Handouts 2 (4th quarter)

Forms and Types of Creative Non fiction

a. Understanding various forms and types
b. Autobiography/ Biography
c. Literary Journalism/Reportage
d. Personal narratives
e. Travelogue
f. Reflection essay
g. True narratives
h. Blogs
i. Testimonio
j. Other types and forms

Delivering a presentation on a chosen type

or form of creative nonfiction

In the movie Infamous, there is a scene in which Harper Lee and Truman Capote are discussing
the book he is writing about the Clutter murders, the brutal slaying of an entire Kansas family in
1959.

When Capote refers to his book as a novel, Lee is perplexed, telling him a book is either fiction
or non-fiction. Capote disagrees – he wants to reveal the intentions, emotions and thoughts of the
real-life characters he portrays, giving it the depth of a novel.

His book In Cold Blood was subsequently recognised as an exemplar of a new genre – creative
non-fiction.

Creative non-fiction is based on a true story, but a writer uses his subjective vantage point
to tell it, or interpolates imagined conversations and thoughts of real characters into the true
story. The latter is also called a non-fictional novel and some distinguish it from creative non-
fiction, although In Cold Blood is cited as an example of both. In this article, I will list my five
rules for using creative techniques in historical non-fiction.

#1 Never contradict fact

The golden rule is that a fictional element is always understudy to truth, used only when there are
gaps in the historical record and a particular fact is unknown or open to interpretation. Creative
non-fiction always hugs facts and never lets go.

The task of the writer is to join the factual dots with plausible lines of narrative or dialogue, but
always leaving the dots where they are.
The danger for the creative non-fiction writer is that the imagination becomes the driving force
and historical fact is distorted or ignored.

Two examples.

 The screenplay writer of the movie U-571 showed American marines boarding a German
U-boat to capture Enigma code machines, which were vital in defeating the Nazis and
ending WWII. In actual fact, the Enigma machines and codebooks were seized six months
before America entered the war. Fiction replaced fact.

 In one of her books about an unsolved murder, a true crime writer (now deceased) changed
the known statement of a key witness to support her theory. Again, fiction replaced fact.
 Both are egregious violations of the golden rule.

 #2 Research is key

 There are three ways to ensure you do not break the golden rule: research, research,
research.

 You can never do enough. A writer can only decide to employ creative non-fiction
techniques from a position of thorough knowledge, never before.

 The best research not only includes secondary sources, such as books, but primary
sources. For example, in my genre, historical true crime, this entails looking at the
original police files, including police reports, witness statements, inquest testimony, and
other documentary evidence.

This invaluable, first-hand history provides the most sought after commodity for any non-fiction
writer: detail.

Where can you find primary sources? If a book has already been written on the topic in which
you are interested, it will usually list both secondary and primary sources.

If not, a good start is a national or local records office. National archives often a wealth of
documents, including de-classified police and prosecution files, although these tend to be
released only decades after the event. Sometimes historical police files are held regionally.

#3 Outline the story

The point of creative non-fiction is to tell a true story in a compelling way and engage the reader
like a novel. The best stories always have a clear structure and objective, exploring or
highlighting issues.
Creative non-fiction is the same. The skeleton of the story should be developed with the known
facts and fleshed out with the detail from first-hand research.

Only where there are gaps in the historical record should a writer consider using imagined
constructs, such as dialogue between the real characters.

For my Cold Case Jury books, I take a historical true crime mystery – typically an unsolved
murder from many decades ago – and reconstruct how the crime might have unfolded according
to the different theories that have been advanced over the years to solve the case.

If there are, say, three major theories to account for what might have happened then typically
they are contraries – they cannot all be true. Some must be false and, therefore, there is an
intrinsic element of fiction to this type of true crime, regardless of the style in which it is written.

Further, different theories have arisen by different writers precisely because we do not know all
the facts of the case; if we did, it would not be unsolved. This is ideal territory for creative non-
fiction.

#4 Write in scenes

When outlining the story, think in scenes. Indeed, this is the essence of both creative fiction and
non-fiction.

Scenes have characters, events and dialogue to advance the story and highlight points. Where the
entire dialogue is known, from a trial transcript for example, there is no need for imagination.
This is rare, however.

Dialogue is usually where the creative is put into creative non-fiction. If an entire story cannot be
told in scenes, then you will have to change focus and augment the scenes with traditional prose,
in which case the reconstructions should be clearly highlighted.

#5 Be honest

Always. In Did She Kill Him? (2014), Kate Colquhoun italicizes the dialogue that has been
taken verbatim from historical documents and assiduously uses endnotes to cite sources for
important facts. This is a sound approach, but not the only one.

Other than personal memoirs, sources should always be listed in any non-fiction book. Even
better, transcribe some of the original primary research in an evidence file.

This is the approach I adopt in the Cold Case Jury books. For example, in my book The Green
Bicycle Mystery, there is an important conversation between a police superintendent and the
prime suspect. The conversation is dramatically reconstructed based on a police document that
was only recently released to the public. It is not a full transcript, but detailed nonetheless. I also
include the text of the original document in my book.

The purpose of the reconstructed conversation is to add more detail and provide insight.

For example, the conversation occurred when the suspect returned to the police station to collect
his personal effects. From another document, taken from the original prosecution file, I
unearthed a list of the suspect's sequestrated possessions, so was able to be authentic in
describing which objects were handed back. Further, by attributing thoughts to the
superintendent, it was possible to highlight important points of the conversation in an arresting
way.

Conclusion

Creative non-fiction blurs the distinction between fiction and non-fiction but only at the
periphery of knowledge, where fact and truth are unavailable or obscured. It is most definitely
not a dramatic license to change what we know. That would be ‘fake history’, to coin a phrase.

Creative non-fiction is not without controversy. What has been your reaction when reading
it? Have you tried writing it? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Antony M. Brown is an award-winning essayist, former magazine editor-in-chief and member of

the Crime Writers' Association. He published several Cold Case Jury e-books – true crime
mysteries in which the reader is invited to deliver the verdict on what they believe might have
happened – before signing a four book deal with Mirror Books in January 2017. Learn more
at ColdCaseJury.com and find Antony on Twitter @ccjury

The Art of Reportage

The genre of literary reportage is situated between journalism and literature. It has in common
with journalism its relation to actuality. Reportage refers to cultural and social reality, past
developments, and current affairs.
Good journalism interprets events by contextualizing elements such as historical background and
causality, presenting readers with material for a more enlightened interpretation of world affairs.

The imperatives of mass media, their standardized patterns, their competitiveness, their
permanent quest for the latest sensation, and their view of information as a commodity, impose
tight limitations on the journalist's radius of action. Journalism often has to isolate facts and
events, sensationalizing and glamorizing them through personification. Likewise, much of
today’s journalism oversimplifies complex situations and their backgrounds, favoring a trivial
and partial understanding. Furthermore, it is compelled to use a language appropriate for the
busy and undiscerning reader. As a result, it can hardly avoid providing stereotyped
interpretations of reality.
Literature, on the other hand, is born of imagination, invention, and fantasy. Literature need not
be directly related to real life. Its protagonists exist in a fictional sphere. Literature embraces
images, metaphors and allegories, and is nourished by the poetic impact of language. Literature
uses rhythm. Literature can use cuts and montages like a film. Literature draws energy through
condensation. Literature touches dimensions of actuality which journalism avoids—such as
psychology, visions and introspection, emotion and imaginary reality—and is sensitive to the
effects of geography on human modes, behaviors, and traditions.

In earlier times, newspaper journalism—the written report—was the medium for conveying the
unknown, describing events which often happened far away. The reports had to communicate a
high level of credibility. Attempting to transcend its own limitations, newspaper journalism was
expected to deliver a depiction of events that the reader couldn't experience personally. The
journalist was a substitute eye-witness. Consequently, his role was to stimulate the reader’s
imagination, evoking a complete, multifaceted, and lively image of the events reported.

Later, photography entered the realm of delivering representations of real life in accompanying
written journalism. Subsequently, photography gained a journalistic value of its own, ranging
from serious photo-reportage to sensationalist photo-journalism.

Meanwhile, we are witnessing a process of historical change in the field of journalism. The
function of delivering representational images of distant situations has been widely passed on to
television, whose influence is prevailing over written journalism.

Today, audiovisual media has become a powerful and dominant force, and images seem to have
become synonymous with authentic reporting. In this context, language has deteriorated into a
mere auxiliary element, accompanying the image content. In TV, it is the image flow which
defines the length and speed of the text. Images may not last longer than a few seconds, and texts
should not be long or complicated.

We are exposed to an overwhelming flood of images which trigger powerful sensations. We

have to adapt ourselves to the speed of the image flow. Thus, TV diminishes the viewers’ habit
of, and capacity for concentration, manifesting itself in short attention spans.

However, life as a world citizen, on a planet with diverse interdependencies of increasing

complexity, demands much more. This world requires many competencies of people: to integrate
diversity, to comprehend heterogeneity, to reconcile different layers of information, to interpret
context, and to appreciate historical background.

In terms of market and finance, technology and media, or mass culture and tourism, the process
of globalization seems to be irreversible. This process creates a complex matrix of relations.
Paradoxically, the ruling rhetoric of globalization is often characterized by a critical
oversimplification of reality and claims that a homogeneous world will emerge following the
imperatives of development. The power of simplified versions of events upon our thinking
explains why we are frequently confronted with bolts from the blue. Massacre in Rwanda …
Collapse of the Soviet Union … Fall of the Wall … War in Yugoslavia … Fundamentalist
attacks in Algeria … Afghanistan … September 11th —unremittingly, unexpected and powerful
historical events spring upon the world stage. Shocks! And nearly no one saw it coming. How
could this have happened? Later, we have to sort it all out. And sometimes choose between war
and peace.

This profound naiveté is basically due to two reasons. Firstly, we lack knowledge of the world in
all its diversity, its cultures, its religions, its languages, its traditions, and mentalities. Secondly,
we are also accustomed to a sometimes simple-minded manner of classifying the world: "The
Islamic world," "good and evil”, etc.

If it is true that our world will not be unified automatically through globalization; if it is also true
that the major conflicts of our times will certainly not be solved through a "Clash of
Civilizations," it follows then that we need a deeper, more profound knowledge and
understanding of the diverse cultures. The world requires a "Politics of Curiosity" which will
contribute to genuine "Dialogues of Civilizations."

Reportage writers, with their immersion in the subject, bring unknown, hidden or forgotten
realities and intricacies to light. By witnessing with their own eyes and collecting and
consolidating a mass of information, in forming a picture of the whole, the reportage writer can
deliver a greater degree of accuracy than is generally possible with other media formats. This is
what gives reportage writing its significance and authority.

Reportage writing, however, is not limited to merely documenting events. The combination of
reportage with the techniques and subjects of literature allows for the creation of complexity,
density, depth and multiple layers. In the field of reportage, creative nonfiction makes use of
literary writing by taking advantage of its refinement of composition and its devices of
introspection, interior monologue, dialogue, and polyphony. Literary reportage can draw on the
visual arts, using changes of perspective, tempo and mood, cuts and montages, and it can make
use of metaphors, parables, and allegories. Thus, reportage can be transformed into an art—the
Art of Reportage.

https://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/about/Art_of_Reportage.html

Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with some of
the narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction. Also
called narrative journalism.

In his ground-breaking anthology The Literary Journalists (1984), Norman Sims observed that
literary journalism "demands immersion in complex, difficult subjects. The voice of the writer
surfaces to show that an author is at work."

The term literary journalism is sometimes used interchangeably with creative nonfiction; more
often, however, it is regarded as one type of creative nonfiction.
Highly regarded literary journalists in the U.S. today include John McPhee, Jane Kramer, Mark
Singer, and Richard Rhodes. Some notable literary journalists of the past century include
Stephen Crane, Jack London, George Orwell, and Tom Wolfe.

Classic Examples of Literary Journalism

 "A Hanging" by George Orwell

 "The San Francisco Earthquake" by Jack London
 "The Watercress Girl" by Henry Mayhew

Observations

 "Literary journalism is not fiction--the people are real and the events occurred--nor is it
journalism in a traditional sense. There is interpretation, a personal point of view, and
(often) experimentation with structure and chronology. Another essential element of
literary journalism is its focus. Rather than emphasizing institutions, literary journalism
explores the lives of those who are affected by those institutions." (Jan Whitt, Women in
American Journalism: A New History. University of Illinois Press, 2008)
 Characteristics of Literary Journalism
 "Among the shared characteristics of literary journalism are immersion
reporting, complicated structures, character development, symbolism, voice, a
focus on ordinary people ... and accuracy. Literary journalists recognize the need
for a consciousness on the page through which the objects in view are filtered.
 "A list of characteristics can be an easier way to define literary journalism than a
formal definition or a set of rules. Well, there are some rules, but Mark Kramer
used the term 'breakable rules' in an anthology we edited. Among those rules,
Kramer included:

- Literary journalists immerse themselves in subjects' worlds...

- Literary journalists work out implicit covenants about accuracy and candor...
- Literary journalists write mostly about routine events.
- Literary journalists develop meaning by building upon the readers' sequential reactions.

 "... Journalism ties itself to the actual, the confirmed, that which is not simply imagined...
Literary journalists have adhered to the rules of accuracy--or mostly so--precisely
because their work cannot be labeled as journalism if details and characters are
imaginary." (Norman Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism.
Northwestern University Press, 2008)
 "As defined by Thomas B. Connery, literary journalism is 'nonfiction printed prose
whose verifiable content is shaped and transformed into a story or sketch by use of
narrative and rhetorical techniques generally associated with fiction.' Through these
stories and sketches, authors 'make a statement, or provide an interpretation, about the
people and culture depicted.' Norman Sims adds to this definition by suggesting
the genre itself allows readers to 'behold others' lives, often set within far clearer contexts
than we can bring to our own.' He goes on to suggest, 'There is something intrinsically
political—and strongly democratic—about literary journalism—something pluralistic,
 pro-individual, anti-cant, and anti-elite.' Further, as John E. Hartsock points out, the bulk
of work that has been considered literary journalism is composed 'largely by professional
journalists or those writers whose industrial means of production is to be found in the
newspaper and magazine press, thus making them at least for the interim de facto
journalists.' Common to many definitions of literary journalism is that the work
itself should contain some kind of higher truth; the stories themselves may be said to be
emblematic of a larger truth."(Amy Mattson Lauters, ed., The Rediscovered Writings of
Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist. University of Missouri Press, 2007)
 "Through dialogue, words, the presentation of the scene, you can turn over the material to
the reader. The reader is ninety-some percent of what's creative in creative writing. A
writer simply gets things started." (John McPhee, quoted by Norman Sims in "The Art of
Literary Journalism." Literary Journalism, ed. by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer.
Ballantine, 1995)

Background of Literary Journalism

 "[Benjamin] Franklin's Silence Dogood essays marked his entrance into literary
journalism. Silence, the persona Franklin adopted, speaks to the form that literary
journalism should take--that it should be situated in the ordinary world--even though her
background was not typically found in newspaper writing." (Carla Mulford, "Benjamin
Franklin and Transatlantic Literary Journalism." Transatlantic Literary Studies, 1660-
1830, ed. by Eve Tavor Bannet and Susan Manning. Cambridge University Press, 2012)
 "A hundred and fifty years before the New Journalists of the 1960s rubbed our noses in
their egos, [William] Hazlitt put himself into his work with a candor that would have
been unthinkable a few generations earlier." (Arthur Krystal, "Slang-Whanger." Except
When I Write. Oxford University Press, 2011)
 "The phrase 'New Journalism' first appeared in an American context in the 1880s when it
was used to describe the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism--muckraking
on behalf of immigrants and the poor--one found in the New York World and other
papers...
"Although it was historically unrelated to [Joseph] Pulitzer's New Journalism, the genre
of writing that Lincoln Steffens called 'literary journalism' shared many of its goals. As
the city editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser in the 1890s, Steffens made
literary journalism--artfully told narrative stories about subjects of concern to the masses-
-into editorial policy, insisting that the basic goals of the artist and the journalist
(subjectivity, honesty, empathy) were the same."

Truman Capote's "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood (1966) " is a great example of literary
nonfiction.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-literary-journalism-1691132

Two types of nonfiction: Literary and Informational

Autobiographical- Author is the main character
Personal Journal- lt is not necessarily about you, it couldbe anything that may be read by others.
Diary- includes personal thoughts and feelings, and is not meant to be shared.
Informational: writing with a purpose to describe or express facts
Literary Nonfiction contains facts and is meant to entertain it reads like fiction because it has
characters, setting, and plot. Ex. Personal Journal, diaries, memoirs, letters and essays. This is
Informational text dealing with an actual, real-life subject. This genre of literature offers opinions
or conjectures on facts and reality. This includes biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative
non fiction. Nonfiction opposes fiction and is distinguished from those fiction genres of literature
like poetry and drama which is the next section we will discuss.
Literary nonfiction is a form of writing in which literary elements that are generally seen in fiction
writing are incorporated into the retelling of a true story. Literary nonfiction is also known as
creative nonfiction or literary journalism. Even though it is used to write about an event or specific
people, its main purpose is not to inform, but is more to entertain and tell a story and to be seen
more like a work of art--literary art. As compared to traditional nonfiction, the author tends to be
very descriptive, uses more figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, and provides more
of his own personal perspective.
One classic example of literary nonfiction is Truman Capote's heralded work In Cold Blood, which
was the original true crime novel about the murder of the Clutter family in their home in rural
Kansas in 1959, the subsequent manhunt, arrest, and execution of the men who committed the
crime.
When describing Holcomb, Kansas, the scene of the crime, Capote writes: ''Like the waters of the
river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe
tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.'' Capote compares
drama to waters, motorists, and trains using simile and personification. The result is an artistic
description that engages the reader with the visual image of an uninteresting place where
remarkable crimes like this don't normally happen. The author describes the Clutters, the
townspeople, the investigators, and the criminals as characters in a story complete with a plot and
a theme.

Speech is the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one’s thoughts
and emotions by speech, sounds, and gesture. Generally delivered in the form of an address or
discourse.
Subcategories:
Expository: