on clothing in the Middle Ages. That is what takes years to develop.

When you are planning your blog, start with your expertise. Be clear about what topics you will be the go-to person for. Women's clothing in the Middle Ages. Men's clothing in the Middle Ages. Cloth making in the Middle Ages. You get the picture.

When you have enough posts on a subject, you can tie them together into a resource page called a pillar post. Yours will be "Clothing in the Middle Ages." This post will provide a summary of the amazing content you have available on your website. And scattered throughout will be buttons your website visitors can use to buy your book, subscribe to your email list, and connect with you on your social media channels. Keep grouping your content around pillar posts. For example, your pillar post on "Women's Clothing in the Middle Ages" will list your posts that contain more detailed information. What women wore on their heads. Women's underwear. Footwear.

Planning your content this way will save you from veering off into posts that are unrelated to your brand, like recent fun vacations, a child's graduation, or getting a new puppy. You know, life.

Social Media

There are many excellent articles about which social media platforms are right for you. My focus is on getting you to start. Right. Now. It takes years to build a social media presence.

For example, on Twitter you find people who might want your book and follow them. Twitter etiquette means they will probably follow you back. Find 20 people a day who might want your book and follow them. Start interacting with your new followers by liking, commenting, and retweeting. At least three interactions per day. Tweet your blog posts and cool information about clothing in the Middle Ages.

Facebook does not let you advertise or sell, so you'll open a Facebook business page. Here you can post neat information about your book. You'll build a following here by asking people to follow your business page. Having lots of regular Facebook friends helps in this regard, so start friending people who might buy your book, and then ask them to follow your business page.

I've found success with blog parties. These are places where you share your blog post with a group and then read and comment on others' posts. I've met some neat people, discovered great blogs, and learned a lot. Try Esme's Senior Salon and Blogger's Pit Stop.

Next week, Part 2 will discuss how to track your platform's analytics (that's a dirty word to some). And evaluate how well -- or not -- you are performing.

Resources·

A Definition of an Author Platform by Jane Friedman

Google Alerts. Use this tool to set alerts on content you wish to follow.

Feedly is a content manager for blogs and RSS feeds.

Buffer. Manage your social media posts in one place.

Terri Lyon is the author of “What’s on Your Sign? How to focus your passion and change the world” and The What’s On Your Sign? Workbook.” Available where books are sold. Terri is also a teacher, psychologist, activist, and animal lover.

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In addition to my business Strike The Write Tone, I am a contract editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word of Hendersonville, NC.

Three Simple Rules To Clear Writing

UPDATED 8/26/22

My parochial school writing education placed an emphasis on understanding grammar at a depth unheard of today. I had to do this thing called diagramming. The mere mention of diagramming might fill some of you with dread and loathing. But not me. I loved diagramming. The longer and more complex the sentence, the better. I loved doing a sentence diagram on the classroom blackboard that covered the whole darn board, top to bottom. Left to right. What bliss. Something like this:

Somewhere along the way, I also became a dandy writer. Not a brilliant writer, mind you, but a solid, competent technician of the process.

Way back, somewhere in my English education, I was taught three simple rules for constructing an essay, report, or any form of nonfiction writing. Three rules so simple and elementary-sounding I should be embarrassed to share them. But I’m not, because I still use these rules today in my own writing and I apply them when I’m editing a piece of nonfiction. These rules (for the organization and presentation of material) will change your life. Are you curious? Get ready. Here they are:

1. Simple to complex

2. Known to unknown

3. General to specific

I bet you’re disappointed, aren’t you? You thought it would be something profound borrowed from the Buddha or Lao Tzu or Ben Franklin or Buddy Holly. No.

UPDATE: Since first writing this in 2019, I have found a funny twist to the above statement. Ben Franklin did, in fact, say something that totally reinforces the point of this article. I read it in a book about writing with clarity but I believe it is from Franklin's autobiography:

If he would inform, he must advance regularly from things know to things unknown, distinctly without confusion, and the lower he begins the better. It is a common fault in writers to allow their readers too much knowledge: They begin with that which should be the middle, and skipping backwards and forwards, ‘tis impossible for any one but he who is perfect in the subject before to understand their work, and such a one has no occasion to read it.

These three rules of composition are so deeply embedded in my brain, I have no memory of when or from whom I learned them. At some point further on in my education, a fourth, more sophisticated rule was added:

4. Concrete to abstract

Well, now here I am in the 21st Century and with the help of the internet, I Googled the first three rules. To my surprise I found them discussed as “maxims of teaching.” Simple to complex and known to unknown are still popular, but general to specific seems to have given way to particular to general, which, frankly, makes no sense to me.

A teacher should always proceed from particular to general statements, I read. General facts, principles and ideas are difficult to understand and hence the teacher should always first present particular things and then lead to general things.

This sounds an awful lot like known to unknown to me. Or maybe my version of the rules is too ingrained for me to be objective. In any event, I was pleasantly surprised to see these rules still in use, regardless of the exact wording.

The purpose of these well-worn rules is to create a piece of writing that builds your material by starting on familiar ground and slowly slipping in new, more complex ideas. The rules, properly applied, will prevent repetition and redundancy, a frequent criticism of a younger generation of writers.

If you structure your writing following the first three rules, you will find it difficult to be repetitive. You must make a point as clearly and concisely as possible and, with that done, move on to the next point or to a higher level of detail. To present material simply, your words and sentences should be as simple as is appropriate to your intended audience. To lay out your points clearly, use short, precise sentences.

The point of anything you write is to communicate. If your writing fails to communicate your desired message or fails to engage your intended audience, you’ve missed the mark. As a career technical writer of computer instruction manuals, the rule of thumb was, better to talk beneath the readers and get the point across than talk over their heads and fail to inform them. In short, better to shoot too low than too high.

Sometimes writers feel a need to show off in their writing. They end up sounding slick and Ivy League-ish. Feel free to do that if you are more interested in pumping up your ego than communicating with your readers. The fact is—and maybe it’s a sad fact—the reading grade level that is considered most desirable for the general public is Grade 8. But you can communicate more than you might think at an eighth-grade level. The reading grade level of this article is 7.7.