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NONFICTION
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
G L A I Z A M A E G . PA L M E R O
OBJECTIVES:
1. Identify dominant literary conventions of fiction and drama
namely, character, plot, setting, and theme.
2. Compare and contrast how the conventions of fiction and drama
are used and utilized
3. Analyze and interpret the themes and techniques used in a
particular text
4. Peer-edit each other’s draft based on the clarity of idea, and choice
and use of elements
5. Revise written piece using literary conventions of fiction and
drama.
UNDERSTANDING THE CONVENTIONS OF FICTION AND
DRAMA
Exploratory Activity:
A MOVIE OR STORY IN MY MIND
Try to remember a book, s story, a play, or a film that you have read or seen that has had the most
impact on you. It may be something that you have recently read or seen, or something that you
have read or seen in a long time but you simply could not forget. Fill in the blanks with the
necessary details.
Story writing begins with a question: What can I create out of this
image, this memory, or this feeling?
– The image of a river littered with plastic and empty tin cans can
grow into a story about protecting the environment.
– The memory of a former schoolmate can evolve into a story about
losing a friend.
– The feeling of gratitude can result in a story about parents
This images, memories, and feelings could be good starting points for
telling the stories you will write about, and they could spark ideas for
your story line or plot.
Excerpt from TUNGKUNG LANGIT and ALUNSINA
Lyric Poems are brief in structure and subjective in expressing the thoughts
and emotions of the persona, the speaker of the poem. Originally written to be sung to
the accompaniment of a lyre (hence, the term), the words in these poems could be
lyrics which are strongly melodic. Songs, sonnets, haikus, odes and pastoral poems are
examples of this.
UNDERSTANDING THE ELEMENTS AND CONVENTIONS OF POETRY
1. Imagery. The use of images is constant in poetry. It is the literal representation of an experience
or object that is perceived through the senses. It is presented in language in a way that we can see,
smell, hear, taste, touch, or feel it as our imagination allows.
2. Figurative language. Figures of speech are devices that help beautify or make the language
more poetic than is already is. The most commonly used figures of speech are simile, metaphor,
personification, and onomatopoeia.
3. Sound. Poetry is as much an oral as it is a visual form; therefore, it is meant to be recited and
read aloud. Poetry dates back to the ancient times when chants were ritualized. The epics of Homer
and ballads of the medieval period were either performed or sung. Today, poets give poetry readings
and even make recordings of their work. As a result, a poem should be read aloud to reveal its true
merit. The rhyme scheme and the meter that a poem employs add to the sound of the poem.
4. Persona. The speaker of the poem is not necessarily the poet. In many cases, poets create a
persona ( a word that comes from Latin which means “mask”) who speaks the poem in the first
person. Since a poem does not have characters, it is the persona and his or her perspective where we
are able to perceive his or her experience.
WRITING TIPS
Helpful tips in POETRY writing
– Think of a certain vivid experience or memory or feeling from you past. And
then relate this to a particular image that you can use. For example, a marble
can be a perfect image of the games you played while you were young. This
could serve as a starting point for a poem.
– Use specific sensory details. Remember, poems are made to be visualized, and
felt, and heard, and smelled. Use words that appeal to the senses.
– Read some of the lines that you have written aloud. You know it is good if is
sounds effective.
– Make sure that each word in the poem has its use. Poems, generally, are not
long. Make sure that all the words that you employed count and contribute to
the general impression of the poem.
WRITING EXERCISE
1. Write a four-line-stanza poem using this title, I Am. In this short poem,
write about your thoughts about yourself-your character, fears, and
virtues. You can also write about your dreams and aspirations.
1.
2.
3.
PLOT
Looking Back and Moving Forward
1.
2.
3.
PLOT
Looking Back and Moving Forward
1.
2.
3.
EXPLAINING KEY CONCEPTS
PLOT- sequence of events that has a beginning, middle, and an end.
- a pattern of actions, events, and situations showing the development
of the narrative.
PLOT in Creative Nonfiction
- based on actual people, experiences, and events as they actually
happened while in fiction, the characters are a product of the fictionist’s
creative imagination or based on real experiences and events or on real
people who inhabit a fictional world created by the fiction writer.
EXPLAINING KEY CONCEPTS
Peter P. Jacobi
- author, The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan it, Write It
(Blooming.Indiana University Press as cited by Hidalgo, p.19), material for
essays can come “From walking. From talking. From listening. From
Observing. From doing. From believing. From disagreeing. From dreaming.
From scheming. From asking. From having an open mind.”
Alfred Q. Gonzales
- author, The Bamboo Flower, says that as a writer, you may discover a
lasting universal interest and significance in common people and common life.
(1947, 5-6). But you should not limit yourself to only these; you can explore
other subjects and topics and reach out to the rest of the world once you are
ready.
HOW TO BEGIN
The Title
– Catchy and clever titles have an advantage. Examples:
Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Wild Man of the Green
Swamp and Edward Hoagland’s The Courage of Turtles are
examples of catchy titles.
• Titles which are too long are at a disadvantage. Titles
should not also be misleading.
– Titles should give the reader a quick idea of what to expect,
without giving away the whole story (Hidalgo, 56-57)
THE FIRST PARAGRAPH
According to Hidalgo, the key to good creative nonfiction is
dramatic writing. And the key to dramatic writing is action.
There are many ways of beginning with a passage of vivid
description, with a quotation, with a bit of dialogue, with a
list, with a little scene, with an anecdote, with a question, with
a striking statement, with a reference to a current event which
serves as context, or with what in fiction is called in medias
res- a plunge right into the middle of action.
EXAMPLES
Passage of Vivid Description
For eight months in 1975, residents of the edge of Green Swamp,
Florida, had been reporting to the police that they had seen a Wild man.
When they stepped toward him, he made strange noises as in a foreign
language and ran back into the saw grass. At first, authorities said the
Wild man was a mass hallucination. Man-eating animals lived in swamp,
and human being could hardly find a place to rest without sinking.
Perhaps it was some kind of a bear the children had seen.
Striking Statement
I was saved form sin when I was going on thirteen. But not really saved.
“Salvation,” Langston Hughes
Reference to a current event which serves as context on the
action
Reference to a current event which serves as context on the
action
Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty, and I wonder where
my self is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants,
perhaps, and looking again at each one as though it were a person, by
feeding the two cats, by cooking a meal.
It takes a while, as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains at the end of
the field, but the moment comes when the world falls away, and the self
emerges again from the deep unconscious, bringing back all I have recently
experienced to be explored and slowly understood, when I can converse
again with my hidden powers, and so grow, and so be renewed, till death
do us part.
WRITING TIPS
As a young writer, you are aware what people your age would love to read.
Subjects such as movies, music, young adult literature, television programs, sports,
school activities or even more personal topics like love, friendship, significant
occasions, or being a teenager maybe interesting to them. The best thing to do is
to determine whether your topic is interesting or not. . You can probably ask the
opinion of your friends and teachers. In her book Creative Nonfiction: A Manual
for Filipino Writers, Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo writes:
An important thing to remember is: no matter how great your way with
words, or how engaging the personality you project, the bottom line is:
how much do you know about your subject? Before you begin gathering
your information, consider what kind of information you need, where is
the best place to get it. Your investigation will tell you what work has
already been done on your subject. This is very important (p. 21).
LESSON 2:
CHARACTERS OR
CHARACTERIZATION
LESSON 2: CHARACTERS OR CHARACTERIZATION
• Character, usually an imagined person who inhibits the
story, is an important element in fiction; but a character,
may also be based on real people.
• Character is an important element in creative nonfiction
as well which may refer to real people or the writer
himself.
• Dialogue or the actual conversation the writer has
remembered or recorded is an effective device for
revealing characters.
LESSON 2: CHARACTERS OR CHARACTERIZATION
Setting (Creative Writing) refers to the place and time where and
when events happen. In fiction, you can have a very realistic
setting like a city or other places that readers are familiar with
such as a crowded shopping mall, an old mansion, a dirty
classroom, a dark forest, etc. But as a fictionist, you can also
settings that are not of this world like those found in science
fiction, horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction. The creative
nonfiction writer has no recourse but to stick to the places that
actually exist and in places where events actually happened.
SETTING AND ATMOSPHERE
Essay
- an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter
and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its
subject from a limited and often personal point of view.
- derived from the French work essayer, which means to attempt or to try and its
primary meaning is still used in certain instances in English.
Two main categories
• the literary, personal, familiar or informal essay; and the non-literary, documented or
formal essay. The literary reportage, on the other hand, is a special kind of creative
nonfiction essay that has emerged in the West in conjunction with the rise of the so-
called New Journalism in the 1960s.
LITERARY, FAMILIAR, PERSONAL OR INFORMAL ESSAYS: LITERARY
REPORTAGE, DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY, AND REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Main Components
• Introduction- usually contains the thesis statement or the controlling
idea that the writer wants to share with his/her readers.
• Supporting paragraphs- or body of essay, offer pieces of evidence and
logical arguments that enhance the thesis statement.
• Transitional paragraphs- short paragraphs that indicate the divisions of
the essay, especially in essays that are quite substantial in length.
• Conclusion- provides a fitting ending to the essay, oftentimes by
restating the controlling idea or reflecting on the thesis statement.
LITERARY REPORTAGE
-is a form of creative nonfiction that presents verifiable data and well-
researched information, like a film or TV documentary. As a written
genre, it is a hybrid between responsible journalism and imaginative
literature. On the other, literary reportage shares with responsible
journalism in the way it pays close attention to sociocultural reality, past
events and current affairs. Responsible journalism attempts to analyze the
collected data accurately by contextualizing its facts and figures such as
historical antecedents and causation, presenting readers with discerningly
processed information for a more enlightened interpretation of world
affairs.
LITERARY REPORTAGE
At nine o’clock Wednesday evening I walked down through the very heart of the
city. I walked through miles and miles of magnificent buildings and towering
skyscrapers. Here was no fire. All was in perfect order. The police patrolled the streets.
Every building had its watchman at the door. And yet it was doomed, all of it. There
was no water. The dynamite was giving out. And at right angles two different
conflagrations were sweeping down upon it.
At one o’clock in the morning I walked down through the same section. Everything
still stood intact. There was no fire. And yet there was a change. A rain of ashes was
falling. The watchmen at the doors were gone. The police had been absolutely
abandoned. I stood at the corner of Kearney and Market, in the very innermost heart of
San Francisco. Kearny Street was deserted. Half a dozen blocks away it was burning
on both sides. The street was a wall of flame. And against calmly watching. That was
all. Not another person was in sight. In the intact heart of the city two troopers sat their
horses and watched.
1 whole sheet of paper
Compose a personal or informal essay (five to seven
paragraphs) that describes your home town or home. If you
write about your home town, you may start by describing its
downtown area before proceeding to describe its suburbs or
outskirts. If you are writing about your home, you may start by
describing the façade or frontage of your house before
proceeding to describe its interior spaces. Combine objective
descriptions and subjective description to make your essay more
vivid and remarkable.
DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY
• A kind of creative nonfiction whose main intention is to represent the
appearance or essence of something.
• The main strategy used is description-the used of sensory details to portray a
person, a place, or thing.
Two types of Description
• Objective Description
- portrays the subject matter in a clear and direct manner as it exists in
reality beyond the realm personal feelings and emotions.
Example:
Articles about science and technology
DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY
Two types of Description
• Subjective Description
-expresses the writer’s personal feeling and impression about the
subject matter, creating certain tone, mode or atmosphere while
emphasizing a certain point. “Because most expression involves personal
views, even when it explains by analysis, subjective description (often
call emotional description) has a broader sense of uses that objective
description.”
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
- a kind of personal narrative essay whose main intention is to analyze the
significance of past events through serious thought or consideration from the vantage
point of the present. The writer of the reflexive essay combines his/her own subjective
experiences and observation with careful assessment and analysis from an objective
perspective. The major source of when writing a reflexive essay is memory, the
repository of sensory information, facts and figures that have been accumulated since
infancy through personal experiences.
- But reflection as a human endeavor is a dying art form, since most people are busy
doing other things which they consider more worthwhile than mere musing, even if men
and women are supposed to be contemplative by nature and in constant search for the
meaning of life.
Importance of reflective essay: “ In an essay based on your personal experiences, you
have an opportunity to review your past, to evaluate it in order to discover its
significance to you, and in doing so to make your past interesting to your readers.”
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
1. Which of the following forms of creative nonfiction can be described
as “an analytic, interpretative, or critical composition…usually dealing
with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view?”
a. biography b. diary c. essay d. all of the above e.
none of the above
2. Which of the following forms of creative nonfiction requires both
journalistic and literary skills?
a. descriptive essay b. literary reportage c. reflective essay
d. all of the above e. none of the above
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
3. Which of the following forms of creative nonfiction requires
retrospection or a looking back at past events to determine their
significance in the present.
a. descriptive essay b. literary reportage c. reflective essay
d. all of the above e. none of the above
4. Which of the following form of creative nonfiction has for its main
intention the presentation of the appearance or essence of something?
a. descriptive essay b. literary reportage c. reflective essay
d. all of the above e. none of the above
5. In its original French context, what does the word essay mean?
a. to attempt b. to describe c. to explain
d. all of the above e. none of the above
6. Which of the following forms of creative nonfiction emerged in
conjunction with the rise of the so-called New Journalism in the
1960s? a. descriptive essay b. literary reportage c. reflective essay
d. all of the above e. none of the above.
7. Which of the following terms is synonymous to “familiar essay”?
a. informal essay b. literary essay c. personal essay
d. none of the above e. all of the above
8. Which of the following terms is not synonymous to “formal essay”?
a. documented essay b. descriptive essay c. non-literary essay
d. all of the above e. none of the above
9. Which of the following terms is synonymous to “emotional
description”?
a. objective description b. simple description
c. subjective description d. all of the above e. none of the above
10. Which of the following forms of creative nonfiction is a hybrid of
responsive journalism and imaginative literature?
a. Descriptive essay b. literary reportage c. reflective essay d.
all of the above e. none of the above.
TRAVEL WRITING
SPECIAL TYPES OF CREATIVE NONFICTION: TRAVEL, FOOD,
AND NATURE WRITING
Travel Writing
- a form of creative nonfiction that describes the narrator’s experiences in
foreign places. This type of writing usually includes a narration of a
journey undertaken by the narrator from his or her point of origin to the
eventual destination, with all the hazards and inconveniences
encountered along the way.
- it also entails detailed descriptions of the local customs and traditions,
the landscape of cityscape, the native cuisine, the historical and cultural
landmarks, and the sights and sounds the visited place has to offer.
TRAVEL WRITING DEFINED
-William Zinsser – “what raises travel writing to literature is not what the
writer brings to the place, but what the place draws out of the writer.”
-Cristina Hidalgo Pantoja, travel literature “depends largely on the wit,
powers of observation, and character of the traveler for its success. In past
centuries the traveler tended to be an adventurer or a connoisseur of art,
landscapes, or strange customs who may also have been a writer of merit.”
-Paul Theroux claims that “ when something human is recorded, good
travel writing happens.”
-Laurence Durrell avers that to capture the spirit of the place the travel
writer must keep “the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not too much
factual information.
• http://flyingbaguette.com/2018/12/malaga-coming-of-age.html
• http://flyingbaguette.com/2018/06/split-personality.html
Food Writing
FOOD WRITING
- A direct offshoot to travel writing that has evolved into a
literary subgenre of its own
- It is a type of creative nonfiction that focuses on gustatory
delights or disasters while simultaneously narrating an
interesting story, as well as sharing an insight or two about
the human condition.
- To be a successful food writer, an author must think of eating
as a gustatory adventure, which means that he should not be
afraid to visit new restaurants and try exotic dishes and
drinks.
FOOD WRITING
- The food writer must train his tongue and nose
to distinguish a wide variety of flavor and
aromas, as well as find the precise words to
describe how they taste and smell, so that he can
accurately recreate for his readers the experience
of eating the delicacies and drinking the
concoctions he is partaking.
FOOD WRITING
• Voice, rhythm and content are the ingredients that make a good read.
The same loose rules apply in food writing, from drafting the simplest
of recipes, to eulogizing about a supper, to penning a gastronomic
scholarly tome. Find out how to breathe life on to the page and how
to craft a winning recipe. Learn how to lead readers through a market
or souk, in the kitchen or out in the field; to write creatively and
inform around food from life’s experience. Then armed with the
literary tricks of the trade, win your way into magazines and with
book publishers and, even, go on to create your very own bestseller.
FOOD WRITING
- https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/the-21-best-dishes-in-the-philippines/
- http://www.rjdexplorer.com/take-it-from-the-experts-its-more-food-in-the/
- https://everything-filipino.com/filipino-food-get-into-the-streets-a-filipino-street-food-adventure/
NATURE WRITING
• An offshoot of travel writing, unlike food writing that
focuses on gustatory delights, it highlights the beauty and
majesty of the natural world as well as humanity’s special
relationship with Mother Earth.
• Some forms of nature writing, instead of celebrating
landscapes and exotic plants and animals, zero in on the
abuses committed by mankind on the natural environment
and its dire consequences to future generation.
NATURE WRITING
• As a literary genre, it is highly dependent on scientific
facts and figures about the natural world, while
integrating private observations of and philosophical
contemplations on the natural environment.
• Michael P. Branch the term is ecocriticism as reserve
for “ a brand of nature representation that is deemed
literary, written in the speculative personal voice and
presented in the form of the nonfiction essay.
EXERCISE 1
Answer the following questions. Encircle the letter of the correct answer.
1. Which of the following special types of creative nonfiction requires an
adventurous spirit?
a. food writing b. nature writing c. travel writing
d. all of the above e. none of the above