What is creative nonfiction? To use a definition from a creative nonfiction website, it is:

Dramatic, true stories using scenes, dialogue, close, detailed descriptions and other techniques usually employed by poets and fiction writers about important subjects - from politics, to economics, to sports, to the arts and sciences, to racial relations, and family relations.

Essentially, creative nonfiction uses literary skills to tell a true story. This is different from narrative or literary journalism--which uses narrative techniques to report--and from research nonfiction, which is more concerned with presenting accurate research, and not quite as interested in capturing the reader's interest with a story.

Some examples of narrative nonfiction writers: Joan Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and a few recent and controversial books: Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

Having written both fiction and nonfiction, I find that nonfiction is much more difficult for me. True, you skip the challenge of creating characters, a plot, and a narrative arc (plot points that lead to a climax and then a resolution) all on your own. You do, to some extent, have your characters, your plot, your scenes, your back story already in place. Easy right? I wish.

I think writing a book is like having sex with your reader. The narrative constantly needs moments of tension that build intrigue, and ultimately lead towards an exciting climax and a satisfying resolution. In fiction, a writer can manufacture this. Need some witty dialog? Make it up? Suddenly realize that the protagonist needs to have some kind of phobia of skyscrapers? Go for it!

In nonfiction however, we must work with the awkward tools that we have to construct a good story. And those awkward tools come from our memory...not always the most reliable resource. Can anyone ever remember exactly what someone else said even ten minutes ago without taking notes or recording dialog? How then, do we write an honest story without boring the reader? The most honest story would be a listed narrative: Well this happened, I think, and this happened, I'm pretty sure, and then I think she said this, but I could be wrong...

But no, we must write definitively; we must write with bold strokes; we must choose a color for the front door, even if we can't remember it. And then we get into the important issue of honest writing, and this is where James Frey and Augusten Burroughs get us into trouble with their sensationalist memoirs. So, the question is, how do we negotiate being honest with being a good story teller?

More on this soon.