Angela's Creative Nonfiction Blog

The truth when it comes to war can be twisted and contorted. War, who knows what exactly happens in these wars except people who witness it first hand. Who even knows if those telling the war stories were in their right state of mind, they must have been in chaotic situations. Couldn't the environment affect how one perceive a story? Couldn't a person's point of view and purpose affect the story that they tell?

O'Brien plays with his audience. He does this on purpose. O’brien made the reader feel bad about the water buffalo. He evoked in his reader an intense emotional response for the water buffalo. This is more intense then the feelings of the readers towards Rat's death. He says people don’t get it. He says people sees all the violence but doesn’t feel sorry for the right people.

In reality, when people hear about wars and stories of wars, they may easily believe the parts that they want to believe. They may believe the parts that appeal to them, the parts that they are familiar and comfortable with. This is just human nature, people tend to focus on what they are accustomed to. When it comes to thoughts that are too graphic, to dramatized and too extreme, a person is more likely to distance his or herself from the story. He or she may become sort of desensitized to the situation, sort of the way people watch violent movies and are used to seeing blood and death and are not phased by the extreme content, because they know that it is far from their reality. People take from a story, what they want to take from a story. They believe only what they are comfortable in believing.

I guess this peice is considered nonfiction because it does tie in real events. It talks about the writer's relationship to the subject. It explores the topic as well as allows a reader to analyze his or her personal beliefs about the topic itself.This peiece allows a reader to question his or her past experiences and personal ideas about story telling.

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at at 11:38 PM 0 comments  

Instead of writing separate paragraphs, I’ll just make it simple and number these essays/stories in chronological order as I rank them based on my criteria for creative nonfiction. So far my definition of creative nonfiction is based on these requirements:

• Subject at hand in relation to self
• Literary devices and metaphor
• Plot/character/scene/dialogue (showing not telling)
• Reflecting Circling deeper and deeper
• Organization and sequence of events-
• Presentation of experience


1.“Out There” in my opinion was the hard to understand. Yet based on the criteria for creative nonfiction, she makes a reflective analysis indirectly. She was really writing about freedom with being out there. She's coming to terms with being out there. This piece was conveyed through a storyline. It allowed a reader to feel some of the emotions of the writer, but personally I was not quite drawn to it.

2. “On Keeping a Notebook” was an interesting essay as well. Didion's main focus was expressed through reflections on her old journal entries. Here Diddion's point is about how keeping a notebook does something for her. Through her essay she is able to tell the reader how writing allows her to connect with herself, not necessarily the events that are going on- instead she makes sense of what she sees. I believe this somehow fits my definition of creative nonfiction. The only problem I have is that I’m not really able to get “into” the story. It seems to random for me to be able to connect and feel any type of emotion towards this piece.

3. “Superman &Me” on the other hand fits my definition more that Diddion’ piece. Here, Alexie started reading superman comics. He overcame his past adversities and stereotypes as an Indian. This essay shows that the writer has made a distinct connection between himself and his relationship to his subject. He also portrays his story in a way that a reader may allow his or herself to feel sympathy-empathy and understanding towards the writer’s past struggle and accomplishments. It effectively exhibits the connection between the writer and the subject. It used literary devices and metaphors. It contained Plots, characters, scenes and dialogs. It also had an excellent presentation of experience.


4. Bret Lott’s “Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction” seems to be more informative than the other stories I’ve read so far. I don’t think it’s very creative at all. This in my opinion is definitely an essay. Based on my analysis, it refrains over and over again to make a point, the writer uses Accessible language, Short paragraphs, Lots of quotes from other CNF writers and, makes a point and then illustrates it with an examples. I believe these elements are not really features of fiction. I do however notice that like most fiction stories and creative nonfiction stories, it is written in first person and with confidentiality the writer talks to the reader.

5. Montaigne’s “That Men Should Not Judge” was not my particular favorite. I don’t think it necessary meets my requirements for creative nonfiction.I can see why it can be considered a parent of creative nonfiction. It does embody some of the elements of creative nonfiction writings. Montaigne’s relied on examples of other writers and indirectly explores his relationship with his subject. Unlike creative nonfiction writings. Unlike many creative nonfiction writings, he does really portray much emotions through his writing. Instead he writes with a more analytical approach. I can not really feel anything but confused when I read this essay. I don’t think that is the type of feeling he intentionally wants the reader to have upon reading his works. I also did not see a plot in this writing. I believe a plot is necessary when writing creative nonfiction.

6. Orwell’s “On Shooting an Elephant” was more like a creative nonfiction piece. It successfully displayed the relationship between the writer and the subject at hand. It used Literary devices and metaphors. It mentioned Plots, characters, scenes and dialogs. It also had an excellent presentation of experience. The only mediocre component of this writings was the topic of reflecting and circling and deeper.

7. Kincaid’s piece was enjoyable. I think it fits my definition of creative nonfiction. It displayed the writer’s relationship to the subject at hand. It allowed a reader to feel the emotions of the writer. Kincaid evoked memories…she allowed me to reflect on my past experiences and analyze myself then from what I know now.

8. Drummond’s piece was my absolute favorite. I felt the tension and nervousness of the writer. She was able to reflect on her past experience and her emotions that she was experiencing. She was able to portray her feelings in her writings and allow a reader to examine his or her beliefs about the situation. She sucks the reader right into her story and brings the reader along her rollercoaster of nervous emotions. There’s a plot, set of characters, relationship to topic, presentation of experience, scenes and dialogs.

9. Danticat, and Schwartz both have portrayed the writer’s relationship to the subject at hand. Both have plots, characters, settings, reflections,and excellent organization of sequence of events . These two writings fit my definition of creative nonfiction.

Posted in: on Monday, September 29, 2008 at at 12:01 AM 0 comments  

I now understand why were were told to write about experiences that have changed our lives. The lesson perfectly coincided with the assigned readings. Drummond's "Alive" was about a woman who revealed more and more details about her life with every new paragraph. In the first paragraph she simply informs the reader about a serial killer on the lose. In the second paragraph she revels that she worked as a cop during the 1980's. In the third paragraph she tells the reader that she left the police work and has tried her best to see the goodness in people. She tells the reader that she is sees a man who is staring at her and she does not have a good idea about him. She tries to block her suspicious nature, but she can not shake it off. In the fourth paragraph she thinks that the man is staring at her, in fact she claims that she knows the man is staring at her. She begins to show the reader that she is scared because she tells herself that she is no longer a cop, she is just a civilian. The next few paragraphs display the inner tension that the writer feels when she thinks about the "Stalker". She feels vulnerable and scared. She tries to block these thoughts, but fear begins to set it. As the tension rises, the story comes to a pause. The man leaves and she is on her own. She concludes by saying the nothing matters, at the end, everyone who is alive is at some point vulnerable.

I think that her experience from the police force has changed her life forever. As a cop, she was exposed to so much negativity, whether it's murder, robbery, assualt etc. She was exposed to the evil that humans were capable of. Being a police officer caused her to always have her emotional and physical guard up all the time. She did not know how to relax for long periods of time and no longer was able to see any genuine good in people. Becoming a police officer has forced her to lose trust in the kindness that people could have.

Like many, I feel that Westbury Court was not as easy to read. Unlike "Alive", Westbury Court did not really capture my attention. This essay is written in a fast paced manner. I think it is trying to tell a reader that in life, things are almost instantaous. People lose sight of what matters because they are so caught up with instant gratification. They overlook the important things in life, they are not able to prioritize.This was displayed when the writer said she was caught up watching "General Hospital", that she did not notice the smell of smoke from across the hall.The writer saw Westbury court differently after the fire. After the fire, her life changes.

Both stories have similarites and diffrences. They are similiar because the writers both realized something, through telling a story. They engaged us through allowing us to feel the feelings that they’ve felt.They make readers feel as if they are in the stories.These stories evoked a feeling within the reader. Though they have similarities, they are diffrent in a few ways.

In "Alive" the writer started talking about her surroundings and then her feelings. In Westbury Court, the writer described her feelings and then her surroundings. In "Westbury Court", the writer realized that things happen in life and that it is not like television. In "Alive", the reader realizes that nothing matters, feelings don't matter, people are vulnerable in life because they are alive.

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at at 8:24 PM 1 comments  

In this essay “My father Always Said”, there’s a double thing going on.
Shwartz has a realization of one kind and her father is having a realization of another kind.
Her father begins with her being in this American teenage life and not knowing anything about her father’s country.
Her father was in complete opposition of the American way and he was stuck in Rindheim. As the story progress, they both switch their ideas. The father begins to accept the American ways.

Mimi lives in her father’s world. The father is sort of resting in sort of a new life and letting ogo of the past. He is kind of accepting and letting go . She is reclaiming her past and heritage. She discovers her heritage. The father lets go of his romanticized understanding of what the place was.
What is the experience that changes them? The trip to Rindhiem.
The action of this takes place on the trip to Rindhiem.
The first section is in her home in Queens. In the last section she is back in Queens.
Section 2 they are in the father’s house but they don’t go in. The old man recognizes the father but they are friendly but cool. Mimi doesn’t really understand this. She doesn’t understand the language and she doesn’t know why her parents are not friendly with the man. She also introduces that she makes a later trip to Germany in her adult years. Something is changing in the fire but we are not exactly sure or how. This is explained in section three. Because there the father reveals the story about the fire. So the man at the house didn’t help put out the fire.

Section 3 Here they are at the synagogue. She learns the story about how there is no reason to go in the synagogue. He learns about the cousin Fritz. They learn about the fire and how the people didn’t help them put out the fire. There was a separation between the two cultures. They can’t really blame e the nonjews for not helping them but they are angry because the synagogue was burned down.

Section 4 School
What does this section add? This school section adds the history, memories, and his adolescence. History of separation.



Section 5
In the graveyard.
There are no stones on the graves. This means that nobody remembers or honors the graves and family members that have passed away. He whispers to the grave that if he was there, there would have been more stones. She realized that her whole history was there. She never realized that her entire past and history that came before her was in the graveyard. She sees traditions here that she was never aware of in the past.
She’s realizing that the holocaust was once abstract is now personal for her in this section.
Section 6
Back in Queens, she realized that eighty seven Jews from her father’s village were deported and sent to the concentration camps. Here she realizes the loss and connects to the past.

Posted in: on Monday, September 22, 2008 at at 11:29 AM 0 comments  

This essay, "My Father Always Said" describes the relationship that the author had with her family, history, culture and beliefs. This essay was about discovery and how the writer learned more and more about her father’s homeland, her father’s childhood, her parent’s memories, her family’s hardships, persecutions from the Nazis and how life in Queens was different from life in Germany. She also discovered how time has changed so many things in the town of Rindheim.

Mimi Schartz also breaks up the essay into sections by using the white space between certain paragraphs. She breaks up the sections according to time and place. She does this in order to guide her reader into another part of her journey of storytelling. She guides them through recollections of memories and breaks up the section depending on time and place.

In the first paragraph, Mimi Shwartz begins by talking about how her father always mentioned the cultural differences between Americans and people of Rindheim. She tells the reader that her father has a common phrase for displaying his disapproving expressions towards his daughters. She also mentions that she was from Queens and that she never really paid much attention to what her father was talking about until she went to Rindheim Germany with her family. Within the first section, she tells the reader that her father fled from Germany. She also describes the cultural differences between her and her father and explains that she and her sister were rebellious during her teenage years.

The second section takes place in Rindheim. In this section the author tells the reader about her trip to her father’s homeland. She describes the differences between Queens and Rindheim. She describes the curiosity she had in seeing her father’s former house and her wanting to go into the home even though her father said no. In this section, she tells the reader that her father refused to teach her German because he didn’t want his children to speak the language of the Nazis. It is in this section that the author begins to display the father’s painful memories and resentment towards the Nazis and Hitler.

The third section takes place in Germany as her family draws closer to synagogue. Here the father tells his daughter about what his religious routines were as a child. He then revealed memories about the pain of leaving his country. He described how hard it was for his family of forty to leave Germany. He tells his daughter that he that to smuggle money in toilets in order to bring funds to America. He describes the brutality of the Nazis and how they burned churches and sent helpers of the Jewish people, to become cannon fodder.

The fourth section takes place in Rindheim as the author describes her hunger during the car ride to her father’s former schoo. It is then that her father tells her that the school used to be segregated between Jews and NonJews. The author attempts to draw a connection between her father’s childhood experiences to her own.

The fifth section takes place in the caras the father goes down a crooked road. She tells about how she headed to the cemetery to see graves of former family members. It is at the cemetery that she draws a connection between her relationships with her grandparens in New York, to her nonexistent memories with her grandparents whose graves she added stones to. She tells the reader about how her father was putting stones on a grave in order to show respect. By writing this, the author was able to portray her connection with her so called cultural background to her actual family history. This allowed her to feel more connected with her culture and family legacy. She also learned that she had an older aunt who never made it to America and was instead sent to a concentration camp. She believed only a small amount of people went.

In the six section of the essay, she describes how years later she has learned that it was almost a hundred people from her father’s small hometown that was sent to the concentration camps. In this section she describes how the phrase that her father always used in reference to Rindheim, meant so much more to her after her visit. Here the author connects her past experience with her current views about her father’s Rinheim. She also connects the differences between her past views about Rindheim, to what she learned from returning to her father’s homeland.

Posted in: on Sunday, September 21, 2008 at at 10:49 PM 0 comments  

I’ve read this particular piece before. I think I read it in my British Literature class last year. Orwell’s ideas are also conveyed through a story line, but I’m not sure if this was a true story. Because of the way it was written, it is understandable to believe that this type of writing may have influenced certain elements of creative nonfiction.

Similar to most creative nonfiction writings, this story is written in first person narrative and describes a definite place as a setting. It’s written as if the writer is retelling the details of an event that happened in his life. He also described the feelings that the town’s people had for him, his position in society and the cultural differences between people. The author walks the reader through the different emotions and thoughts that ran through his mind during the events that led up to him killing an elephant.

What creative nonfiction might have adopted from this piece is the structure and setup of the story itself. Again, the author’s ideas are conveyed through a story line that recollects his past memories, fears and encounters with the event. He describes his feelings for the elephant and his feelings about the townspeople. He indirectly describes the guilt that he felt. He also describes his outlook on death. He claimed that death did not look peaceful. What creative nonfiction may have adopted from his style of writings was his ability to describe his relationship to all components of the event that took place. Orwell describes exactly how he felt and what he saw when he shot the elephant. He almost seemed sympathetic at one point in the story. With his elaborate choice of vocabulary, and ability to piece elements of his story together, he allowed the reader to join him in the journey of discovery. A reader is able to ask his or herself, questions about their own personal views of peer pressure, responsibility, cultural differences, personal morals, death, cruelty and even guilt.

Michel de Montaigne’s “That Men Should not Judge of Our Happiness Till After Our Death” may have been considered a parent of creative nonfiction for a variety of reasons. Like some creative nonfiction writings, Montaigne’s relied on examples of other writers. Unlike creative nonfiction writings. (I’m not sure if these stories were true or not.)Montaigne indirectly explores his relationship to his subject. He also writes with a more analytical approach. He writes about death and his belief on death (if I’m not mistaken).

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at at 8:03 PM 0 comments  

Upon reading Kincaid's "Biography of a Dress", I was able to gather some thoughts about creative nonfiction. In this specific writing, Kincaid looks at an old photo of her wearing a yellow dress. She then reflects on her memories of the events and people she met upon having her dress made for her. Kincaid manages to make sense out of the experiences and thoughts she had as a child. She reflects on her past thoughts and compares it to her current point of view. She writes in a manner that allows her readers to know she has grown up, learned and was able to evaluate her childhood beliefs.This is exemplified throughout the entire piece, as Kincaid uses parenthesis to enclose her current beliefs in relationship to her past memories. For example she said "I was powerless then (though not so now to like or dislike this story; it was beyond me then (though not so now) to understand the span of my lifetime then, two years old and it was beyond me then(though not so now)...."(210).

Not only does Kincaid write in a way to show the reader that she has matured since her childhood days, but Kincaid writes so vividly and descriptively that she is able to describe what it felt like to be a child witnessing all the events that led up to the making of her dress. She describes the scent and warmth of her mother’s skin. She describes the confusion she felt as child who was getting her ears pierced, she described the weather-local townspeople, foods and emotions she felt as a child. All these she described from a child’s point of view. Therefore, a reader can feel as if he or she is there with the Kincaid, witnessing the events unravel first hand. She attempts to make sense out of her childhood thoughts. For example, she describes the importance of certain things such as the color yellow. As a two year old she associated the color yellow with her dress and cornmeal (which was valued her mother as nutritious and necessary for a healthy body).

I believe that Kincaid is different from the other writers we have encountered in our assigned readings, because Kincaid was the only writer who constantly reflected on her childhood experiences and compared it to the knowledge and ideas that she currently has. She is able to distinguish the differences in her ideas and allows a reader to know that she has matured not only physically but mentally as well. She’s also different from the other writers, because she writes very long sentences that are usually broken up with commas and semicolons. This type of writing allows me to believe that she is just taking her thoughts and running with it; like how an excited child tells a story about his or her favorite toy in “Show and tell”, only pausing to breathe after they are almost out of breath. Kincaid is also diffrent because her story is more literary.
The other authors were more clear about what they were writing about. She is not quite clear. This essay was based on scenes and memories that don't really fit together. It’s more on how images are put next to each other. Her writing was based on a snapshop image.


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Lott was able to help me define the term creative nonfiction. In "Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction", he broke down each component of his overall definition. In the beginning of the essay he described that creative fiction is more than just writing about an event that happened. It is "writing about oneself in relation to the subject at hand"(271). He then adds on to his ideas by supporting each component with a reasonable explanation.

He tries to tells a reader that he or she needs to understand and highlight the reasons why they write creative nonfiction. He believes that a definition must be "proactive" and "reactive". He ends his essay by telling a reader that he or she must write in order to "understand" his or her lives. He claims that it is his or her "responsibility" in life. I guess what struck me the most was when Lott compared writers to explorers who were discovering the continents of themselves. (277). I thought that this was a great way of describing the duties of a creative non fiction writer.
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With reading all these essays and stories, I believe that creative nonfiction is writing about a subject, such as a person or specific event that took place and writing about in a way that demonstrates the relationship of the writer to the subject. I believe that creative nonfiction needs to demonstrate how the writer feels connected to what they are writing about. Creative nonfiction should also demonstrate how the writer is understanding the subject they are talking about, and how he or she is making sense of the subject.

Posted in: on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at at 9:57 PM 0 comments  

In my opinion, creative nonfiction is a type of writing that requires the most delicate care. I believe it's the art of extracting the most simple emotion of an ordinary scenario and rewording it so precisely and cautiously, that it's details would automatically ignite a blazing fire of memories in the mind of the writer.

Like all forms of art, it requires skill, practice, dedication and inspiration. It's the act of weaving together bits and pieces of meaningful moments with the beauty of words.This may explain why certain journal entries only make sense to the writers themselves. A writer may not necessarily be writing for entertainment purposes.Instead, one may be writing as a way of helping oneself make sense of the world around them.

This is what creative nonfiction means to me.

Posted in: on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at at 4:15 PM 1 comments