Lindsey- Response to Ch. 10

[Sondra Perl]

#887

Creative nonfiction is perplexing term for me, leaving room for numerous interpretation particularly regarding the definition of “creative” when writing factual information. Part of the complication is that this genre is partial to a subjective analysis of one’s relationship to time, place, and personal experience. The condensing of time, the changing of names, the aggregate of life’s events and experiences are complicated matters.

When I write about family and friends it doesn’t feel exactly right. It feels as though I’ve been eavesdropping on their lives; viewing them as art versus beings. Over the years some friends have wondered if what they will say will end up in my writing. I don’t often share creative nonfiction work with close friends and relatives because of these issues. But that’s the thing, who am I being truthful to and for people versus craft?

Some people equate the word creative with regard to writing as in altering or embellishing, so in a lot of ways creative nonfiction gets a bad rap. After reading this chapter my take away is what is my obligation and responsibility to write fairly for readers, the intent to stay truthful using facts as well. The essential rule with creative writing is that the story revolves around the facts and truth.

C. S. Lewis wrote in The Magician’s Nephew, “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” Creative nonfiction mitigates the writer’s observations into a structure of individual interpretation. While there are plenty of people who will have similar opinions on other people, when it comes to family and friends and your interpretation of them and situations, it’s rare that there will be a consensus on what was factual. This makes me think of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s work Rashomon and The Grove where essentially the characters have contradictory interpretations of the same event, the accounts of the witnesses, suspects, and victims of a rape and murder are all different. From my experience on the truth spectrum, the factual events are somewhere in the middle.

If we use the word creative defined as a literary craft/technique, then some writers find all writing can be creative; essays, even journal articles and research papers because if you can take writing and tell a good story, you’ve captured the audience. Granted we have a long way before academic writing is completely on board, but I believe it will get there. Many memoir books that are authored by chefs, to doctors, to lawyers, to presidents, tell facts and use creative interpretation to bring on the appeal.

I equate the limitations of creative nonfiction like making a cake; we use all the correct ingredients (so it tastes good) but we become creative when we changed its form, its flavor or its appearance. The truth is the ingredients; how we use those ingredients makes it our own.

[Sondra Perl]

#889

Lindsay, I really love this post, because I think you really capture the way perspective participates and shapes our writing. For example, when you use C.S. Lewis’ quote from “The Magician’s Nephew”–that’s is a very brilliant point. I think it’s so important to acknowledge that our perspective “depends a great deal on where you are standing.” And we are all standing somewhere. We all have an angle of vision, whether we want to or not. What I find so frustrating about the humanities in general is the way the dominant discourse tries to assert itself as outside of bias, outside of the body. Literary studies sometimes looks as if it’s aping science in it’s assertions, it’s need to prove, to back up claims with evidence.

I remember once, at a reading, the poet Marie Howe told the audience: “There is no such thing as ‘what happened.'” What happened is a myriad of perspectives, overlapping, conflicting, rearranged. I don’t think this give us freedom, as memoirist, to lie outright. But, I do believe it gives us the freedom to remain faithful to our perspectives, our perceptions. We don’t need to apologize for that. Nor do we need to prove anything with evidence.

[Sondra Perl]

#911

Yes. Where we stand…..how we see things….influences what we see. So making our own stands clear helps readers understand how we have come to see the world. As in….oh, given her views on X, I can why she concluded Y. It can be the same for academic writing…. making biases, views, and predilections clear from the outset.

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