Creative Nonfiction

Principles, elements, techniques, and devices 1. Principles, Elements, Techniques, and Devices of Creative Nonfiction Prepared by: Marrianne S. Ledesma, LPT 2.  Plot or Plot Structure How to Begin:  Catchy and clever titles have an advantage. Examples: “The Wild Man of Green Swamp” by Maxine Hong Kingston “ The Courage of Turtles” by Edward Hoagland  Titles should give the reader a quick idea of what to expect, without giving away the whole story (Hidalgo, 56-57) 3.  The First Paragraph Ways of Writing your First Paragraph for CNF  Passage of Vivid Description  Quotation  List  Dialogue  Little Scene  Anecdote  Question  Striking Statement  Reference to a current event which serves as the context of the action 4.  How to End? It is expected that the ending of a creative nonfiction piece is the logical conclusion of the flow of your narrative or the development of your ideas. You must constantly bear in mind that the reader should be left with a sense of c...

As a practice creative writing is, to say the least, under-appreciated in France. It is a discipline that thrives in other countries, though it is largely ignored inside our borders. As if here it were fractured into two different activities: on the one hand, academic writing which is valued for its structure, and on the other: creative writing which is sidelined, and supposedly does not lead to a full-time job. Hopefully, the trend is slowly changing. The model, or what is happening next door: In other countries, creative writing has been introduced in schools and universities as a new way to learn and develop oneself. As an Erasmus student I have spent time at an Irish university and participated in two different approaches: a class entitled literary composition and a student group: The Writer’s Society, both based on the concept of creative writing. At the university level, creative writing is encouraged as teachers push their students to learn how to write stories and to expand ...

There are many ways to define the literary genre we call Creative Nonfiction. It is a genre that answers to many different names, depending on how it is packaged and who is doing the defining. Some of these names are: Literary Nonfiction; Narrative Nonfiction; Literary Journalism; Imaginative Nonfiction; Lyric Essay; Personal Essay; Personal Narrative; and Literary Memoir. Creative Nonfiction is even, sometimes, thought of as another way of writing fiction, because of the way writing changes the way we know a subject. As a devotee of this form I like to define the genre in as broad a way as possible. I describe it as memory-or-fact-based writing that makes use of the styles and elements of fiction, poetry, memoir, and essay. It is writing about and from a world that includes the author’s life and/or the author’s eye on the lives of others. Under the umbrella called Creative Nonfiction we might find a long list of sub-genres such as: memoir, personal essay, meditations on ideas, li...