Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, What’s the Dif?
“I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction; there is only narrative.” — E. L. Doctorow
We are weavers of our destiny, reading our life as its plot, theme, and larger story unfolds before us. We might say, we are taking in the woof and warp of our life’s tapestry as it falls into place. Some of us are just more aware of the loom and the materials at hand.
“Tell the truth even if you have to make it up.” — Bazooka Joe
Whether you write fiction (short stories or novels) or creative non-fiction (essays, memoirs, magazine features), the same set of rules applies to the craft and art of good writing (where good = readable, compelling, digestible, interesting, entertaining, informative, perturbing, moving, rewarding, satisfying).
“I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction; there is only narrative.” — E. L. Doctorow
For, even in telling the “truth,” as in memoir, you are always recalling, remembering, reconstructing the past. Memories are as unique as fingerprints, as snowflakes. No two people recall an incident exactly the same.
“Life must be understood backwards. But . . . it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard
You consciously or unconsciously choose the details to emphasize, the accent, importance, emphasis to give events, facts, persons, and you set the tempo, texture, pacing in hindsight. You choose what to erase. In other words, the filter of sense, perception, conception, interpretation is not much different from the filter at work in fiction.
“It becomes more and more evident that life can never really be understood in time simply because at no particular moment can I find the necessary resting place from which to understand it — backwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard
The brain stores short- and long-term memories. Photo, Wikimedia Commons
The mechanics of language is true in fiction, even if imagined, even if you sink into the depths of yourself to shape the stuff of nighttime dreams. All writing is based on the experiential whether that experience is imagined or recalled. There is a very thin line between the two. In sum, if you are not bringing art to bear on the least piece of writing, you are missing one of life’s great opportunities, free to every last one of us. For writing is “the glorification of the commonplace.” (Robertson Davies).
- We live our life forward but remember it backwards, said the sage, but, as he didn’t say, also upwards and also downwards.
Some thoughts to jog your memoir:
We live our life forward but remember it backwards, said the sage (full quote below).Writing about our lives has a quantum effect: observing alters the outcome. How can that be? The outcome has already occurred. You think so, do you?
- Does the observer (writer) really alter the outcome? Or does the outcome retroactively alter the observer (writer)? I contend both.
Some favorite memoirs: The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr; Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick; Truth & Beauty by Anne Patchett; Just Kids by Patti Smith; The Tender Bar by J R Moehringer; At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs; An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser; Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Narisi; Wild by Cheryl Strayed; Wanderlust by Elizabeth Eaves; I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron; Angela’s Ashes and ’Tis, both by Frank McCourt
