Journal 4: Response to Creative Non-fiction from Bethany

Part of the chapter that stood out to me were the checklists. One question it asks "are the characters believable?" It explains that out characters should be real but also unique. They should have believable goals and emotions. The concept that helped me the most was "telling the truth." The section acknowledges that memories are rarely perfect, but searching through thoughts gives us ideas of what to write about. "Tell the truth," says Laurie Lynn Drummond, "even if it makes you wince." "Ironically, of course, the memories that make us the most uncomfortable are often the very ones that make the best subject matter for out essays."(Page 181). I completely agree with this. When I was trying to find a picture to describe and tell a story, the truth made me feel embarrassed. I thought to myself that I wasn't sure how much I wanted to share. Once I decided to tell a truthful story, I found that it was easy to write. I like the story, even with the truth.

My question is, how can I write myself into nonfiction without talking about myself and my feelings too much? I know my thoughts and feelings more than anyone else's in the scenario, so explaining things from my point seems more reliable.

When reading the "Liferower" I wondered what the story was really about. It starts with her simply working out. But then she switches to talking about her sister having children. Which is why I am free to come here to the Y and row my heart out three times a week." She states this in the third paragraph. She worries about having no one to take care of or take care of her. An aspect I notice she uses is personal connection and personal vulnerability. She tells her fears, her failed marriage and an abortion. It works because it creates the story and gives the reader empathy. She also applied the aspect of research in addition to personal expenditure.

Journal Four Sierra Hedges

Part One: 

 One thing that really made sense to me and stood out was actually early on in the chapter in the section called Telling The Truth. It talks about how in fiction, it's all about making up something good and something not-so-typical. However, non-fiction is more about telling the truth. In fact, when a nonfiction story is written, and the writer did not tell the truth, they can face criticism and may lose all credibility. My question being, how often does something like this happen and when it does happen, are the writer eventually able to bounce back from the bad reputation or is their career ruined? 

In reading about the dialogue that goes into nonfiction, I figured probably more often than not, this is where non-fiction writer would have downfalls. To me, it would be really easy to mix up what the speak may say and then, unless you are paraphrasing, your story is no longer fact because you may have misunderstood what the character said or not remember word-for-word what they said. My question about this is, should writer still be held accountable for being inaccurate if it was a minor mistake such as forgetting exactly what someone said? 

Part Two: 

In the story, The Liferower, the author uses a lot of great techniques that are talked about in this chapter. First off, I think she does a great job of creating a personal connection or quality of personal vulnerability because she talks about how fragile she is and how everyone in her family is very fragile. Right off the bat you get a sense of mortality from her.  

She also uses a few poetic techniques such as the phrases she uses. She finds ways to say things that are more romantic sounding than just "my heart doesn’t work right." For example, the first paragraph describes the little digital rower on the screen and compares it to her pace maker.  

She uses a lot of personal experience to enhance the quality of the story. She talks about a sister who passed away as a baby from her heart problems, and another sister who struggled through childbirth due to her heart issues. She has a father who has plastic stents in his heart that click when he breathes too fast or hard. This all makes the writing a little more real and scary to me.  

Word Count: 397 

Journal 4: Creative Nonfiction Response from Megan

Part 1:  Something that I noticed when reading this chapter was just how similar creative non-fiction is to fiction. An example of this is the 5 Rs of creative nonfiction. The first R,  real life, states "The foundation of good writing emerges from personal experience." While this is supposed to relate to creative nonfiction it relates to fiction as well. With fiction personal experiences can be shown with writing about particular scenes or subjects like writing a character in highschool or university while having a personal history to add to the scene. The second R reflection is used in fiction as well. While fiction might not reflect all of a writer's feelings it should still reflect some so readers get a sense of the author in their works. The third R, research, is important for creative non-fiction and fiction. While a fiction world may make some creatures up if it is using real items, people, or creatures the writer must do research as well to make sure their facts are in order. Reading and riting work for both as well. For fiction reading other's works can help with writing along with learning other styles. While fiction tends to not use real people riting is still important with showing the magic of the moment and characters.

The most important concept I came across from the reading to me was that the readers expect the writing to be the truth. While the piece is to be creative it is still non-fiction so it must be the true which is hard when relaying memories. This concept though is what truely makes a piece creative non-fiction because without the truth it is just another creative piece of fiction.

My question for this chapter is there a way to tell that someone is truely telling the truth in their writing?

Part 2: In the story, News of the Wilds, the author uses the creative fictional technique of flashbacks to tell not only what is happening with him and his daughter in that moment but also show what happened with his father before he passed.

Word count: 344

Journal 4: Creative Nonfiction Response from Paul Winters

PART ONE: An aspect that I really picked up on about the creative nonfiction writing in my active reading was that the non fiction can be reflective and should be factual. I knew the factual aspect of it has to be there, but I didn’t realize how cathartic it could be. For me I wrote about where I used to work, and while it is factual, I didn’t realize how you can blend together your thoughts and feelings together into a more elaborate story than, yeah I worked there.

Real Life- “The foundation of good writing emerges from personal experience.”

While we can make fiction stories all day long, there is nothing more real than the stories that we have lived and it can be powerful to bring them to life in the creative nonfiction way.

Reflection- “Creative nonfiction should reflect a writer’s feelings and responses about a subject”

While writing the creative nonfiction exercise the reflection process of collecting feeling about and idea did come out to be very powerful for me.

Research- “I want to make myself knowledgeable enough to ask intelligent questions. If I can’t display at least a minimal understanding of the subject about which I am writing, I will lose the confidence and the support of the people who must provide access to the experience”

While I didn’t do any research for my piece because it was reflective and from personal experience I was happy to know that the genre of creative nonfiction can go beyond just personal experience and go into things we haven’t experienced yet, all we need to do is be knowledgeable and do our research.

QUESTION: how do people get away with passing things to be based on a true story but dramatizing everything?

PART TWO: In the short creative nonfiction “Joyas Voladoras” the use of research and personal experience is heavily used. While describing the hummingbirds from a research standpoint and also from personal observation. This helped me a lot to realize what can count as a standpoint of creative nonfiction.

WORD COUNT: 341