Creative Non-Fiction Paper

Creative non-fiction is a genre of writing which uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. The author’s goal in writing creative non-fiction is to tell us factual information while writing it in a way that reads like fiction. The reason why they write in this style is to make it easier to read and also try to capture the reader’s attention on topics that normally might not interest them. Creative non-fiction is a recently recognized genre that involves writing from personal experience and reporting on other peoples experiences.

Creative non-fiction is almost like a blend between journalism and creative writing. It is much easier for people to read creative writing, so blending the two helps us understand it better. The goal of the writer is to show you the facts and their opinion on a specific topic while making it easy to read. The literary elements that go into writing creative non-fiction are story, narration, place, setting, characterization, literary feel, and polished language. While the non-fiction elements include essay form, explanation, researched facts, and rhetorical patterns.

Creative non-fiction presents useful, interesting facts based on extensive as well as exhaustive research. A lot of research must be conducted in order to be able to write properly for this genre. The writer’s goal is to make the facts come alive through narration and setting or well developed scenes while presenting details that help the reader understand the main point. Facts can be very boring and dull, which is why the writer tries to add some spice to it. It is almost like food. Food can be changed from plain old boring to excellent by just adding some flavor and spice to it.

There is an endless amount of topics that can be used for writing creative non-fiction. The writer can choose to write about almost anything which is what makes it such a fascinating genre. In John McPhee’s “The Curve of Binding Energy”, he chooses to write about nuclear physicist Ted Taylor and nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons and nuclear safeguarding is not a very interesting topic to many people. But the way that McPhee writes it using creative non-fiction makes it a lot more interesting and easy to read. He combines Ted Taylor’s life, nuclear bombs, scientific materials, and creative writing in this book. Without the creative writing, it would be just like a long research paper on nuclear bombs. Blending these topics together turns it into a very good creative non-fiction novel.

I personally didn’t know about creative non-fiction until I read “The Curve of Binding Energy”. I never really heard of the genre nor did I understand it. When I read the book, I realized how much easier it is to read because of the writing style. If it was just a journalistic piece, I probably wouldn’t have been able to read it. It would be too boring and I wouldn’t have any interest in at all. But McPhee does a great job capturing my attention with his use of creative non-fiction.

The genre of creative non-fiction has helped me a lot in writing my college essays and papers. Since I’ve learned this type of writing, I believe I have become a better writer. It helps me combine factual research and my own creative thoughts. I believe that my papers that involve creative non-fiction are better quality and are also easier to read. They aren’t tedious and lackluster like a regular style research paper.

I have also learned that there are a lot more creative non-fiction books than I thought. There are books of this genre that caught my attention and that I plan on reading soon. These books are “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote and “The Last Shot” by Darcy Frey. I have read that these books are really interesting and that they are written very well.