Nonfiction and Fiction
A high-flying duo
Hello, CNF friends! Sorry, it’s been a while since my last post. The truth is—and please don’t be mad—I’ve been writing some fiction, and I was embarrassed to tell you! But now that I’m back home after two weeks working on a novel at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, that impulse to hide my fiction-writing seems ridiculous. Why do I feel like there’s some sort of competitiveness between fiction and nonfiction—like I need to choose between them?
Perhaps the source of this adversarial feeling is the language we use to describe the two genres. The fact that nonfiction defines itself so stridently in the negative as being NOT fiction has always felt a bit defensive to me. We don’t call vegetables “nonmeat” or children “nonadults”. Vegetables and kids are their own things, both growing and alive and very much in need of their own descriptive nouns.
I know we often use more specific terms to describe what our creative nonfiction writing is (e.g. a personal or narrative essay, or memoir). But the banner these types of work all huddle under is still nonfiction, which seems to set up an antagonistic relationship with fiction. But these two genres feel much less binary to me than their names suggest. For example, while working on my novel, I became aware of the many ways the manuscript bears the mark of my personal experience. Each of the three main characters—a philosopher, a mystic, and a scientist—feels like one aspect of self that I’ve amplified to have a closer look. This exploration feels similar to writing CNF, where I often magnify one part of my life, or zoom in on a particular challenge or foible.
So perhaps fiction and nonfiction are less like adversaries, and more like a pair of tightrope walkers. (An aerial duo who sometimes meet in the middle to create twirly works of auto-fiction or speculative nonfiction.) When I’m writing fiction, I give my imagination free reign to leap into the air and show off all its best tricks. When I write nonfiction, my imagination is required to keep its feet firmly planted on the tightrope of fact. But both genres are powered by imagination. Creativity is part of all writing; we create something that didn’t exist before. And all writing is inspired, to some degree, by real life truths, because what else is there to draw from but our experiences of the world? So maybe the banner that our fiction and creative nonfiction should be huddling under together is “storytelling”: a single term that celebrates our ability to perform while airborne and our tremendous creative wingspan.
Scroll down for some CNF-related opportunities. And stay-tuned next month for an intro to a new CNF writer-friend via the Me, Myself, and Friends column.
Some upcoming opportunities
Geist is running their 20th Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest for nonfiction (or fiction) of up to 500 words. The deadline is June 30.
The International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir is given to an exceptional work of memoir writing. The deadline to submit is June 30 for personal nonfiction of up to 2,000 words.
Two-week craft seminar: How to Write an Essay Collection with Alexander Chee. Sunday July 13 and 27 from 1:00-3:30 (ET). $200, some scholarships available
Surviving the Freelance Grind, free master class with writer/editor Omar Mouallem. Tues June 24 at 7:30 (ET)
The Bellevue Literary Review Prizes are awarded to nonfiction (or fiction) related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. contest. Max word count: 5000; deadline: July 1.
Hi Becky. I also appreciate the reference to acrobatics and the high-flying duo of fiction and nonfiction: "When I write nonfiction, my imagination is required to keep its feet firmly planted on the tightrope of fact." There is a breathlessness, fear and bravery whenever we put our fact/truth/nonfiction to paper. Equally, when we read the truths of others.
👍🏽