Creative Non-Fiction?

How does one define “Creative Non-Fiction?” It’s easy to define “Creative”, whether as an adjective or a noun. It is also relatively easy to define “Non-Fiction.” However, putting the two together and treating it as a single term is another story. It becomes a little unwieldy and somehow ambiguous. Unfortunately, “Creative Non-Fiction” can’t be defined as “non-fiction with a creative quality to it.” If there’s one thing I learned in my fairly extensive academic career, you can’t define a word (or a term) by simply repeating it. In situations like these, perhaps the best thing to do is trust an authority in the subject (in this case, my professor) and read works that have been labeled as “Creative Non-Fiction” so as to be able to discern a unique definition for it. After sampling Joan Didion’s inspired piece about keeping notes, Sherman Alexie’s anecdotes on his childhood and the struggles of the younger Native American generation, and Jo Ann Beard’s seemingly chaotic but purposeful narrative of being “Out There”, I was able to define “Creative Non-Fiction” as an exercise in retrospective self-contemplation.

I know what you’re thinking. If it could be summed up in one word, it would be “What?” Don’t worry, I am completely aware that I have just defined a complex term with another complex term and for this I apologize. I find that this is the easiest way to define CNF. Perhaps, if I explain my conclusion, it wouldn’t cause as much confusion as I assume it’s causing right now. The word Retrospect comes from the Latin word retrospectare (which actually comes from two Latin words, spectare and retro) which means to “look back.” The three authors definitely did not have similar styles but they did have at least one thing in common, they were “looking back.” The word Contemplate comes from the Latin contemplari which means to “gaze attentively or observe.” I wouldn’t say that Didion, Alexie and Beard gazed attentively at themselves (is that at all possible?) but all three, while “looking back”, certainly observed who they were at the time in regards to what happened to them. Maybe the way I chose to explain all of this makes the authors sound egotistic and what not, but in reality they aren’t. All their “Retrospective Self-Contemplation” actually serves a greater purpose. It helps us, the readers, critics and eventual pupils of such literary pieces to read, understand, and digest the truths that they have written about. However, this definition of CNF is only one of many correct definitions. CNF does not have to be like Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook” or like Alexie’s “Superman and Me,” in fact, it doesn’t even have to be an essay at all. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple but eloquent retelling of your summer’s adventures to a friend or two.