What is “creative nonfiction”?
Charles Foran, 2009 Keynote Speaker
It’s not clear who’s responsible for this awkward and ultimately unsatisfactory label, but since no other suggestions appear to have found sufficiently widespread acceptance, we appear to be stuck with it. Since there seems much more agreement on what the genre doesn’t include, I’ll begin with that: not included are strictly technical or instructional works, conventional newspaper reportage, and anything written in the neutral (i.e., unopinionated) third person. What is included—provided they’re written in a personal, identifiable voice—are memoirs, history, literary journalism, documentary, biography, works of social, political or cultural criticism, commentary or analysis, personal or journalistic essays, and works traditionally identified as belles-lettres.
The emphasis in creative nonfiction is on the use of inventive and dramatic techniques to support fact-based narratives. Contrary to a common misunderstanding, the adjective “creative” in creative nonfiction does not license its writers to invent details or events in the way that fiction writers may do. Rather, it gives them a similar toolbox to enrich and enliven their presentation of the facts. Using such tools, the CNF writer seeks to achieve, in the words of author Tom Wolfe, “a larger truth than is possible through the mere compilation of verifiable facts or direct quotation.”
Of course, not even our own members always agree on an exact definition of creative nonfiction. For more takes on this slippery genre, see the definitions below… or send a definition of your own to info@creativenonfictioncollective.com.
—Andreas Schroeder, board member
The definition from Lee Gutkind, editor of Creative Nonfiction >
Use of Term CNF Research Workshop Summary
by Betsy Warland
Research Committee: David Leach , Amanda Jardine, Monica Meneghetti, Cathy Ostlere, Chaired by Betsy Warland
TERM USED BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Prior to attending last year’s gathering, I had begun to look at subject headings in books and discovered that fiction and poetry most often are listed as genre but Creative Non-Fiction was never listed and only occasionally sub-genres such as memoir were listed. This puzzled and me and thus, I offered to lead a research committee at our AGM held in 2009. Since then, I have found out the Library of Congress (which determines and assigns all subject headings) does not have Creative Non-Fiction as a genre term in its system. The closest terms (other than sub-genre terms) they use are: reportage literature and belle letters. If you do a search on the LOC website for subject headings, nonfiction comes up 14 times (3 as a Genre/Form Term & 11 as a Topical Term). If you do a search for Journalism you will find 159 results. For Poetry – 3,756; for fiction – 4,102 results. Thus, nonfiction (the term creative nonfiction has zero results) has 159 compared to our other major genre mates of poetry and fiction, which have around 4,000 results. This puts us at a huge disadvantage.
TERM USED BY CANADIAN PUBLISHERS
Thirty-six small to large-sized publishers were reviewed from across the country on their usage of the three most common umbrella genre terms.
Literary Non-Fiction = 6%
Creative Non-Fiction = 3%
Non-Fiction = 53%
COMMENTS: When our writing becomes a book, it is rarely marketed as Creative Non-Fiction and largely marketed as Non-Fiction or with a sub-genre term.
TERM USED BY CANADIAN LITERARY AGENTS
Twelve agencies were contacted and five replied. One considered Creative Non-Fiction a “recognizable genre” in Canada and four did not consider it to be a recognizable genre. All felt that the genre was not easily defined. Most agencies do not use the term Creative Non-Fiction in their business dealings but rather, when using an umbrella term, use the terms Literary Non-Fiction or Narrative Non-Fiction. The use of the word creative seems to imply that it need not be fact-based.
TERM USED IN AWARDS
All national, provincial, city, and literary journal awards were reviewed. Two national government-sponsored awards (Canada Council Grants, Governor General’s Award), and the national Charles Taylor Prize use Literary Non-fiction. Literary journals typically sponsor Creative Non-Fiction competition awards, and the CBC Literary Competition also uses the term Creative Non-Fiction. Provincial and city awards across Canada, and the British Columbia National Book Award for Canadian Non-Fiction use the term Non-Fiction.
COMMENT: Creative Non-Fiction may be used more to signal emerging writers and writers who are students and who are instructors at creative writing schools. Literary Non-Fiction seems to be used by federal government, and Non-Fiction seems to be preferred by provincial government-funded awards.
TERM USED IN LITERARY MAGAZINES AND JOURNALS
Of the 27 journals and magazines reviewed:
- 2 use the term Literary Non-Fiction
- 4 use the term Creative Non-Fiction
- 5 use the term Non-Fiction (notably Quill & Quire)
- 16 do not designate, or use terms such as features, essay, articles, reviews, dispatches, findings, and foreground the author’s name and title of their piece [only designating the genre poetry – “three poems” – after the author’s name]
Also, some use Non-Fiction in reference to work published, but use Creative Non-Fiction in their contests, again suggests that this is believed to be the best signal term for emerging writers.
COMMENT: Creative Non-Fiction is again used more as a signal to emerging writers. The publishing industry (via Q & Q) uses Non-Fiction. The over-riding trend is to not use a genre term, or, to occasionally use a sub-genre term.
TERM USED IN BOOKSTORES
The term Creative Non-Fiction is not used. Our books are either shelved under the area labeled Non-Fiction, but more frequently under sub-genres such as Memoir, biography, history, or topic.
COMMENT: Creative Non-Fiction is an utterly useless term at this stage in the book “food” chain. Non-Fiction (and it’s sub-genres) rules. The problem with this is that many of our books do not fit under the very few sub-genre shelving labels used. It is not uncommon for our books to be shelved in seven or eight different areas making it difficult for readers to find our books.
TERMS USED BY CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMS
Thirty-three programs were contacted. Of the fourteen that have responded, all use the term Creative Non-Fiction excepting one that uses Non-Fiction, while another uses the term Narrative Non-Fiction [in The Writer’s Studio we use Personal Narrative and Lyric Prose].
COMMENT: Here, again, the suggestion is that the usage of the terms Creative Non-Fiction is largely associated with emerging writers and the teaching of our genre. Several programs indicated the necessity of clarifying and discussing with applicants, as well as their students, the nature and parameters of the genre term. Several programs also mentioned the “blurring” of Creative Non-Fiction with other genres. Even the spelling of non-fiction verses nonfiction is indicative of the lack of coherence in our genre. Although my preference is for the non-hyphened spelling, I am using the literary industry preference in this summary. A dissatisfaction with the term Creative Non-Fiction and was also acknowledged.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
With the exception of creative writing programs (and even here frustrations are acknowledged), the term Creative Non-Fiction is used infrequently and falls out of use the higher we go up the food chain of book production, LOC categorization, marketing, awards, selling, and book lending.
All the initial research above suggests that it may be imperative that we initiate a national awareness regarding the urgent need to standardize one genre term throughout all aspects of the literary industry.
FURTHER ACTION
Our research committee’s motion to share our findings with, and to invite into dialogue, several other national writers’ and literary industry organizations over the next year, as well as to continue our research, was approved at our AGM this April, 2010.