Creative nonfiction

• Creative Nonfiction:

  • Texts about factual events that are not solely for scholarly purposes
  • Includes memoir, personal essays, feature-length articles in magazines, and narratives in literary journals
• Fiction:

  • Defined as a series of imagined facts illustrating truths about human life
  • Can be short (short story) or long (novella or novel)
• Drama:

  • Uses traditional conventions of fiction but is performed and mounted on stage
  • Generally classified into acts or major divisions
• Comparison and Contrast of Conventions and Devices between Fiction and Drama:

  • All stories must have a point of view
  • Development of plot in both fiction and drama follows a pattern: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution/denouement
• Narrative Devices:

  • Foreshadowing is used as a guide or hint at what will happen in the story
  • Irony is used when words uttered are opposite of their actual meaning
  • Flashback is employed through past events to help understand the present
  • Conflict is present in both fiction and drama, including physical, social, and internal conflicts
  • Deus ex machina was once a noble strategy but is now seen as a sign of weakness
• Setting:

  • The place, time, and circumstances of the story
• Characters:

  • Major and minor characters, round and flat characters, dynamic and static characters, protagonist and antagonist
  • Characters are revealed through physical appearance, names, narrator's description, and other characters' opinions
• Point of View:

  • First person point of view: story told from the viewpoint of a character using "I"
  • Third person point of view: narrator uses third person pronouns like "he", "she", "they"
  • Third person point of view types: omniscient, limited omniscient, objective
• Theme:

  • Central idea or message of the story, insight into the human condition
• Symbolisms:

  • Symbols represent ideas, qualities, or concepts larger than themselves
• Poetry:

  • Language is more intensified, focused, and intricate than prose
  • Categorized into narrative, lyric, and dramatic poems
• Elements and Conventions of Poetry:

  • Imagery, figurative language, sound, persona
• Imagery:

  • Essential representation of an experience or object perceived through the senses
• Figurative Language:

  • Devices like simile, metaphor, personification, and onomatopoeia
• Sound:

  • Poetry is meant to be recited and read aloud, rhyme scheme and meter add to the sound
• Persona:

  • The speaker of the poem, not necessarily the poet, creates a perspective for the poem
• Theme:

  • Central idea, thesis, message, or generalization from a story
• Theme refers to the central idea, thesis, message, or generalization of a story
• Theme is not necessarily the moral or message of the story
• A theme can be stated explicitly or implicitly
• A strong theme enables the reader to see the deeper meaning in a story
• Understanding the difference between "subject" and "theme" is important
• Identifying the purpose of your writing shapes how you develop your theme
• Identifying your audience helps determine appropriate themes and how to present them
• Considering the length of your writing influences the number of themes you can address
• Making an outline of your story can help identify potential themes
• Brainstorming ideas that represent your theme is a helpful exercise
• Character motivations and conflicts can contribute to the emergence of your theme
• Research is important to support your theme in both non-fiction and fiction
• You can have more than one theme, including dominant themes and sub-themes
• Presenting your theme to readers can be done through various facets of your story
• Using narration, description, comparison, contrast, analogy, and symbolism can help weave your theme into your writing