Clarifying Narrative and Creative NonFiction

Memoir writers imparticular have a lot of questions when it comes to creating a story based on true events while at the same time, changing the names and even places to protect others involved. The following may help. 

Narrative nonfiction goes under many names, including creative nonfiction, literary journalism, and fact-based storytelling.

In short form, it’s an alternative to the traditional newspaper pyramid structure (in which, if you lopped off the bottom part of the story, the reader would still have all the key information). With narrative nonfiction you don’t present the main point in the first paragraph—compelling narrative keeps the reader reading to find out what happens, and the journey to the epiphany is half the point. Narrative nonfiction–joining good research with compelling, character-driven storytelling–reads like a novel.

“Creative nonfiction” is misleading in that it implies the facts can be made up. You stick to the truth–the storytelling is fact-based–but you adapt some of the features of fiction (creating a narrative persona, setting scenes, presenting interesting characters, creating the look and feel of a setting, telling a story) to the purposes of journalism.

Basically, it’s fact-based storytelling that makes people want to keep reading. Forms of creative nonfiction include literary journalism, the memoir, the lyric essay, the prose poem, and the nonfiction short.

The Nieman Narrative Digest provides links to many excellent newspaper series that take advantage of the form. Among magazines, you can find excellent examples of narrative nonfiction in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Points of Entry, and River Teeth.