The Art of Creative Nonfiction Writing and Selling

226 Pages·2006·0.45 MB·English

by  Amazon Noir

The Art of Creative Nonfiction Writing and Selling
the Literature of Reality Wiley Books for Writers
Series
By: Lee Gutkind
ISBN: 0471113565
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Page 1
Introduction Writing for the Reader This book, The Art of Creative
Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality, will
introduce the genre of creative nonfiction and explain it with
meticulousness-from idea through structure and development to finished
product. The organization of The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and
Selling the Literature of Reality respects the order shown in the name
of the genre. Part I confronts creative matters: It presents the anatomy
of the essay by breaking down the essay, article, and book into their
vital components and analyzing the creative structure so that readers
understand how to design and build a provocative creative nonfiction
effort. Part II is the nonfiction part, dealing with a writer's search
for a salable subject for books, articles, and essays, and the unique
challenge of gathering and communicating information from a personal
point of view and the intimate process writers often call immersion.
Among other things in this book, you will learn a great deal about the
writing life. You will see how long it takes to write a book, essay, or
article, how hard a writer must work, how diligently he or she must
research, read, and fact check-and the skill involved in revealing a
subject with qualities that contain universal appeal, because the true
test of a creative nonfiction writer is to attract and capture readers
who do not have a built-in fascination or connection to a subject or
narrator.
Page 2
The Creative Part One of the most memorable compliments I ever received
through an eight book, 25-year career as an author, essayist, teacher,
and editor is from a woman who began idly leafing through her husband's
copy of my book about National League baseball umpires called The Best
Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand: "I have always hated baseball.
It's a boring game. When my husband and son are watching it on TV, I
leave the house. But I realized, as I looked through your book, that
these were real people with unique problems-not just baseball
fanatics-you were writing about. I sat down and read the book cover to
cover in two nights." This is the basic objective of creative
nonfiction: Capturing and describing a subject so that the most
resistant reader will be interested in learning more about it. The
writer establishes a certain humanistic expertise, becoming a reader's
filter so that the reader will gain intellectual substance (about
baseball, politics, science, or any other subject) while focusing on the
drama and intensity of ordinary people living unusual, stressful, and
compelling lives.
Page 3
The Creative Part My memory ends with Tommy's being struck, and my own
remorse. I don't recall whether or not he eventually caved in. I had
learned a lesson then that I have never forgotten. It's a variation on
the well-known aphorism about being careful what you wish for. It goes
something like: "Be careful what you say. Someone might act as if you
mean it." All it takes is someone closer to the edge, perhaps a bit more
unbalanced or extreme than you are, or someone who simply takes you at
your word, who doesn't share your understanding that there's a line that
isn't to be crossed no matter how heated the rhetoric. The line is then
crossed, and the one who put the idea there at the outset must face his
or her culpability. I was recently reminded of the incident with Tommy
as I thought about Binyamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's opposition
Likud Party, and his response to the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Bibi, as
he is called, had allowed his followers to depict Rabin in recent months
as a traitor to Israel, a murderer, even a Nazi. Accepting this view of
Rabin would make his demise justifiable, desirable, even necessary. It
made him fair game. After the assassination, Bibi worked hard at
distancing himself from the act and its perpetrator. He woke up one day
after the assassination, he tells us, "with a shudder running through
his whole body." I recognize that shudder. I too have felt it-every time
I think about Tommy and see Skipper whip that lanyard across his face.
2.4 Reorienting the Writer's Eye To begin thinking in the creative
nonfiction mode you must begin to reorient your writing eye. 14
Page 4
Page 5
For Writers, Thinkers, Silent Observers (and Other People with Stories
to Tell) 1.1 Crossing Genres Today there are just as many poets,
playwrights, and fiction writers writing creative nonfiction as there
are journalists-perhaps more. Novelists John Updike and Louise Erdrich,
poets Diane Ackerman and Adrienne Rich have recently published
collections of essays and memoirs, a very popular form of creative
nonfiction. Essays by poets, novelists, and playwrights are appearing
with increasing frequency not only in literary journals, but also in
popular magazines and newspapers. Says poet Donald Morrill, "All the
years I have been working on poetry (learning metaphorical structures,
rhythm, imagery) have made me a better prose writer." 1.2 Thinkers and
Scholars-Reaching Out from Academia Creative nonfiction demands
spontaneity and an imaginative approach, while remaining true to the
validity and integrity of the information it contains. That is why the
creative nonfiction form is so appealing to people with new ideas or
fresh interpretations of accepted concepts in
Page 6
The Creative Part history, science, or the arts; people with an
intellectual curiosity about the world around us or a fresh viewpoint or
approach to staid and seemingly inaccessible disciplines. For example:
the Harvard University anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould, whose essays
often explain principles of evolution and geology through discussions of
the origin of baseball or cable car rides in San Francisco. Or Lewis
Thomas or Oliver Sacks, whose perspectives on science in general and
neurology in particular have provided a general reading audience with
special insight. Biographies are often considered to be works of
creative nonfiction. David McCullough, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and
the National Book Award, has written accurately and creatively about
Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Brooklyn Bridge. An increasing
number of historians, including Simon Schama (The Landscapes of My
Life), are creative nonfiction writers, although they call themselves or
are described by others as "narrative historians." 1.3 And People with
Stories to Tell Autobiographies-memoirs-are becoming increasingly
popular, as shown by recent record-setting bestsellers by Colin Powell,
Jimmy Carter, Donald Trump, and Gore Vidal. Or the many tell-it-all
books about O.J. and Nicole Simpson, the sex life of Bill Clinton, and
the tragic and frightening story of the Menendez brothers. Not to forget
books by Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and Charleton Heston-there are
celebrities ad infinitum. These authors may not be considered "scholars"
or thinkers but many may have compelling stories to tell, and stories,
after all, are what good literature of any genre is all about. 1.4 Flies
on the Wall The books and essays of Gould, Thomas, and Sacks provide
windows through which the general public can observe situations that are
often inaccessible. In a recent book, Oliver Sacks writes about learning
of a surgeon who had Tourette's Syndrome-a malady that would seem to