BITS Pilani K.K.Birla Goa Campus

Amitendu BhattacharyaDepartment of Humanities and Social Sciences

GS F241 CREATIVE WRITING

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus CREATIVE NONFICTION

BITS PilaniK K Birla Goa CampusBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus2 CREATIVE: Relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something

NON-FICTION: Prose writing that is informative or factual rather than fictional.BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusWhat is Creative Nonfiction? The words creative and nonction describe the formThe word creative refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques ction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonctionFactually accurate prose about real people and events in a compelling, vivid, dramatic mannerThe goal is to make nonction stories read like ction so that the readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasyCreative nonfiction is true stories well toldBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusCriticism of the Term Creative NonfictionSome reservations persist about the usage of the word creative in close proximity to the word nonfictionMisunderstanding of the word creative: pretend, exaggerate, concoct, embellish, LIEHonesty & at the same time creative representation of facts not impossibleCardinal rule of creative nonfiction writing: You simply cannot conjure up thingsAlso known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusThings to Remember About Creative NonfictionFact-based narrativesUses literary style (as opposed to technical, business, or conversational style)Distinguished from other nonfiction, such as, technical writing and journalismCraft is importantCommunicate information but in a riveting way: spice up drab facts & detailsBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusSome Types of Creative NonfictionBiographyAutobiographyMemoirDiaryTravelogueFood writingLiterary JournalismChroniclePersonal EssayPoem (very rare)BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusWhat Will We Study?Personal EssayMemoirLiterary JournalismLyric EssayBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusPersonal EssayA type of creative nonfictionShort autobiographical proseExpresses personal experiences, thoughts & opinionsCharacterized by a sense of intimacyA conversational mannerCan be written on any subject under the sunNo structure is proscribedConvey a personal experience/opinion in a convincing wayPersuade the reader about the significance of an event or thought

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusPersonal Essay Contd.What one feels, what one thinks about a given topic. Fragments of reflective autobiographyLook at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and descriptionBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusBiographyThe history of particular mens lives.A relatively full account of a particular persons lifeAttempts to set forth character, temperament, and milieu, as well as the subjects activities and experiencesBoth the ancient Greeks and Romans produced short, formal lives of individualsMedieval authors wrote generalized chronicles of the deeds of a king BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusBiography Contd.Medieval authors also produced hagiographies: the stylized lives of Christian saints, often based more on pious legends than on factSecular biography appeared in the 17th centuryThe 18th century in England saw the emergence of the full-scale biography as a special literary genreNowadays, biographies of notable men and women have become one of the most popular of literary formsBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusAutobiographyBiography written by the subject about himself/herselfAlways written from the first person point of view Other than the formal type, autobiographical works also include letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, etc.An autobiography may be placed into one of four very broad types: thematic, religious, intellectual and fictionalizedBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusMemoirSub-category of autobiography; first person point of viewWritten account of ones past experience, an experience one has personal knowledge ofRemembered experienceReminiscencea story someone tells about something that happened in the pastDiffers slightly from the autobiography in that the emphasis in the memoir is not on the authors developing self but on the people and events that the author has known or witnessedBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusMemoir Contd.Memoir has narrow focus on time & eventsAutobiography vs. Memoir: An autobiography is the story of a life, whereas a memoir is a story from a lifeMemoirs=Autobiography (a cluster of memoirs make up an autobiography)Autobiography is the summary of a whole life; so an individuals written life account is never mentioned in the plural (autobiographies memoirs )

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLiterary JournalismLiterary pertains to the language, style & structure that are found in works of literatureJournalism is the profession concerned with the collection, processing, assessment, presentation and dissemination of newsLiterary journalism is the kind of writing that comes closest to newspaper & magazine writingLJ combines factual reporting with narrative techniques & stylistic strategies BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLiterary Journalism Contd.LJ=Journalistic Writing + Fine WritingIn LJ, the artist & the journalist come togetherCharacteristics of a literary journalism piece:Should be well-researchedShould focus on a brief period of timeWritten mostly about routine events & factsShould concentrate on what is happening outside the writers small circle of personal feelings and experiencesMarked by subjectivity, honesty & empathy

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLiterary Journalism Contd.Not detached like traditional journalism which is based on actual and confirmed factsProvides interpretation, has a point of view, experiments with narrative structure & chronologyJournalism emphasizes institutions, whereas LJ deals with ordinary events and picks up both ordinary and extraordinary people as subjectsLJ broadens the range of personal essays by incorporating historical facts, statistical data, interviews, cultural details & political issues

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLiterary Journalism Contd.Because literary journalism requires a closer, more active relationship to the subject and to the people the author is writing about, it is also referred to as Immersion Journalism.Shorter and terser than formal or personal essaysBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLyric EssayWriting that straddles between prose & poetryAssociation with music: musicality in proseRegarded as High ArtReaders need to work out the meaningAs in poetry, readers participation is necessaryAlso called poetic essay or essayistic poem because it employs poetic languageExperimental/clever style: emphasis on artfulness, rather than conveying informationBITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLyric Essay Contd.It does not elaborate or expoundLike poetry it can be both personal & non-personalThe lyric essay partakes of the poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language. It partakes of the essay in its weight, in its overt desire to engage with facts, melding its allegiance to the actual with its passion for imaginative form.

BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa CampusLyric Essay Contd.Confusion in defining and categorizing different types of creative nonfiction applies to lyric essays tooLyric essays suffer from an identity crisisMany readers and listeners are deaf to the cadence or music of languageResult: they read them as normal essaysThe purpose of composing lyric essays then falls flat! ***BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus