Blog entry #2 - Class #2

CNF definition – According to what I have read so far about CNF, this is a genre of writing where the truth plays a big role. Aside from maintaining your essay in first person and writing through the “I” of yourself, it was mentioned that there is an explanation to how much truth you put out there. The readings by Lott and Gutkind helped clear things out in this matter because they explained that the writer has to write as much truth as possible, know that they are not fabricating anything and write as best as they can recall. The readers can right away question how much truth does your essay has because they will be expecting absolute truth.                                                 

I was having trouble understanding the truth part because how can a CNF writer have so many true stories that can meet the creative side of the nonfiction? How can we go beyond documents and interviews and incorporate the creative part without jeopardizing the nonfiction and keeping it truth all the way? Well, this cleared up to me when in the article by Gutkind it was said that “there are no rules, laws, specific prescriptions relating to what to do and not to do as a creative nonfiction writer.” After all, the “creative nonfiction police is ourselves.”

In addition, Lott said that we won’t know CNF all the way until we experience it. The learning of this definition is through experience. The following help understand even more what is important to keep in mind about the definition of CNF:

• 1^st : “Strive for the truth” – we may not remember the true events accurately to a hundred percent but as a writer we should try to stick to the truth as best as we can remember without making anything up.

• 2^nd: “Recognize the important distinction between recollected conversation and fabricated dialogue.”- we need to make sure that as we write we don’t add to the dialogue, if we can’t remember how things were said then we should assumed what was said our make up what was said.

•  3^rd: “Don’t round corners” – we can’t adjust the story to make it more dramatic, we should stick to what we originally remember as best possible.

•  4^th: - Allow your characters to read what you wrote about them. Writing CNF means that you will be using characters whom are real people, we should at least let them know we are writing about them.

What was left out – Although all the definitions read are helpful and complete I feel like they left out the explanation about how can we maintain the privacy of our characters? What if our characters don’t what us to use their real names? Would this still be CNF, or would it make it Fiction because their names are not real? Would this be unethical?

Also, in the reading by Gutkind he mentioned that someone question him about how can he possibly remember something that occurred months ago accurately. So, is there a limit in time when you have to write your story down, like if your story occurred years ago, can you still write about it and make it CNF. Are you running the risk that this would have more fiction unintentionally because it occurred too long ago? What are the thoughts about this, if any?

How are definitions of creative nonfiction changing in light of digital publishing? – Well, in today’s technology we can pretty much write on anything whenever we can or want. We can post something on any of our social media accounts or any web base surface. These, including perhaps small pieces created by immature writers, writers wanting to open themselves to the public in a less formal way.  Writing in the digital world is more open, I think. You can basically post anything without having someone tell you that your piece is not worth publishing. I think that the definition of CNF still goes right along with the digital publishing, unless while writing digitally the writer decides to change things a bit, making it fiction. I think that people do CNF writing many times in the digital world through their social media accounts unintentionally. Many times you’ll find people writing small paragraphs about their feeling or how they truly feel about something that occurred to them. Even if you are the only judge of what you write, because only you know whether what you wrote is true or not, as long as is true, even in the digital world it is still CNF.