What’s so creative about creative non-fiction?February 2, 2007

I’ve asked myself this question many times. And this is my conclusion: it’s not really a good question. The lines between fiction and creative non-fiction are so blurred that some authors write their memoirs, change the names, and call it a novel, while the non-fiction folks write their memoirs, change the names, and get screwed if anyone finds out that any information has been falsified in the ostensibly historically perfect “memoir.”

Here’s my point: I’ve always considered non-fiction to be journalism, or transcription, or recording the course and outcome of circumstances, but this is simply not the case. I’ve come up with some ideas for creative non-fiction essays:

1. Jab about my escapades as an air guitar savant slash robot in disguise.

2. Many memoirs deal with the author’s homeland. I’ve never given my hometown much thought, but recently the cultural heart of it was sold off and is soon to be destroyed. Plans for a CVS on the site are under consideration. This situation is just bunk enough to write about.

3. Having recently read A Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, I feel like I want to break rules and get away with it — so I don’t really know what that means yet.

4. Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who has survived childhood has enough material to write for a lifetime.

So that’s what I think.