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.