ICRN: Creative Nonfiction

3/26/2021

OVERVIEW: Creative Nonfiction is an exciting genre and one that gives writers a wide range of options for telling their (true) stories. Nonfiction is also a very old genre--If you've read Emerson, you've read in the tradition of nonfiction in American literature. But it's even older than that. Addison and Steele in 18th Century England wrote for and published The Spectator, which was essentially a collection of nonfiction, of essays and reportage, of London at the time. The tradition of the essay is a long one and rich one. I don't mean the five paragraph MCAS essay that you learned how to write, or even the essay you write for your college classes, but the kinds of writing that we read for and are talking about in today's class.

The word "essay," coopted as it has been by things like MCAS, make essays sound awful. But in truth, the very idea of the essay comes from the French "essayer" the verb for "to try." And, at its best, that's what this genre does, it is an author trying to seek an answer to their own question--sometimes a question about the wider world and sometimes a question about some part of their lives (memoir--also from the French for "to remember").

THE PROMPT: The "creative" part of creative nonfiction sometimes gets lost in discussions, but that is what I would like us to focus on this week. Creative nonfiction borrows heavily from the the characteristics of fiction--characterization, metaphor, imagery, the list goes on and on. For today's ICRN, select one of the essays we read for class--not to be confused with the short essay we are working on in-class--and write about the following:

What, based on your reading of the text, is the point the author is trying to make--so essentially what is the thesis?
What makes you believe that is the thesis--so what evidence to you find for your reading in the text itself?
What characteristics that you might find in fiction writing--compressed time, metaphors, imagery, character development do you see in this essay?
And what do you see in this essay that feels unique to nonfiction? Either something about writing style or purpose that feels like it would not be part of a fiction--if any?

20 Comments

Kate Bazarsky

3/26/2021 10:27:06 am

The article I chose was, Indian Condition. This was my favorite essay because the it focus around the idea of stories broadly. To me, the story was not only about her hardships but the fact that people have ugly stories and we are not always sure what to do with them--who is the audience. The first line of the essay opens by calling her own story 'maltreated'--i.e. underfed or malnourished--this word was very purposeful. Throughout the essay, she talks about her mother and all of the spiritual things she had to go through. Towards the end, she goes back to the idea of hunger, "I left because I was hungry.... I'm a river widened by misery, and the potency of my language is more than human" (6-7). The whole story goes back to the idea of being malnourished and needing some kind of way to get out. The last lines read, "Time seems measured by grief and anticipatory grief. I don't think she even measured time" (7). This was the most powerful line in the whole essay for me because it told the whole story in two lines--we focus our lives on the miseries we face or the anxiety of the miseries we might face; in doing that, we lose track of time and space in general.

Paige Couture

3/26/2021 11:13:35 am

Hi Kate,

I also chose this article. Just to be clear, I wanted to let you know that the article is titled: Heart Berries, and the first chapter is Indian Condition. After reading your post, I’m starting to wonder if maybe the reason why her story had been mistreated was because of the spiritual aspects that were brought up. For example: “That’s when my nightmares came. A spinning wheel, a white porcelain tooth, a snarling mouth, and lightning haunted me. My mother told me they were visions” (4). I think that most people do not believe in these types of topics: psychics, gifts, etc. Nobody really does until you experience something for yourself. I feel like more people would be understanding of the grandmother’s part of how she “dewormed” children by giving them laxatives or building walls out of bones. That was something the Grandmother had discovered while in school, so it would be more believable.

Michael Wood

3/26/2021 10:27:09 am

The author of * makes a point of personifying her own emotions in the text as if they were being to communicate with. The reading that I find within the text itself is that the profound use of metaphors allows the reader to connect with the world and give a more in-depth visual. The way that trees move and how the wind appears to speak gives a great deal of nuance to the text for descriptions that have been provided in the past. I do see a great deal of character and theory used within the context of the text as the story relies heavily on characterization of the elements involved. I find that without it, the author would simply be explaining herself rather than how the landscape around her makes her feel. The theory comes into play with the emotional struggled involved with the troubles often associated with love and grief. While there isn't too much there, it shows to have a great deal of importance in the text as it helps contextualize earlier elements in the reading. The elements of her writing style allow a good flow of wording and alliteration which adds a good poetic touch to help with visualization. though the same can be said for fiction, the audience is still dependent on their own visualization of events especially when viewing the world though someone else's eyes who has first hand experience. Something that is unique to nonfiction is that when descriptions are made, it requires a certain nuance since other people could see the same event but under a completely different perspective. One description could have a completely different meaning to someone who hasn't experienced it or if they did, they could have a different reaction to events.

3/26/2021 10:27:35 am

This applies o Indian Condition

CJ Hall

3/26/2021 10:30:52 am

“We at Old Birds”... The author is trying to discuss how the need to search and find something, the grand quest, is just that: a need. Without religion, sasquatch or signs from another realm, how boring life would be. Sometimes the bare truth is not as fun as rumor or gossip. She lays this out for the reader when she refers to Churchill’s parrot, the illusive Ivory Billed Woodpecker, “around” 35 lake monsters and her father’s futile search for his past, his memories. Imagery of numerous types of birds, random nameless researchers out in search of the “lost” species; and the jarring scene of her aged parent juxtaposed with lifting the veil on their complicated relationship can all be elements of a novel. The lengthy imagery of her mother posing in boudoir for her husband was similar to fiction as well. Character development of the narrator is only through dialogue. We don’t get much on her father other than family trips and secrets. Unique to non-fiction, I admire her choice of dark humor to outright refuse to grant the reader a front seat to her pain. It makes her father tolerable: both in his current state and the lack of detail regarding his sins. Her satire on religion is flippant and refuses to take itself seriously, unlike most dogma. Might be my favorite essay today.

Matt McGuirk

3/26/2021 10:31:50 am

I decided to use John Tormey’s essay “Known Assailants'' for this ICRN. Tormey spent much of this piece exploring how his life journey went in a completely different direction than he anticipated and how he then found himself questioning his place among a group of people in a job that he didn’t necessarily fit in with. I think Tormey’s thesis is this: your life might take an unexpected turn and you might get stuck somewhere you’d rather not be, but you can learn to accept and understand the situation over time. Obviously, he went to graduate school, taught some classes, and got a master’s degree—but it didn’t lead him anywhere. He got the job with the commuter rail as a last-case scenario because he needed financial stability. Although he admits his naivete when he assumed it would be only six months or a year on the job, he understands how lucky he is to have this stability and to receive a pension when retiring. He’s pretty up front with us on this, too: “I lucked out. I’d have to be a real asshole to suggest otherwise.”

As for the stereotyped group of people that he works with, I think he breaks them down from his point of view so we aren’t getting the reused lines from journalists and news pundits. He writes about J.D. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy and how it was written for people to understand the common white voter that supports Donald Trump. Tormey technically fits that stereotype, but he’s not a Trump guy and you can tell how badly he wants to understand how he found himself grouped into this label (at least I could tell). He questions who the white working class is because he is part of it despite not fitting this mold.

I also like how Tormey analyzed, explored, and challenged certain stereotypes or “traditional norms” of our society, such as college. I think his position on college has even more value because he’s experienced both sides of this: the well-educated college experience and the hard, manual labor jobs that you don’t necessarily need college degrees for. He writes how the work you do in manual labor isn’t a lesser form of work from those jobs that college preps you for. He says, “But the fetish of the college diploma as the symbol of success in the new knowledge economy conceals a host of inconvenient truths … Neither brand of labor is better than the other. Work is work.”

I do see some characteristics of fiction writing in this piece. In some instances, I think Tormey shows us something instead of telling us, an important feature of fiction writing. He does so in this line: “My heart sank a little each time I stole a peek, until it sunk about as deep into my chest as it could fall.” I also think some of his specific word choices are signs of creative fiction, such as when he calls his coworkers “mutants.”

I think this is part of nonfiction because of how reflective Tormey is in his writing. He’s not starting the story at the beginning and moving along chronologically. He’s continuously reflecting back on his life journey with great detail and I don’t think you see this much “exploring” in a fictional work, if that makes sense. On top of that, Tormey’s biggest quality to me is his honesty. He knows he’s not where he intended to be. He even said he probably would have been more comfortable at a job behind a desk with a computer, but working at the track is what made ends meet for him and his family. In this kind of writing, I think you want to pick your topic and then explore it as openly as possible.

3/26/2021 10:36:12 am

I'm glad I read your take on this! I hated his flagrant use of tribal narrative/phrasing, found it tone deaf and refused to explore him further. From your perspective I see the narrator as more human than I gave him credit for.. probably his whole point

John Walden

3/26/2021 10:32:41 am

In The Lonely Ruralist Janisse Ray discusses the realities of rural life in the United States and how it has shaped her own views and opinions on society and life as a whole. She is able to paint a picture of rural America not only through the concrete descriptions of the town of Altamaha but also through her own experiences and emotions about her transitions between rural and urban.
One of the great dynamics she presents in the piece is the shift she observes in community in the different environments she found herself in. She discusses how growing up in a rural town, community was a vital part of her life and identity. The town was tight-knit and involved in each other’s lives, leading to a sense of interconnectedness and association. As she moved away from a rural town, this sense of community stuck with her into a more civilized environment, leading her to a more connected social life.
When Ray moved back to rural America, she found that the mass exodus of people from these towns had led to a degradation of this sense of community. With fewer and fewer people spread over vast stretches of land, there was less opportunity to develop bonds that she had developed into an important part of her identity. This led to her down a path of loneliness, until she decided to develop her own community through sheer force of will.

3/26/2021 10:38:41 am

I definitely understood the context of the piece and the way the writer is effected by these events. How would you say this is exclusive to nonfiction or which elements come into play to provide a degree of nuance?

Lynne Campbell

3/26/2021 10:32:50 am

The essay that stuck out to me the most was the one titled "Marceline Wanted a Bigger Adventure." It stuck out to me as I was reading it because it covered a topic that I have been interested in. I have a strange fascination with true crime cases and historical events such as the Jonestown tragedy. I really enjoyed how the author weaved her own personal thoughts and opinions on the events at Jonestown with her own research and retelling on the history behind Jonestown. I think the author's intent for writing this piece was to humanize someone in history who is largely forgotten. I have watched documentaries on Jonestown and I already knew a lot of his early life that was described in this piece. However, I couldn't recall anything about his wife, Marceline. This essay revolves around the author visiting Marceline's grave as she reflects on some events of her own life and weaves her own reflections on the life of Marceline. The characteristics of fiction that I noticed in this piece was that the other covered a large amount of time within a few paragraphs. The author describes how Marceline and Jim met, how they formed the Peoples Temple, and it is described how she died. It really stuck with me to discover that the famous recording of Jim saying "mother, mother mother," he was actually talking to the mother of his own children and the person he built the church with. I really liked being able to read the real history of Marceline along with stories from the author's own past.

Marissa Merlino

3/26/2021 10:41:51 am

This essay also stuck out to me a lot as I am fascinated by cults and Jonestown. Getting to learn about such a specific historical aspect of this case was definitely interesting and I thought this was a unique concept for a nonfiction piece. The focus on Marceline makes this piece stand out from other true crime writing, since the focus isn't specifically on Jim Jones, the leader of the cult and the man behind it all.

Maddie Staples

3/26/2021 10:33:58 am

"Marceline Wanted a Bigger Adventure" was my favorite piece that we read for today's class. To me, it seemed that McAuliffe was trying to show us the different ways idealistic people get stuck in exploitative situations. She frames the essay with one of the most extreme examples--the Jonestown cult, 900 people who ostensibly chose to drink cyanide and die because one charismatic man asked them to. However, she weaves in the less extreme stories of her family members' bout as members of a pyramid scheme, her husband's childhood on a commune, her own experience with a religion that almost consumed her. All of these individuals escaped to some degree, while Marceline and the 900+ people of Jonestown did not. "All this, of course, is what we remember," McAuliffe writes, "not socialism but 'Kool-Aid.' Not communism or public services or racial equality but fallen bodies, sneakers and dungarees and corduroys and T-shirts, so many bodies lined up and piled in the dirt" (284). These bodies represent individuals who, just like McAuliffe and her family, believed in an ideal--economic stability, and alternative way of life, a sense of meaning and belonging--and they suffered for that idealism. As McAuliffe writes, "[Marceline] was idealistic, committed to fighting racism and sharing resources and caring for cchildren. She was loyal. But her life, her death, her loyalty, became a chilling warning against holding too tightly to ideals. Be moderate; love reasonably, her story whispers, opposing every message of love and idealisim and generosity I have ever heard" (285). I believe that with this essay, combining the more common and relatable stories with the stories of Jonestown, McAuliffe challenges us not to condemn idealism but those that would take advantage of it, to stop before we joke about "drinking the Kool-Aid" and consider the circumstances that might have led the people of Jonestown to that point: are they really so far from our own?
I think that character development is one of the most important aspects of this piece. The "characters"--the people in McAuliffe's life--must be relatable for the point to ring true. She humanizes Marceline as a "generous and mild woman" in search of a more exciting life (271). She gives her own story, a disheveled 20 year old riding her bike to different churches in search of something (280-81). In a short amount of space we get to know these people, understand the circumstances that made them fall into these things. We see these woven together, time compressed and looped around itself to show the ways in which we (idealistic people) don't really learn, that optimism is not crushed and continues to be taken advantage of. The rotting hospital at the end gives hope that the structures from which these situations arise can be demolished, but ultimately it is the author's own decision to walk away into the forest that puts the building behind her.
The biggest difference between this piece and fiction is the amount of research that clearly went into it. McAuliffe has familiarized herself with the story of Jonestown, and describes that experience, puzzling over why Marceline stayed in the situation that she did. This humanization of the research process prevents this from being a stuffy scholarly essay. Creative nonfiction bridges the gap.

Ron Corbett

3/26/2021 10:35:34 am

In the essay The Lonely Ruralist, several imagery points are discussed. Janisse Ray does not talk about being lonely as in her husband is gone all the time , she is lonely because more the farm life is gone. Two of the biggest points that I noticed is when she meets Amos and then her childhood friend at the farmers market. The scene when she buys the apples and had the long conversation with Amos was pivotal because of the breakdown with her husband. She had seen how happy Amos was. Then her attitude changed when she seen her friend Robby Astrrove. She notices how people are flocking in the farmers market as she notices kids playing and people planting a community garden.

Rebecca Monestime

3/26/2021 10:41:05 am

Hi Ron, yes! that scene was beautiful and showed the long lost friendship between Janisse Ray and Amos. this shows that loneliness is not just about losing a person, but it can be with items and a new life as well such as her losing her farm life. It has a nonfiction element with fiction embedded.

Emily Spagna

3/26/2021 10:36:03 am

The point of "We At Old Birds Welcome Messages from God, Even if Unverifiable" is how some things aren't meant to be found, and the whole point of them is to keep searching. Because the search is what's rewarding. But the point is also about being seen. Seeing each other's experiences and faults. The author says, "most of whom do not even know they are members of the cult, much less capable of translating messages form God. Still, this one seems pretty obvious, even to us laity: I see you." This also is about having one chance at life, sometimes you loose it, sometimes it gets found again. "One chance, you blew it, too bad".
The imagery in this story stands out the most to me. The story opens immediately to describing myths around the country, legends that haven't been verified. And it talks about how we should continue to search for something, even towards the end. The author describes her father in detail too. She describes his older body withering away and confused. She describes his younger self as an adventurer who would take his family on his searches for the lost and mysterious. But the way she writes dialogue is unique. It switches from "normal", to almost like a script. I believe to show the distance there is, and the lack of understanding.

3/26/2021 10:36:17 am

"Known Assailants" by John Tormey talks to us about being a middle class white construction worker. His point is to tell us that even though he went to college and pursued a degree, he still ended up becoming a construction worker which is not what the teachers in high school or his parents told him where he will end up.The line "college is still a ticket into middle class for a dwindling few. But the fetish of the college diploma as the symbol of success in the new knowledge economy conceals a host of inconvenient truths." which to a degree I can see for myself as well. This mindset was made for young people to believe that if they have a college degree they can be on top with the best paying jobs and living a comfortable life but John states otherwise. It benefited some but many who went still ended up with high debt and a not so great job. The imagery of the construction workers on Comm Ave. really sets the tone for the rest of the story and how they also ended up there with college degrees themselves. He wanted to get out of this job in less than six months to a year but it was so hard despite him being white. This goes to show that even if you are white, some privileges don't come naturally and you still have to work hard to get what you want. The imagery of a white middle class man with a college becoming a construction worker is not the typical "White American" image people have in their heads when they think of middle class White Americans. He is here to show otherwise. He stayed because he wants to be paid just like everyone else does. This work feels the most nonfiction because everything he described is happening across the country.

3/26/2021 10:36:45 am

In the excerpt from Terese Marie Mailhot's memoir "Heart Berries", Mailhot talks about the difficult experiences she has had living as an American Indian woman. In the beginning, she describes the way that minority groups are perceived as "cashing in" on tragedy, mentioning a former relationship with a man who would spend money on her out of "pity" for her situation. She makes it clear that this was not the ideal situation, as the men who gave her money often drained her emotionally (as she notes that she "gave them too much"). She described the judgement and questioning she experienced from fellow women, and this essay answers their insistence on her telling a story. The hardship and grief she describes in this essay allows the reader to understand and sympathize with her if they were judging her at the beginning of the essay. Using a metaphor to describe herself, Mailhot says she's a "river widened by misery". She uses simile frequently, such as in one of the final lines of the piece: "Her hands felt like rose petals, her eyes soft and round like buttons". These similes provide comforting imagery that characterizes Mailhot's grandmother as a caring, maternal figure. This piece is unique as a nonfiction piece because almost seems to address readers directly, by leading in by stating that women have asked her for her story. Even if a woman isn't reading, the reader will still get the sense that Mailhot is presenting her life to an audience and putting herself in a vulnerable space, opening herself up to potential criticism and also pity.

Amanda Guindon

3/26/2021 10:58:11 am

More recently in my college career, I found creative nonfiction to be a genre that I really really enjoyed both reading and writing. Out of all the different things we had to read today for class, I was really drawn to the piece titled “The Lonely Ruralist” and the way the beauty of a world unknown to me was described and explained. I think what was so special about this piece is that it was such a small amount of writing (10 pages feels like a lot but it really isn’t that much space when establishing characters and setting and everything like that) yet I felt connected to the land and the lifestyle that the author, Janisse Ray, described.
Based on all the author had to say, it seemed like the “thesis” of the essay was that while it took her a long time to realize it, she was attached to the land and lifestyle of rural life and it was different in a way that those who haven’t experienced it can’t truly know what it’s like. Ray first started off the essay talking about a conversation she had with her husband about how she felt like the loneliest lonely woman while living in their rural community of only a handful of homes. She then goes on to talk about different experiences she had with members of the surrounding community like that she had with the Amish man selling apples. The point of establishing herself as a lonely woman in the community even before introducing other community members was to emphasize the emotions she felt in her day to day life. She felt so deprived of human connection that she even tried to establish her own community with different events and such, but even that didn’t work out as the attendees of these events usually went home to their non-rural towns and she was left feeling just as alone. However, these emotions really begin to turn around when she talks about her growing attachments to the ruralness of her surroundings. She learned to appreciate the quietness of her day to day life and it became way more important to her.
I think two of the main things that are typically fiction characteristics that appear in this story are characterization and imagery of the town and community where Ray lives. Characterization is incredibly important for establishing relationships both in the writing and between the author and the audience. One of the first characters that Ray introduces is her husband who she cries to when she is talking about how lonely she feels. While he isn’t an important character to the remainder of the story, establishing her relationship with him humanized her own character and we could see a little bit of her life with her own family.
I think what makes this piece feel more like nonfiction is the sort of self-reflection that the author goes through. The main purpose of this piece was to show how the appreciation of the quietness of rural life can be a long process, but Ray was finally able to appreciate the lifestyle she had. While it is possible to create this emotion in fiction writing, it felt more authentic knowing that Ray had experienced all this herself and her experience inspired her to write about her life for others who may not experience something like this. It was really interesting to read and I really enjoyed seeing rural life through her eyes.

3/26/2021 10:58:18 am

Based on Heart Berries by Terese Marie, her thesis is everyone has a personal story that has potential to be told. It should not be left unheard of. An important point that Teresa stresses is that everyone is unmovable. That means follow your dreams and do not let someone tell you otherwise. Nobody can take away from who you are as a person or by blood. The reason for writing Heart Berries was from a personal story that refused to be heard. According to the text: “I’m a river widened by misery, and the potency of my language is more than human” (7). The metaphor is another way to describe feeling bottled up emotion to where misery or depression starts to settle in. The only way for this author to overcome misery was to write this story down. For fiction writing, a few characters are developed throughout this essay. An important character is Terese’s grandmother, who is at the heart of the play. There was not much that she had asked of Teresa, but one of these things were to “pray properly” (4). Compressed time is described as her Grandmother: on Earth, time to spend with each other is short. Most time spent was grieving after her Grandmother passed: “Time seems measured by grief and anticipatory grief. I don’t think she even measured time” (7). The last line is stating that her grandmother never took life for granted. There were a number of imagery symbols that described her Grandmother: “Her hands felt like rose petals, and her eyes were soft and round like buttons” (7). Her Grandmother loved things that were sweet: “Carnations and canned milk” (7). Part of the essay that feels like it would not be fiction is the characters. The main character is Teresa who is a real author. She also writes about her Grandmother, who was a family member. There is also her mother who advises her to embrace gifts that she possesses. History of Indian’s religion feels unique that would not be found in fiction. Grandmother would tell stories that would bring children inside their house, take laxatives then bring in newspaper. This was her way of deworming children that had been learned in residential school which is often demonstrated by nuns and priests. Left over bones were built for boarding schools.

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

3/29/2021 12:39:17 pm

"We At Old Birds Welcome Messages From God, Even If Unverifiable."

1. I believe what the author was trying to say is that the lives of humans can become just as wasted or hidden as the past lives of extinct birds.

2. The author goes out of her way to say that sometimes, it's better for something rare or extinct to never be discovered. I think this is because she compares these birds and how they never seem to age with her father who is basically on deaths door. The author knows that her father slept with his own daughters and stepdaughters during his life. She even explains that he pretty much wasted his life because of this. That being said, the fact that everyone knew about her dads dirty pictures is probably the reason why she wants him to stay hidden from everyone in a sense. It's almost like the writer is saying that if we ever find the hidden or extinct things we were searching for for many years, we might not like what we find. So, maybe it's best to let dreams be dreams in our mind instead of searching for something that may never be or or have a completely underwhelming theme to it in the end.

3. Compared to fiction writing, the imagery and language of the Lord God Bird and how it is compared to being god's messenger is what stood out to me the most. For example, Sheppard describes the bird in a very god like way. This is the most apparent on pg (235) where she explains that "no matter how rational it's enthusiasts, manages to cross with some regularity into religious territory, even if unknowingly." This also explains why this particular bird was given the "Lord God Bird" as a name. The point is that because of the imagery and language, parts of this story feel fictional because of it's religious undertone. Now, not to say that the bible isn't nonfiction, but you can understand how some people might think the story of Jesus comes off as such. Maybe that's where the line is drawn. Maybe you have to believe in that type of thing so that it feels either more fiction or non-fiction to you. I think it depends on the reader too, through the language and imagery feel more on the side of "holy fiction" if that makes any sense at all.

4. The relationship between the writer and the father feel the most nonfictional to me. It's hard to explain, but I feel it's difficult to make up a story like this if it never really happened. When I was reading about what the writer's father did in the past with his wife and daughters, it's honestly only something that would happened in real life. I don't think people go out of their way to write something so, sickening, like that as a fiction piece. The relationship between the father and writer felt personal. It felt like Sheppard has been dealing with this for a long time, which is why the themes of religion either help to ease her thoughts about the situation or, sometimes, make them worse. Why compare a holy bird to a father who has sinned time and time again? It's probably because the writers faith in humanity was questioned time and time again, never getting an answer from anyone. That's why this part of the story feels nonfictional to me in the end.

ICRN: Creative Nonfiction

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