[stylist] Creative nonfiction is not made-up material

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Eve,

What you are talking about in this post is historical fiction, which is
not creative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction is any form of nonfiction
writing-- memoir, personal essay, literary journalism, autobiography,
etc.-- that is told using literary devices and techniques like
descriptive language, metaphor, dialogue, framing, tinkering with POV,
structure and order, etc. Historical fiction, which is what you
reference here, is a fictionalized account of true people and/or events
not intended to be read as nonfiction. Creative nonfiction is usually
autobiographical in nature in terms of it is about the authors life and
experiences/thoughts/feelings/opinions, though creative nonfiction can
certainly be written about a person/place/event other than what is
personal to an author. There is nothing fictitious however in creative
nonfiction. Historical fiction and creative nonfiction are two
completely different genres and styles of writing, and again, HF is made
up people and/or events framed with real people and events, whereas
creative nonfiction is completely nonficction- not made up or
embellished.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan


Message: 9
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2012 23:24:25 -0700
From: Eve Sanchez <3rdeyeonly at gmail.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Creative nonfiction is not made-up material
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<CACdbYKVF5oK7MMph6QKiHzurxqThLQ8_UDi76vz8V4sFrO3quA at mail.gmail.com>
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As Dr. Gregory House says Everybody lies." A politician does not want to
be
called a lier, but if the shoe fits. Much of creative nonfiction is not
about someone's personal experiences, but rather something that happened
in
past history. It, in most cases, is impossible to know what those long
dead
characters said, or ate, or wore on a certain day. Yet if these things
were
not presumed to the best of the authors ability through research of what
is
known about time period and/or incident concerned, the books would be
awfully boring. I for one am thankful for the creativeness of the
authors
of creative nonfiction to weave such lies.  A word that is not so harsh
as
lye,but just as cleansing. Diolch, Eve