Honoring the Non-Fiction Contract

Fact
The line between

Interpretatio
 - This brings us back to the non-
fiction contract and, in particular, the
line between fact and interpretation.
What do we do as writers when we
really need to know something to
move our story forward and we just
can’t find it?
Because we write nonfiction,
our characters are real
people, we risk causing the
same pain to others.
Why “Creative
Nonfiction”?
 - Until a decade ago, the
term “creative
nonfiction” did not exist,
but narrative historical
writing did. The roots of
creative nonfiction
actually lie in 20 century
th

literary journalism.
 interested in
writing history
from the
perspectives of
“average” people–
people whose not
experiences were
not covered in
books about
- Authors choose creative
nonfiction than fiction
because there is
something powerful
about reality. True stories
teach us something about
what it means to be
humans and what it
means to struggle and
triumph in life.
A Million Little
Pieces
The book tells the
brutal story of his drug
addiction and the people
he met during his time
in a rehab clinic.
- The nonfiction
contract does not
mean the writer
cannot speculate. It
means you must be
honest that that is
what you are doing.
 - You can even
use what you do
not know into a
way to establish
the author as a
character.
The Woman Warrior

- You must not tell anyone, my mother

said, what I am about to tell you. In
China your father had a sister who killed
herself. She jumped into the family well…
She may have gone to the pigsty as a
last act of responsibility… It was probably
a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness
for boys.
 Since this is a work
of nonfiction, the
author had the
option to leave the
story of her aunt
out. But this is a
book about family
secrets and what
they do to us, so
the secret is critical.