CREATIVE

NONFICTION
• How do people communicate each other
nowadays?
• What kinds of writing do you submit to your
teachers?
“Creative Nonfiction heightens the whole concept of essay
writing. It allows a writer to employ the diligence of a
reporter, the shifting voices and viewpoints of a novelist, the
refined wordplay of a poet and the analytic modes of an
essayist”
– Leo Gutkind
 Genres of Creative Nonfiction
“Its literariness distinguishes it from deadline reportage, daily
journalism, academic criticism, and critical biography. It is
storytelling of a very high order through the revelation of
character and the suspense of plot, the subtle braiding of
themes and resonance, memory and imaginative research,
precise and original language”
- Carolyn Forch and Philip Gerard
Ordinary News Story:

On July 15, Rivermaya will have a concert at the Araneta

Coliseum. The band has just arrived from a successful tour in
China and Indonesia. Tickets for the concert are selling
quickly.
CNF Way

Fans of Philippine musical band Rivermaya are in for real thrill. On

July 15, their idol, fresh from their sold-out tour in China and
Indonesia, will be at the Araneta Coliseum for a single concert. Marie
Andrada, 18, a Communication Arts major from UST, says this is
one concert she would rather die for than miss. Judging from ticket
sales so far, at least 10,000 other people agree with her.
Because of the addition of certain details, the
second example is a more interesting paragraph than
the first.
Now that we understand more about global warming, we need
to make our children realize how important it is for them to
do their part in protecting the environment. Examples are
saving on electricity and water, using paper bags rather than
plastic bags, and recycling paper.
 By appealing to the reader’s conscience, the general
information becomes a plea for action and decision:

Global warming is a reality. And it is here. Now that we

have finally understood this, we have no more excuses for in
action. Let us begin with our children. Let us make them
aware that the environment is also their responsibility.
• CNF combines the validity of facts and the imaginative
stance of storytelling.
• The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft in
the writing of nonfiction– to produce factually accurate
essays or narratives about actual events and people in a
compelling and interesting way.
 For a text to be CNF:

• Writer must “communicate information just like a

reporter, but shape it in a way that reads like fiction.”-
Gutkind
• CNF is a distinct form of prose, a work of nonfiction
that uses some of the techniques of fiction and poetry,
and/or that concerns itself primarily with providing an
emotional experience.- Scott Edelstein
• Personal essays • Other hybridized prose forms
• Travel writing
• Meditation on ideas
• Nature writing
• Autobiography
• Biography
• Literary Journalism
• Cultural commentary
• Letters and Journals
• Memoirs