The Job of Creative Nonfiction

Throughout the discussion we had in our group's Salon my stance remained pretty firm on the topic of changing the facts when writing creative nonfiction. Granted, I spent the first fifteen minutes trying to piece together bits and pieces of the story that the group was talking about as best I could just to come up with any stance at all, but once I hopped on that gravy train you can bet your ass I stood my ground, and with undeniable resolve. The job of creative nonfiction is to tell ordinary stories, and make them matter. That is the job of the writer. If the story didn't happen in the way that best conveys the story that you want to tell, then it's the writers job to figure out how to tell that story with the tools that they have. It means putting in a little more work, and if you still aren't painting the results that you'd hoped you would see, then maybe you're trying to tell the wrong story and need to reevaluate, or at least, approach the subject matter from a different angle. Events that take place don't typically happen in perfect little sequences with hidden meaning buried in the color tones of the present setting, though, they can seem that way when we are digesting or reflecting on the events taking place. It is the job of the creative nonfiction writer to explain how that sort of transitional/ editorial process happens. How the events that you witnessed were filtered through your own eyes, into your own thoughts, and into your own meanings. Things can seem more beautiful than they actually were in retrospect, but that doesn't mean writers have to lie about the details, we just need to do a good job of connecting it to the reader, or expressing how something came to seem that way. Much of what makes creative nonfiction compelling to the reader is the unspoken agreement they have with the writer that what they are about to read is true, ultimately making it something that can be connected with on a much more personal and real level. To betray that is a violation of the obligation that creative nonfiction writers have to their readers to be truthful. It's cheating. In the extreme, it could potentially make a vulnerable, fresh, hopeful, naive reader believe that things can be more grand and wonderful than they actually are. It is the job of the creative nonfiction writer to be grand and wonderful, surely, but to show the reader how and where things equally wondrous are found in the real world. Crossing that thin line is stepping into foreign territory, and that's a whole different game, equally challenging in its own right. If a writer truly believed that what they had written was hugely compelling and important, they wouldn't need to hide behind the socially contracted veil of truth that is creative nonfiction, and they would simply release it as fiction. But, if their writing needs to where the mask of, this is a true story, to be compelling, then it needs some work.