Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
Throughout my education I have always considered the genre nonfiction as purely factual with no substance and in other words uninteresting, compared to fiction writing. However, after reading Starkey’s different approach towards this specific style of writing, I can honestly say my point of view has changed for the better. I realized there are many similarities between nonfiction and fiction writing. It has the same components such as dialogue, setting, and character development that all play a huge role in whether the reader stays engaged. On the other hand, the main difference is that the writer has the responsibility and expectation to tell the truth in their story. Keeping in mind, that the truth is very much based on the individual and their experience. This reminded me of the saying that there are two sides to every story and thus it helps ease the pressure of having to get every little detail correct. As Starkey mentions, when writing about ourselves and the past it is not always guaranteed our memory will be accurate. Therefore, it is best to write more about recent events and if it helps explain more with visuals than dialogue. Moreover, I found the beauty of this type of writing to be that it can involve the first-person point of view and further help bring to life your version of the truth. Overall, the purpose is always to capture the reader’s attention and use any and all senses to recreate your experience.
ReplyDelete-Natalia Martinez
Starkey said it perfect that writing a another descriptive or research essay would make me queasy! I have not written a creative nonfiction story before. It is something that I am looking forward too! Two things stood out to me when talking about the book of Robert Root and Michael Steinberg. First, requiring a personal presence in our essays. I feel this can be a great way to express emotions we have kept inside of us and put them into paper. I always feel when reading novels that it is great for the writer to reveal a great deal about themselves. Even if it is in a beginning or ending of a novel. I feel the author always makes a great impression on me when I read his personal presence in the novel. Second, the demand of self-discovery and self-exploration. This is the most important thing I want to do in my writing is discover and explore myself and others work. I feel like I'm trying to find my lane in writing and where are my strengths and weaknesses. I want to explore these emotions and put them into the perfect words. A creative nonfiction story will be a perfect way to reflect on my personal experiences I put into paper.
ReplyDelete-Gilbert Sanchez
When it comes to creative writing the main thing that comes to mind at first is that when writing an essay and or a short story, you’re normally told to stay in certain guidelines because in other words it isn’t accepted when turning it in whenever it is due. This part of the book talks about how creative nonfiction doesn’t have to stay within the lines because it is encouraged to go beyond the lines but still maintaining that sense of realness. Most of the time when you write something you tend to write it in a way that doesn’t excite most people, but when writing creative nonfiction people should show us their interesting side of themselves, and write freely about whatever they choose to. One of the main points of this whole reading can be said that you should write whatever your heart desires and not to worry so much if you will succeed rather than to get experience and better yourself next time around. Creative writing should be writing that you honestly are excited about writing rather than something you don’t think you’ll enjoy spending your time on. I’ve learned that creative writing should be your way of expressing yourself freely without worrying if someone will read it or not because someone at some point will encourage them to read it. I want to work more on writing creatively and find a different more exciting way to put my words down.
ReplyDelete- Yaretzi Diaz
One thing’s for sure, calling this genre “literary nonfiction” sure does make it sound fancier, but everyone mostly knows of it as “creative nonfiction”, which still sounds pretty cool. However, I have never really heard of it as a genre; I actually am barely learning about it in this class. I guess you could say I’m an inexperienced writer, but it’s never too late to learn! I’ve always thought the standard genres were just fiction and nonfiction, yet now that I think about it, it’s way more complex. As in, fiction and nonfiction are just at the “tip of the iceberg” of the standard genre list, while there are far more different types of creative writing genres that are specific, pertaining to what the author wants to write about and how they want to write it. After examining Root and Steinberg’s number of elements common to this genre, I’ve noticed how involved and somewhat technical a writer must be when writing a creative nonfiction. They encourage a writer to “require a personal presence, demand self-discovery and self-exploration, bring artistry to information and actuality to imagination, and to tell us what the author feels” when writing a creative nonfiction. I always thought we (as writers) always had to hide our feelings when writing a nonfictional story, since it is mainly factual and whatnot; but, when writing a creative nonfiction, we are encouraged to get somewhat more involved. I find that pretty interesting and exciting, for it is a new way to write (for me) and a new way to experiment as a growing writer.
ReplyDelete- Jasmine Hinojosa
Creative nonfiction is a style of writing that uses literacy styles and methods that make accurate narratives. This type of writing has been found to be much more enjoyable than the typical five paragraph theme. Creative writing allows us to go from thought to thought instead of being boxed in such as five paragraph writing, and this is something that creative writers find amazing. So how can we distinguish a creative nonfiction? Robert Root and Michael Steinberg state that creative nonfiction requires personal presence, demands self-discovery and self-exploration, insists on veracity and blurs boundaries between genres. Organization plays a major part of creative nonfiction. By this I mean make sure you draw the reader into your essay, make sure the transitions are well marked along with having clear paragraphs and have a strong conclusion. Also, always make sure you are telling the truth. In creative nonfiction this is very important. Something that I found peculiar was that Kim Stafford believed that writers should be “professional eavesdroppers”. By listening to other people’s conversation Kim was moved to write. Kim would get ideas by hearing other people’s conversation and wait to hear a memorable phase because having an amazing phrase will get stuck inside people’s heads. When using creative nonfiction in poetry make characters believable and keep scenes dynamic also be sure to use specific details. When in poetry be specific with your words or diction. Poets write not only for the eye but also for the ear. Hopefully after reading this it will help me become the writer I am trying to become.
ReplyDelete-Noe Ramos
Starkey starts off with showing us the differences with creative non-fiction vs fiction. Throughout my years of high school and college I have never thought that there were any sections for different types of genres for creative writing. Here Starkey is showing us the points of views from different creative writing experts. The elements of creative nonfiction have a form of flexible and exploratory views. It doesn’t have the same monotone boring affects that will put people to sleep. Nonfiction creative writing has to be true. The readers expect the truth from what is being said. Mcclanahan has shown us a taste of “Life Rower”. This is a creative work that is about you working out in a machine, but it leads to more motivation and inspiration in meditation on life or death. The way she structures the essay causes us to be out of our seats, leaving us in suspense not knowing what is coming next. I think that Starkey is trying to show us that requiring a personal presence in our essays helps us set a strong foundation. As we move on, I notice that I have learned a lot about the ethics and edicts that I can use to set my nonfiction creative work into strong qualities. I want to explore more about applying these methods on my future works in order to gain more understanding and have success with creative writing non-fiction.
ReplyDelete-Max Garcia
There are 5 R's in an interesting creative nonfiction piece.
ReplyDelete1- Real Life
2- Reflection
3- Research
4 -Reading
5- "Riting"
Creative Nonfiction doesn't solely base itself on the nonfiction aspect, although it is important. In order for the reader to want to read about the facts, the reader must first be intrigued and kept wanting to read more. Anyone can write a piece of works that's full of facts and research. But as a creative writing author one must "make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed.” And by doing so “it should be something that you truly want to explore rather than something you feel obligated to write.” For a writer to succeed one must demonstrate self-discovery and/or exploration. A writer must be flexible. Another helpful suggestion would be for a writer to blur the lines between genres. Like maybe write a documentary/horror or documentary/drama. That would keep readers interested. Before any writer starts a writing project of creative nonfiction, the writer must think first of keeping their reader interested. They shouldn’t worry too much about the information. Using all these helpful suggestions on this chapter I feel like I can step into unknown territory and consider stepping into a genre I am highly unfamiliar with, nonfiction, in this case, creative nonfiction.
David Starkey explains the steps that one should take in order to become a good creative nonfiction writer. A creative writer will do two things very often one of those things is to quote from other writers and the second is to make lists. Robert Root and Michael Steinberg state that there are several things we as writers need to include in our writing to create an effective short creative nonfiction. We need to have a personal presence, demand self-discovery and self-exploration, allow flexibility of form and take a literacy approach, and insist on veracity, blurs boundaries between genres. There is a connection between fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Starkey states that a writer must keep readers interested before they start giving them facts or statistics. I agree with this because if the reader is not interested in what they are reading they will put the reading down and never pick it up again. When writing creative nonfiction we need to stay organize the content. It will allow freedom and experimentation. Always tell the truth when writing nonfiction, write them as a narrative; true stories are compelling. Include some poetry to make it more vivid and write yourself in the nonfiction. Everyone can have good ideas but the difficult part is putting all the pieces together and making a good outcome. Creative writing allows authors to go from thought to thought instead of following a typical five paragraph structured essay.
ReplyDelete-Maria Ramos
After reading Starkey’s take on what to know of short creative nonfiction, I have a better idea of what creative writers should be consistent of. For instance, going from writing academic papers with no first-person point-of-view, to then being expected to write in “I”, it is quite a change. In creative writing, one should be able to dive into their memory and not only write a “story,” but an “essay”—without the whole intro, thesis, body paragraphs—as one should incline to following a sense of direction. Organization is a big factor as a reader should be able to follow one’s writing without being thrown off from one point to another. Unlike a formal essay that helps the audience stay focused by including a route of direction with its format of paragraphs, creative nonfiction gives writers freedom to write at their own sense of direction. Creative nonfiction has a couple of guidelines as one declaring they are writing non-fiction should be accurate. Ethics is big factor as one should be cautious of what they include—real or not—in their work. Ultimately, one is in control when writing creative nonfiction. It takes quite a lot to get one’s creativity to come to life, but as long as one is enjoying the process of writing and getting the research into their work, the reader will enjoy it too.
ReplyDelete-Karen Lamas
David Starkey tells us that to write a nonfiction narrative, we have to be passionate about a subject instead of feeling obligated to get something done. Personally, I’ve done this before where I don’t have fun writing something because I feel obligated and it squeezes the inspiration out of me. With Starkey’s guide to writing the perfect creative nonfiction narrative, I learned that we should explore and view all sides to the story, the different truths. Starkey gives us a set of examples of nonfiction and how it’s used. What I found interesting during the reading was that he explained how nonfiction writing is similar to journalism and its writing style. I grew up wanting to be a journalist, so to me it was good to learn how they’re connected in someway. Creative nonfiction is about staying connected to your experiences which are your truths through various characters. Starkey mentioned how writer’s tend to overhear conversations or memorable phrases to later include in their story and that caught my attention because I do the same thing, it was interesting that Starkey suggested it. Creative writing is pleasing readers with a good plot and aesthetic imagery, but creative nonfiction is writing your experiences in a way that’ll keep readers interested.
ReplyDelete-Bethzaida Ayala
Ever since I was able to check out books, I never touched nonfiction books because I always found them boring and not interesting at all. Reading this chapter about creative nonfiction made me realize that not all nonfiction stories should be like that. We can find a way to make creative nonfiction much more fun. The thing about most writings is that they can sometimes put the readers to sleep while creative nonfiction can show the readers the more interesting part of what they need to know. You have to think first of keeping the readers interested than to start shoving too much information to them because then they will feel exhausted. When you are going to start to write something you have to make sure that you find it interesting and that you want to explore the topic you chose otherwise you will soon lose interest and try to finish writing just to get it over with. After reading this chapter and reading all the suggestions for creative nonfiction it motivates me to see if I can write something I am interested in. I want to be able to work more on creative writing because as a soon to be teacher I need to show the students an entertaining story with facts and not “put them to sleep”.
ReplyDelete-Melissa Garcia
There are 5 R's in an interesting creative nonfiction piece.
ReplyDelete1- Real Life
2- Reflection
3- Research
4 -Reading
5- "Riting"
Creative Nonfiction doesn't solely base itself on the nonfiction aspect, although it is important. In order for the reader to want to read about the facts, the reader must first be intrigued and kept wanting to read more. Anyone can write a piece of works that's full of facts and research. But as a creative writing author one must "make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed.” And by doing so “it should be something that you truly want to explore rather than something you feel obligated to write.” For a writer to succeed one must demonstrate self-discovery and/or exploration. A writer must be flexible. Another helpful suggestion would be for a writer to blur the lines between genres. Like maybe write a documentary/horror or documentary/drama. That would keep readers interested. Before any writer starts a writing project of creative nonfiction, the writer must think first of keeping their reader interested. They shouldn’t worry too much about the information. Using all these helpful suggestions on this chapter I feel like I can step into unknown territory and consider stepping into a genre I am highly unfamiliar with, nonfiction, in this case, creative nonfiction.
-Miguel Garcia
(Reposting because I forgot to add my name on the first post.)
For my entire time as a self-taught writer, I have exclusively written in a fictional format. So having to come to the realization that nonfictional writing is just as important to learn about in creative writing as fictional story telling was a bit surprising to me. In hindsight, the authors of nonfictional books, autobiography’s, and anything else in between would have to be a creative writer in order to advertise their works to publishers and then for it to be sold to the public. Of course, I have read a few nonfictional books in my life, and yet again, I did not realize at the time how some of them engrossed me into their narratives when all of the media I absorbed were cartoons, video games, and other forms of fictional story telling. The authors of nonfictional pieces, as Starkey states, put in their own personal presence into their works in order to enforce a connection between the viewer and the story. The main reason why I have a deeper connection towards fictional writings is because the author can create an artificial personality that can be appealing towards certain audiences, whereas in nonfictional writings the appeal can be hit or miss. Hopefully in the future I will broaden my horizons to nonfictional works and possibly gain just as deep of a connection to them as I do fictional works of art.
ReplyDelete-Raul Salazar
After reading “Creative Non-Fiction” By David Starkey, I honestly believe that writing non-fiction writings are much more personal than writing a fiction writing. As how Robert Root and Michael Steinberg described, the elements of writing a non-fiction writing do give us a better understanding on how to be able to approach this writing from a much better perspective. I feel as if writing from a non-fiction perspective is much more enjoyable for me considering that I enjoy writing a lot of life writing memoirs myself, I feel as if this reading compliments that very well and gives a fiction writer a much better understanding on how the differences can be set apart from fiction and non-fiction. Writing about personal memoirs, experiences, emotions ect. Are exactly the different ways that non-fiction writing can be identified. The more someone begins to feel comfortable writing both types of writings, it then becomes much easier for visuals and dialogues to be understood among reading and interpreting these types of writings as well. Writing in a non-fiction way can form an essay that could give the reader and writer a sense of realness and connection from maybe an event in their own personal lives or the author’s life. Creative Non-fiction is a great way to be able to explore a way of writing that could be of preference.
ReplyDelete-Ana Silvia Mears
David Starkey's “Creative Non/Fiction” made me want to pick up a pen and write about personal events in my life. One thing I really enjoyed about this part of the book is how it mentions that when you write a creative nonfiction it obviously does have to be true but to a certain extent you can go beyond the truth and maybe exaggerate a bit, because your version of a story and or the truth may not be the same as someone else’s. I’ve never written a creative nonfiction essay before, but after reading this I am excited. I usually write academic papers so I think that writing a creative nonfiction peace would be cool because people get to see a glimpse of you and what your thoughts and life are about. Reading this section really helped me get a better idea of how to go around writing a creative nonfiction. I also think it’s pretty neat that you can write about anything in your life. Happy, sad, traumatic, etc it’s your life and experiences which makes writing a creative nonfiction even more fascinating! This class will definitely help me break out of my writing bubble.
ReplyDelete-Daniela Rios
“When you write creative nonfiction, you need to do a little bit of shouting and wave your arms around. Show us your most interesting self: beguile, intrigue, and charm us.” Creative nonfiction is perceived as many things to different writers, as mention by several in the reading. Something I found that they most had in common was the fact that they for the most part all believed that it should require personal aspects, part of what makes it creative is that you reflect on the feelings about what you’re writing about. I like the way Gutkind describes creative nonfiction by “the 5 R’s”: Real life, Reflection, Research, Reading, and “Riting”. My favorite being the last “Riting” he gives it his own personal touch to the word, he created it and it meant something, “the passion of the moment and the magic of the muse.” That’s what creative writing is about, along with the poetry of it, using onomatopoeia, sound rhythm, diction, using all of these elements to creative something. Before I never gave nonfiction a second look because I had the idea they would just be boring books, that wouldn’t have an life to them and starting this class, I was clearly very wrong.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Rodriguez
Ok so when I came into this class, I knew that there are different styles of writing. I never bothered to look into it but this chapter gave me some information that really interested me. I have always been fascinated by that person at a hang out or your uncle at dinner that just had the ability to deliver a story that was relatable and would keep you interested or make you laugh and make you wish you were there to experience it. This section interested me so much because this section gave me a blueprint to that. Although I know that some people just have a natural talent for storytelling, this chapter cleared up the different aspects that go into building and creating a good story.
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter we read the story of the liferower and the story of the joyas voladoras. What I found so interesting in those two stories was that the topic was similar but the tone was different but I still got the same vibe from both of them. For example, in one story I felt that the reader was presented with the complexity of the heart and in the other, you were presented with the beauty of the heart but in both I felt like the authors were mesmerized by the power of the heart. How the heart can be trained to survive. Apart from the overall topic of the anatomy of the heart being interesting, I also felt it was very relatable since I have a heart condition but so do millions of people. Overall, I enjoy what I read and I am starting to pick up more interest in this genre.
-Alex Rodriguez