Creative Nonfiction Notes

[Ladybee]

I'm taking some writing classes in summer school at Harvard, the first of which is called Advanced Creative Nonfiction. (The other class, which starts tomorrow, is Writing Grant Proposals, which i will try to post any useful stuff i learn from that as well, since i'm sure every would-be writer would love free grant money to work on their stuff!) I thought i'd post a little about what was discussed today, and if the class continues to be useful/interesting i can post more later as it develops.

Today we discussed the basics of stylistic tools to use in nonfiction/essay writing. The professor discussed the import of verbs in creating action both physical and intellectual. She talked about using negative descriptors as a way of implying a positive statement (for example, when describing, say, one's childhood, a statement like "I didn't play a lot of sports, i didn't have many friends, i wasn't what was considered popular or pretty," says a lot about what the speaker *was* without actually addressing it). She also talked about juxtaposing the abstract with the concrete when dealing with volatile subjects to avoid seeming 'preachy' (for example, talking about the contrast between how a sexually-experimental girl was treated in school and how a sexually-experimental boy was treated could be a technique to address gender issues and disparity of public views without the author making abstract moral judgements that might be more likely to alienate some readers).

[Ladybee]

I forgot to mention, the professor recommended two journals as places to try to get creative nonfiction pieces published:

Creative Nonfiction: http://www.goucher.edu/cnf/journal/ & Fourth Genre, for which i couldn't find an official website but ordering info is here: http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/academic/product/0,4096,0205337155,00.html