By Leslie Anthony

As someone grounded in both science and creative writing, if someone asked me to define the broad genre of non-fiction, my knee-jerk reaction would be to lean hard against the opposite pole of the literary kingdom—fiction—and reply “it’s the stuff you can’t make up.”

Whether I was right or not, by that I would mean that yes, truth can be stranger than fiction, but more so that you can make up all the facts and characters and circumstances and nuance you want but you can never, ever string them all together to create something that’s as complete a reflection of a collective “real” reality as non-fiction; even in the best and most believable of historical fiction the tiniest of cracks are obvious to the informed, into which the putty of suspended disbelief must be packed to enjoy the work. Anyone who has ever tried to pass off made-up stuff as non-fiction has, eventually, been exposed when the perceived cracks inherent in the fiction widen and the putty falls out.

That being said, reflecting reality is no sawdust enterprise, and can be done well or poorly in numerous formats that comprise a fairly important body of literature. The terminology used to describe this has been evolving over the past couple decades, and its worth trying to understand where some of it is coming from.

The first of these is Creative Nonfiction, which an early critic termed “an awkward and ultimately unsatisfactory label.” There’s more agreement on what the genre does not include: technical or instructional works, conventional newspaper reportage, anything written in neutral (i.e., non-opinionated) third person. What is included—provided it’s written in a personal, identifiable voice—are memoirs, history, literary journalism, documentary, biography, works of social, political or cultural criticism, commentary or analysis, personal or journalistic essays, and those works traditionally identified as belles-lettres (essays, particularly of literary or artistic criticism, written and read primarily for their aesthetic effect, or sometimes just plain literature considered as a fine art).

CNF emphasizes the use of inventive and dramatic techniques to support fact-based narratives. But “creative” does not license writers to invent the details or events required in fiction. Rather, it provides them a similar toolbox to enrich and enliven the presentation of facts to achieve what author Tom Wolfe of Electric Kool-aid Acid Test fame calls: “… a larger truth than is possible through the mere compilation of verifiable facts or direct quotation.”

This better addresses the notion of “a realer reality” than the nebulous concatenation offered by Wikipedia: “creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction, sometimes docufiction) is a genre that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. CNF contrasts with technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft. CNF is still young, and only beginning to be scrutinized with the same critical analysis given to fiction and poetry.”

The biggest stumbling block with CNF for young writers, however, is separating it from its sister term, Literary Journalism—which often seems oxymoronic but is not. These journalistic texts read more like a novel. The author approaches a LJ topic as any journalist would, but there’s a difference in how the topic is written about—using literary or narrative techniques that make the story similar to a novel or a short story. It is journalism in that every sentence, every word must still be true: no made-up scenes, no invented dialogue. Literariness comes from technique and not fictionalized events. “LJ is a reaction to factographic and objective journalism. Rather than answering the informational Who, What, When, or Where, it depicts moments in time. It eschews formulaic newspaper feature writing, with its predictability and clichés. Instead, the techniques of realistic fiction are used to portray daily life. The genre belongs at the same time to both literature and journalism; it combines the best of both to offer the most vivid and accurate picture of society.”

Relevant examples of CNF are books like Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, and Song of the Dodo and Spillover by David Quaamen. LJ is represented in the non-fiction canon by things like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and Into Thin Air and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

This whole area is quite important to book publishers’s catalogues these days, and literary magazines and other arts venues have de facto CNF and LJ contests. In 2012 CBC held its first non-fiction version of Canada Reads. Canada’s Charles Taylor Prize is annually awarded to the literary non-fiction book that “best combines a superb command of English, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception.” You can find more here (creativenonfictioncollective.com/defining-cnf) about how this plays into markets and the overall book food chain, and there are many websites (e.g., adventure-journal.com and byliner.com) to explore relevant examples.

Or you could just come to the Writers of Non-fiction event at the festival on Saturday October 18 at 10 a.m., and hear what a diverse cross-section of non-fiction authors like Bruce Grierson, Nancy Routley, Arno Kopecky and Lynette Loeppky have produced and see what they have to say about the genre.

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Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based writer, editor, biologist and occasional filmmaker…and will be moderating the Writers of Non-fiction event.

Events

Reading Event 3: Writers of Non-Fiction with Bruce Grierson, Nancy Routley, Arno Kopecky, Lylnette Loeppky. Moderator: Leslie Anthony