Finding Your Truth : Avoiding the Pitfalls of Creative Nonfiction

As writers of creative nonfiction, we know that not everything we write is the absolute truth. For instance, how can we piece together exact dialogue from twenty years ago and how can we be certain that we wore that plaid red dress on the last Sunday in June in 1984? Readers forgive us if we give state that we may be foggy about some details, while showing our knowledge of the subject and our emotional truth. Emily Dickinson wrote, "Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant," which informs creative nonfiction writers today who are looking to enhance their work with techniques that will preserve their story's truth, while making it read like a story. We can write essays and memoirs that are "real" to both the reader and us as long as we stick to certain conventions of this genre that allow us to bend time and compress characters.

In addition, we also need to watch that we don't fictionalize our lives to make the story better. Writing creative nonfiction is more controversial than writing fiction because essays and memoirs discuss real people who are still living and may not appreciate having their lives revealed without mercy on the page. Writers also need to watch how creative they get with the facts. Sometimes authors deliver more fiction than nonfiction, after billing their work as creative nonfiction. James Fry of A Million Little Pieces (2003) and Anthony Godby Johnson of A Rock and A Hard Place (1994) come to mind. Both authors fictionalized their experiences so that they could sell more books. Mary Karr, who wrote about her dysfunctional family in The Liar's Club (1998), says, "My experience is there's no way you can manufacture events and find the truth. Great memoirs don't take bizarre experiences and make them more bizarre and outrageous.

They take bizarre experiences and make them familiar. That's the power." Creative nonfiction is not fiction and for this reason I believe it is unethical to construe a story to make your life more interesting so you can get published and then sell more books. If you want to fictionalize your life, so be it, but please place the word "novel" on your book cover, not "memoir." Writers of creative nonfiction make a tacit pact with their readers that their story is a true one, and readers often feel lied to if they learn that the story they spent time reading is fiction. The author promises to tell his or her version of the truth using details, facts, and experiences. This truth is, of course, filtered through the author and is subject to the author's worldview. When the reader reads an essay, she assumes that the work is true, while allowing the use of narrative tools such as time and character compression and name changes, which allow more creativity for the writer.

The following creative nonfiction techniques are designed to help writers to adjust their facts in order to get their story told:

Compressing time

Sometimes compressing or collapsing time is necessary in order to keep the flow of the story and to ensure that the reader will not get lost in extra details. Changing the time of when events occurred is acceptable, as long as the truth of the story is not lost. For example, if a writer is describing her time in Seattle on a trip, she may want to combine details from her first and third day, for organizational purposes and to keep her reader involved in her story. If she didn't, she would most likely lose the reader to boredom. However, if she made up what she did on her trip, then her essay would be fiction, not creative nonfiction.

Compressing characters and changing characters' names

Some say compressing and changing characters' names is on the verge of turning an essay into a fictionalized account, but many authors believe that changing a character's name or consolidating characters does not distract from the verisimilitude of their story. When some readers do find out that an author has changed a name or two to protect a family member or friend, they may feel that the author was justified for doing so, while others may feel that the author has changed the nature of the story. I feel that changing a character's name from Sally to Jennifer should not take away from the author's narrative intentions. Furthermore, many authors address the composite character issue up front by letting readers know either in the preface or in the acknowledgements that they have changed their characters' names. In memoirs, authors generally acknowledge when they have changed names either in the preface or in a footnote, so that their credibility with the reader is not shattered, since they look like they are not hiding anything from the reader.

Disclaimers

Using disclaimers and markers also adds to an author's credibility because the author is stating that she is not really sure something took place. For example, the author can write, "I imagine that my mother first felt scared when she came to America," or "I can't remember everything about that day, but here's what I do remember." In this case, the author chooses to acknowledge doubt and continue with her story. However, writers need to be careful to not show too much doubt before their reader, because the reader will not believe the writer as much. For example, if the student cannot remember if her family's car was a Mustang or a Charger, she should pick one of these models and keep this car's name consistent throughout the piece.

Creative nonfiction is a creative hub for ideas large and small. This genre extends from travel writing to profile pieces, personal reflection to genealogy, cultural criticism to new levels of experimentation. Its tradition ranges from the 16th century French essayist Montaigne to the New Journalism of the 1960s with Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe to the recent works of Bill Bryson and Jon Krakauer, with more writers in the field continuing to push this genre's limits. Because limits can be stretched and creative nonfiction can be a forum for writers who belong to traditionally marginalized populations, this genre is a powerful vehicle for those who need to be heard and understood. What this genre doesn't need are writers who fictionalize their lives to gain, while there are writers out there who need readers to accept their real stories (that may sound like fiction) as the truth.