Creative Nonfiction: Friend or Foe

            Taking Creative Nonfiction this semester has been an enormous eye-opener for me as a writer. There have been many works that we read that have shown me how to use strategies that I have never thought of using before. When trying to apply these new strategies, I discovered that my work has more potential than I originally thought at the beginning of the course. 

            I had a few concerns at the beginning of the course. Up until now, I had only taken fiction writing classes. In those, I chose to either create new fictional stories and characters or try to loosely base my work on real events with changes that disguised it enough that hopefully nobody would notice. Now, I feel more comfortable in my writing because I know that there is a genre in which I can tell my story without having to change any details if I do not want to just fit the genre. A concern that I would not be able to create enough emotional distance between myself and my readers was one that stressed me out immediately. I eventually realized that a little vulnerability is a good thing; I don’t always have to hide the truth of the story.

            Now that I have a few new skills that I can put into practice, writing creative nonfiction has come a bit more easily to me. When it comes to the work I need to continue to put in, I know one area for sure that needs improvement. I am working on not revising as I write a first draft. I put that into practice in one of our recent assignments and realized that revising as I go has hindered some of my creativity in my works. When I think of myself as a writer in general, I think trying to not edit on the spot will help me see my thought processes more clearly than before.

            A strength that I did not realize I had was the ability to try new strategies and writing styles. Over the length of the course, I have tried to experiment with new writing styles and strategies that we have seen in the works we read. One of my favorite new skills is writing flash fiction. I have thoroughly enjoyed trying new strategies in this course because it has helped me develop as a writer in all different kinds of writing.

This class has inspired me to try to cross certain boundaries that I had previously set for myself regarding how much information and emotion I put into my pieces. I believe that as a writer, I should try to be more vulnerable. As a reader, I appreciate the hard topics in works that I read, and I want to be able to influence others just as I have been influenced by authors and their works. This course is one that will forever remain in my memory because it showed me how to try new things as a writer instead of sticking to one style and never experimenting.

Revision Session

 

            Revision can be a hard process to endure. It is especially difficult if you are attached to the work right off the bat. I have found that I am usually extremely satisfied with a first draft, making it hard for me to make any changes at all even if I know they are beneficial to the work as a whole. When I do finally force myself to revise something I worked so hard on, I have a kind of strange process.

            The first thing I do when preparing to revise is send out the work. I share it with people who will tell me only good things, people who will tell me only bad things, and people who will do both. This usually builds up my confidence in my work while forcing me to see the flaws as I take into consideration all of their comments. I like to sit with their words for a few days and mull over them, making choices, then changing my mind again and again. I do all of this without looking at the work because I do not want to make any changes right then that I have not fully considered that I might regret later.

            When I finally sit down to revise on the page, I stare at the work for a while. I do not immediately start changing things because I like to sit with the original work for a bit longer before I alter anything. At this point, it would probably be beneficial to me to create a new document for me to revise so that I will always have the original, but I have realized that I usually forget that step unless I am actively reminded.

            Even though I took days to consider all of the comments that I received, I start by looking at the diction of the piece. Where can I use fewer common words? Where can I describe something a bit more or better? This usually makes me feel a little bit better about my work because it feels more cohesive after more description. It is at this point that I will finally take the comments of my peers and apply them to my work.

            Most of the time, the comments that I receive are related to a scene that needs to be fleshed out more or moments that they get lost in the action. I take a considerable amount of time reworking these parts because I want to be precise in creating the storyline and the action of the characters. As I go about making these changes, I remember the skills that I have learned in class and try to apply them as best as I can. One technique that I have never used but want to try is starting at a different place in the story. What will that really do to the work? What will the reader miss out on, or what will they gain? These are questions that I have to ask myself before I make any sizeable changes.

            My revision process takes days, sometimes weeks. By the end of the first time revising a work, I wonder if it is truly worth it because I wonder who is even going to read it later on? Nonetheless, I continue to revise my work, always trying to make it better than it was before.

Transformation and Healing

         A few semesters ago, I wrote a short story that was loosely based on real events. When I did so, I changed many of the details to fit the assignment of writing a fiction piece. Recently I have been considering rewriting the piece into creative nonfiction. It has not been easy; however, I have still made an attempt.

...

August 24, 2017

Age 14

            “You know, Irelyn. There are plenty of reasons to try this year. You’re a sophomore this year which means you can start joining all the clubs, and you have more authority in the band, don’t you?” Melissa’s therapist's voice is soft, but it penetrates my thoughts. I don’t want her to think that she has swayed me, so I keep a straight face and force myself to look through her. She sighs and writes something on her clipboard.

            “One day you are going to have to talk to me. That’s the only way that your father will let you stop coming to see me.” She leans forward, and my eyes refocus. “I know you’re in there and you’re listening. There are going to be days that are harder than others. You may think that nobody believes in you, but I do. I believe that you can fight the battles inside yourself and overcome. I’m not the only one either. Your teachers have told me that you show real promise and that you don’t give up on trying. You are different than other kids in your position. You haven’t given up or accepted the idea of becoming another statistic. But you will become one if you give up. You just have to try.”

           

April 19, 2018

Age 14

            I stand in the bathroom mirror, examining the ends of my hair. It’s all brown, but I think a different color could be a nice change. I rummage through the cabinet under the sink and pull out an old box of blue hair dye. I skim the directions and get to work. Blue can’t be that bad on me. It was her favorite color on me, so it must look good.

…

            While many details in this section are exact, I had to change a few of them to create emotional distance. The scene involving my therapist did not happen exactly the way it appears on the page in the original text. I felt the need to change it because I did not want my readers to know how deeply therapy influenced me. In the section above, the details are more exact as to how the conversation happened.      

            I have not gotten around to dying my hair just yet, but when I do, an additional character is to make an appearance. My best friend at the time actually dyed my hair blue and purple in the middle of my kitchen. Working her character into the story may not sound difficult, but, again, there is emotional distance to be considered. As I continue to transform the original piece into creative nonfiction, more and more healing will occur. This process has been a journey that I hope will be worthwhile.

These are the Facts

Fact: I make my bed every single day.

Making my bed doesn’t feel like a chore. It feels like a sense of control. My brain craves the order and consistency that making my bed every day provides. Writing creative nonfiction provides a similar sense of satisfaction. When I put a memory onto the page, in any form, it’s like a sense of release in my head. Getting the words and images that are swimming around out into the world brings about a sense of euphoria (no, not like the show). If I had to sum up the experience, it could be described as a stress relief. Writing creative nonfiction is reinforcing what I already knew as truth simply by putting it into words on a page.

Fact: I drink a lot of coffee.

Drinking coffee doesn’t always wake me up, but it does help me get into the mood for writing. I guess drinking coffee could be seen as aesthetically pleasing, which is completely true in my case. Sometimes the words just can’t flow without a cup of coffee sitting on a coaster next to my workstation. The smell of coffee in the morning brings forth the image of the baby-faced sun in Teletubbies. The coffee I drink provides a sense of assurance that everything, no matter how bad my writing may be, will be all right.

Fact: I am mildly insecure.

Most of the time my insecurities don’t get in the way. Lately, however, more and more people that I knew in high school are publishing works like poetry collections or short stories in magazines. If the people that I knew in high school who are younger than me are already farther ahead in my career category, what does that say about my abilities as a writer? Am I secretly thinking that I chose the wrong major as a senior? Yes. Am I going to change my major this far into my college career? No. Remembering not to compare yourself to others on a completely different life path is easier said than done.

Fact: I have high-functioning anxiety.

It is important to me that everything is in the correct place on my desk. My laptop goes on the left. Then my journal with the book for class resting on top. Then the pen is placed on the far right of the desk, aligned with the edge of the desk. I try not to let my anxiety shine through too often, but it gets hard to mask it during our Writer’s Circles. I try to focus on listening to constructive criticism, but the desperation for the whole endeavor to be finished overrides my system. Next time, hopefully, I will have created a strategy to keep my attention on the task at hand.

While what I have said thus far is factual, I have one opinion that carries more weight than all the facts combined. Despite the difficulties of writing creative nonfiction that have overwhelmed me this semester, I love this form of writing most of all.

Slow Progress is Still Progress

    Writing creative nonfiction has been especially hard for me this semester. I have struggled to pick the topics for my stories more than anything. As the semester progresses, it feels as if I am running out of things to say or talk about, but I know somewhere deep in my memory there is something that should be put to paper. Picking topics for my creative nonfiction pieces is my biggest downfall currently, but using the prompts from Tell it Slant has helped me tremendously in getting this far, so I will probably keep using those until I feel more confident in picking my own topics.

    While writing for this class, I have been forced to reflect on my work instead of just writing it for myself. In doing so, I have found that I tend to mostly write with emotion, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I like being able to evoke emotion in readers as long as the story itself doesn’t fall flat because of my own goal to make my readers feel what I felt in those moments. I have also found that I describe the five senses quite well, which I actively try to do to encapsulate all feelings, not just emotions. I plan to keep working on creating a balance between keeping the details while also writing a more light-hearted work for my readers.  

    Reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean was an amazing experience for me as a creative nonfiction writer. I understood that the whole story didn’t have to be about my experiences as a human, but it could be about my experiences learning about other people. I found the strategies of writing that Orlean implemented consistently engaging, and it is something I would like to try in my future writings. I haven’t yet tried my hand at the strategy I learned through Orlean mostly because I’m not confident that it will make sense or that it will ruin the strategy for me in the future. Why ruin something I actually enjoy?

    I think some of my best writing this semester happened in my second creative nonfiction assignment. I wrote about my childhood dream of being a cowgirl to the age of me swearing I would be a marine biologist to me declaring to be an English major. I ended my introduction to that assignment by saying, “I bought a book that changed my little eight-year-old life: Dolphin Tale: A Tale of True Friendship. This entered the age of my obsession with becoming a marine biologist.” If you know me at all, I will find any excuse to use the word “thus” in any of my work. I felt particularly proud that I could incorporate it here while also crafting a sentence that felt elevated because of the diction I chose to use.

    Even though I feel like the progress I am making is slow, I am still proud of the accomplishments I have made in this course. In the past, I always liked writing about my own experiences, but I formed them into fiction. This course has helped me hone my craft in making my experiences my own, filling in the details I can’t quite remember while hanging on to the truth in the narrative.

Struggles that Come with the Recollection of Memories

            For a long time, I’ve made it a point to forget huge chunks of my childhood. This class, however, has forced me to recall more than I thought I could. We had an assignment not too long ago that asked us to make a list of our “firsts” which I thought would be hard. To my surprise, I had a nice list going when the timer buzzed. Actively seeing a memory play out in my head after pushing it away for so long was a bit of a shock to the system. 

            A few of my firsts were my first sleepover, my first surgery, and my first time feeling loved. Remembering those moments that seemed so minuscule at the time felt explosive. It was as if all my childhood came rushing back all at once. Now that I have these memories readily available to me, I thought that writing my creative nonfiction assignments would be easier. I was wrong. I can call on these memories easily but putting them on paper is hard.

            The first creative nonfiction assignment was easy for me to write because I had been thinking about that specific memory for a few weeks. However, the next assignment threw me. I did not have a single idea of what to write until the night before it was due (even after the extension). I settled on telling the story of how I became obsessed with becoming a marine biologist because that story came up in a conversation with my family after turning in the “firsts” assignment. While the topics of my creative nonfiction pieces have been both difficult to fathom as well as lighthearted, I worry about future assignments. I do not want my work to be emotionally draining for one to read, but I do not want it to lack truth either. Finding the line between the two feels as if it is becoming increasingly difficult in all aspects of writing this semester.

            As we read The Library Book by Susan Orlean this week, I realized that a story from my point of view does not have to be all about emotion to have a capacity for truth. The novel focuses on the history of the L.A. Central Library that burned in April 1986. I found the story compelling as it was historically focused but kept the author’s narrative in the mix. There was a balance between Orlean’s telling of her research as well as her own connection that she felt to the information she had found. I feel that if I can write in a similar fashion, I can achieve the balance that I have been trying to create as well.

            I am determined to get some of my memories down on paper because the more that I think about them, the more I realize how many moments have shaped me into who I am today. Instead of floating through life, I can look back and see how each individual moment that I recall holds more weight in my life than I could have ever imagined. 

Challenges in Creative Nonfiction

“Does ‘nonfiction’ mean ‘no fiction’?” This question is one I was asking before this creative nonfiction course even started. Before reading chapter twelve of Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, I could not comprehend the concept of telling a narrative without creating any of the details I could not remember, especially when using an “I” voice. 

In the past, when writing any narrative that was loosely based on my life, I tried not to use the first person because I wanted to keep my distance from the reader, protecting my sense of anonymity. Now, as I reflect on the reading for last week, I understand that allowing myself to connect with my readers is an important part of creative nonfiction writing. In using the first person, I create an atmosphere of truth in the narrative, making it easier for a reader to connect with the narrative, which is one of the main reasons that we as humans read and write: to establish and experience a connection with others.

While the truth is an essential element in creative nonfiction, I can also understand how small details that do not seem to matter too much in the grand scheme of the narrative can be derived from the imagination. In all actuality, when I have written stories based on my life in the past, I purposefully changed some of the small details. At that moment, I did not feel as if I had changed the truth in any way because the story was still very true.

The lines get blurred when we are forced to pull narratives from our memories, but we can not remember all the details. Then our imaginations are forced to flesh out the rest of the story. In doing this, the line between truth and lies, fiction and nonfiction gets distorted. The bigger picture, or the emotional truth, is what matters most in writing nonfiction narratives. Without it, the whole thing is pointless.

Telling the truth and telling the facts are not the same thing. Telling the truth is based on one’s own experiences. Telling the facts are statements that have been proven true. To tell the whole narrative in a cohesive manner, sometimes the facts need to be taken out. The importance of keeping the narrative flowing overrides keeping all the facts of what happened in real life inside the text.

As writers, we must determine our own guidelines for producing narratives that are technically based on true events. As I mentioned before, I used to put an excessive amount of distance between myself and my readers because I did not want them to realize how accurate the narrative was to my life. While this was a good decision, there was a level of intimacy that was lost. The work should not be too unrelatable to the reader, but it should also not scare them with the intensity of emotional content. We must remember as writers that even though often we write for ourselves, discovering our sense of self can not be the only reason for writing.