examples of creative nonfiction essay

Examples of Creative Nonfiction: What It Is & How to Write It

When most people think of creative writing, they picture fiction books – but there are plenty of examples of creative nonfiction. In fact, creative nonfiction is one of the most interesting genres to read and write. So what is creative nonfiction exactly? 

More and more people are discovering the joy of getting immersed in content based on true life that has all the quality and craft of a well-written novel. If you are interested in writing creative nonfiction, it’s important to understand different examples of creative nonfiction as a genre. 

If you’ve ever gotten lost in memoirs so descriptive that you felt you’d walked in the shoes of those people, those are perfect examples of creative nonfiction – and you understand exactly why this genre is so popular.

But is creative nonfiction a viable form of writing to pursue? What is creative nonfiction best used to convey? And what are some popular creative nonfiction examples?

Today we will discuss all about this genre, including plenty of examples of creative nonfiction books – so you’ll know exactly how to write it. 

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What is Creative Nonfiction?

Creative nonfiction is defined as true events written about with the techniques and style traditionally found in creative writing . We can understand what creative nonfiction is by contrasting it with plain-old nonfiction. 

Think about news or a history textbook, for example. These nonfiction pieces tend to be written in very matter-of-fact, declarative language. While informative, this type of nonfiction often lacks the flair and pleasure that keep people hooked on fictional novels.

Imagine there are two retellings of a true crime story – one in a newspaper and the other in the script for a podcast. Which is more likely to grip you? The dry, factual language, or the evocative, emotionally impactful creative writing?

Podcasts are often great examples of creative nonfiction – but of course, creative nonfiction can be used in books too. In fact, there are many types of creative nonfiction writing. Let’s take a look!

Types of creative nonfiction

Creative nonfiction comes in many different forms and flavors. Just as there are myriad types of creative writing, there are almost as many types of creative nonfiction.

Some of the most popular types include:

Literary nonfiction

Literary nonfiction refers to any form of factual writing that employs the literary elements that are more commonly found in fiction. If you’re writing about a true event (but using elements such as metaphor and theme) you might well be writing literary nonfiction.

Writing a life story doesn’t have to be a dry, chronological depiction of your years on Earth. You can use memoirs to creatively tell about events or ongoing themes in your life.

If you’re unsure of what kind of creative nonfiction to write, why not consider a creative memoir? After all, no one else can tell your life story like you. 

Nature writing

The beauty of the natural world is an ongoing source of creative inspiration for many people, from photographers to documentary makers. But it’s also a great focus for a creative nonfiction writer. Evoking the majesty and wonder of our environment is an endless source of material for creative nonfiction. 

Travel writing

If you’ve ever read a great travel article or book, you’ll almost feel as if you’ve been on the journey yourself. There’s something special about travel writing that conveys not only the literal journey, but the personal journey that takes place.

Writers with a passion for exploring the world should consider travel writing as their form of creative nonfiction. 

For types of writing that leave a lasting impact on the world, look no further than speeches. From a preacher’s sermon, to ‘I have a dream’, speeches move hearts and minds like almost nothing else. The difference between an effective speech and one that falls on deaf ears is little more than the creative skill with which it is written. 

Biographies

Noteworthy figures from history and contemporary times alike are great sources for creative nonfiction. Think about the difference between reading about someone’s life on Wikipedia and reading about it in a critically-acclaimed biography.

Which is the better way of honoring that person’s legacy and achievements? Which is more fun to read? If there’s someone whose life story is one you’d love to tell, creative nonfiction might be the best way to do it. 

So now that you have an idea of what creative nonfiction is, and some different ways you can write it, let’s take a look at some popular examples of creative nonfiction books and speeches.

Examples of Creative Nonfiction

Here are our favorite examples of creative nonfiction:

1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

No list of examples of creative nonfiction would be complete without In Cold Blood . This landmark work of literary nonfiction by Truman Capote helped to establish the literary nonfiction genre in its modern form, and paved the way for the contemporary true crime boom.  

2. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast is undeniably one of the best creative memoirs ever written. It beautifully reflects on Hemingway’s time in Paris – and whisks you away into the cobblestone streets.  

3. World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

If you’re looking for examples of creative nonfiction nature writing, no one does it quite like Aimee Nezhukumatathil. World of Wonders  is a beautiful series of essays that poetically depicts the varied natural landscapes she enjoyed over the years. 

4. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is one of the most beloved travel writers of our time. And A Walk in the Woods is perhaps Bryson in his peak form. This much-loved travel book uses creativity to explore the Appalachian Trail and convey Bryson’s opinions on America in his humorous trademark style.

5. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

 While most of our examples of creative nonfiction are books, we would be remiss not to include at least one speech. The Gettysburg Address is one of the most impactful speeches in American history, and an inspiring example for creative nonfiction writers.

6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Few have a way with words like Maya Angelou. Her triumphant book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , shows the power of literature to transcend one’s circumstances at any time. It is one of the best examples of creative nonfiction that truly sucks you in.

7. Hiroshima by John Hershey

Hiroshima is a powerful retelling of the events during (and following) the infamous atomic bomb. This journalistic masterpiece is told through the memories of survivors – and will stay with you long after you’ve finished the final page.

8. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you haven’t read the book, you’ve probably seen the film. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of the most popular travel memoirs in history. This romp of creative nonfiction teaches us how to truly unmake and rebuild ourselves through the lens of travel.

9. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Never has language learning brought tears of laughter like Me Talk Pretty One Day . David Sedaris comically divulges his (often failed) attempts to learn French with a decidedly sadistic teacher, and all the other mishaps he encounters in his fated move from New York to Paris.

10. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Many of us had complicated childhoods, but few of us experienced the hardships of Jeannette Walls. In The Glass Castle , she gives us a transparent look at the betrayals and torments of her youth and how she overcame them with grace – weaving her trauma until it reads like a whimsical fairytale.

Now that you’ve seen plenty of creative nonfiction examples, it’s time to learn how to write your own creative nonfiction masterpiece.

Tips for Writing Creative Nonfiction

Writing creative nonfiction has a lot in common with other types of writing. (You won’t be reinventing the wheel here.) The better you are at writing in general, the easier you’ll find your creative nonfiction project. But there are some nuances to be aware of.

Writing a successful creative nonfiction piece requires you to:

Choose a form

Before you commit to a creative nonfiction project, get clear on exactly what it is you want to write. That way, you can get familiar with the conventions of the style of writing and draw inspiration from some of its classics.

Try and find a balance between a type of creative nonfiction you find personally appealing and one you have the skill set to be effective at. 

Gather the facts

Like all forms of nonfiction, your creative project will require a great deal of research and preparation. If you’re writing about an event, try and gather as many sources of information as possible – so you can imbue your writing with a rich level of detail.

If it’s a piece about your life, jot down personal recollections and gather photos from your past. 

Plan your writing

Unlike a fictional novel, which tends to follow a fairly well-established structure, works of creative nonfiction have a less clear shape. To avoid the risk of meandering or getting weighed down by less significant sections, structure your project ahead of writing it.

You can either apply the classic fiction structures to a nonfictional event or take inspiration from the pacing of other examples of creative nonfiction you admire. 

You may also want to come up with a working title to inspire your writing. Using a free book title generator is a quick and easy way to do this and move on to the actual writing of your book.

Draft in your intended style

Unless you have a track record of writing creative nonfiction, the first time doing so can feel a little uncomfortable. You might second-guess your writing more than you usually would due to the novelty of applying creative techniques to real events. Because of this, it’s essential to get your first draft down as quickly as possible.

Rewrite and refine

After you finish your first draft, only then should you read back through it and critique your work. Perhaps you haven’t used enough source material. Or maybe you’ve overdone a certain creative technique. Whatever you happen to notice, take as long as you need to refine and rework it until your writing feels just right.

Ready to Wow the World With Your Story?

You know have the knowledge and inspiring examples of creative nonfiction you need to write a successful work in this genre. Whether you choose to write a riveting travel book, a tear-jerking memoir, or a biography that makes readers laugh out loud, creative nonfiction will give you the power to convey true events like never before.  

Who knows? Maybe your book will be on the next list of top creative nonfiction examples!

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25 Great Nonfiction Essays You Can Read Online for Free

Alison Doherty

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

View All posts by Alison Doherty

I love reading books of nonfiction essays and memoirs , but sometimes have a hard time committing to a whole book. This is especially true if I don’t know the author. But reading nonfiction essays online is a quick way to learn which authors you like. Also, reading nonfiction essays can help you learn more about different topics and experiences.

Besides essays on Book Riot,  I love looking for essays on The New Yorker , The Atlantic , The Rumpus , and Electric Literature . But there are great nonfiction essays available for free all over the Internet. From contemporary to classic writers and personal essays to researched ones—here are 25 of my favorite nonfiction essays you can read today.

“Beware of Feminist Lite” by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The author of We Should All Be Feminists  writes a short essay explaining the danger of believing men and woman are equal only under certain conditions.

“It’s Silly to Be Frightened of Being Dead” by Diana Athill

A 96-year-old woman discusses her shifting attitude towards death from her childhood in the 1920s when death was a taboo subject, to World War 2 until the present day.

“Letter from a Region in my Mind” by James Baldwin

There are many moving and important essays by James Baldwin . This one uses the lens of religion to explore the Black American experience and sexuality. Baldwin describes his move from being a teenage preacher to not believing in god. Then he recounts his meeting with the prominent Nation of Islam member Elijah Muhammad.

“Relations” by Eula Biss

Biss uses the story of a white woman giving birth to a Black baby that was mistakenly implanted during a fertility treatment to explore racial identities and segregation in society as a whole and in her own interracial family.

“Friday Night Lights” by Buzz Bissinger

A comprehensive deep dive into the world of high school football in a small West Texas town.

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates examines the lingering and continuing affects of slavery on  American society and makes a compelling case for the descendants of slaves being offered reparations from the government.

“Why I Write” by Joan Didion

This is one of the most iconic nonfiction essays about writing. Didion describes the reasons she became a writer, her process, and her journey to doing what she loves professionally.

“Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Roger Ebert

With knowledge of his own death, the famous film critic ponders questions of mortality while also giving readers a pep talk for how to embrace life fully.

“My Mother’s Tongue” by Zavi Kang Engles

In this personal essay, Engles celebrates the close relationship she had with her mother and laments losing her Korean fluency.

“My Life as an Heiress” by Nora Ephron

As she’s writing an important script, Ephron imagines her life as a newly wealthy woman when she finds out an uncle left her an inheritance. But she doesn’t know exactly what that inheritance is.

“My FatheR Spent 30 Years in Prison. Now He’s Out.” by Ashley C. Ford

Ford describes the experience of getting to know her father after he’s been in prison for almost all of her life. Bridging the distance in their knowledge of technology becomes a significant—and at times humorous—step in rebuilding their relationship.

“Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay

There’s a reason Gay named her bestselling essay collection after this story. It’s a witty, sharp, and relatable look at what it means to call yourself a feminist.

“The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison

Jamison discusses her job as a medical actor helping to train medical students to improve their empathy and uses this frame to tell the story of one winter in college when she had an abortion and heart surgery.

“What I Learned from a Fitting Room Disaster About Clothes and Life” by Scaachi Koul

One woman describes her history with difficult fitting room experiences culminating in one catastrophe that will change the way she hopes to identify herself through clothes.

“Breasts: the Odd Couple” by Una LaMarche

LaMarche examines her changing feelings about her own differently sized breasts.

“How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story” by Donna Minkowitz

A journalist looks back at her own biased reporting on a news story about the sexual assault and murder of a trans man in 1993. Minkowitz examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have changed since she reported the story, along with how her own lesbian identity influenced her opinions about the crime.

“Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell

In this famous essay, Orwell bemoans how politics have corrupted the English language by making it more vague, confusing, and boring.

“Letting Go” by David Sedaris

The famously funny personal essay author , writes about a distinctly unfunny topic of tobacco addiction and his own journey as a smoker. It is (predictably) hilarious.

“Joy” by Zadie Smith

Smith explores the difference between pleasure and joy by closely examining moments of both, including eating a delicious egg sandwich, taking drugs at a concert, and falling in love.

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan

Tan tells the story of how her mother’s way of speaking English as an immigrant from China changed the way people viewed her intelligence.

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace

The prolific nonfiction essay and fiction writer  travels to the Maine Lobster Festival to write a piece for Gourmet Magazine. With his signature footnotes, Wallace turns this experience into a deep exploration on what constitutes consciousness.

“I Am Not Pocahontas” by Elissa Washuta

Washuta looks at her own contemporary Native American identity through the lens of stereotypical depictions from 1990s films.

“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White

E.B. White didn’t just write books like Charlotte’s Web and The Elements of Style . He also was a brilliant essayist. This nature essay explores the theme of fatherhood against the backdrop of a lake within the forests of Maine.

“Pell-Mell” by Tom Wolfe

The inventor of “new journalism” writes about the creation of an American idea by telling the story of Thomas Jefferson snubbing a European Ambassador.

“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf

In this nonfiction essay, Wolf describes a moth dying on her window pane. She uses the story as a way to ruminate on the lager theme of the meaning of life and death.

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Last updated on Feb 20, 2023

Creative Nonfiction: How to Spin Facts into Narrative Gold

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Savannah Cordova

Savannah is a senior editor with Reedsy and a published writer whose work has appeared on Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. Her short fiction has appeared in the Owl Canyon Press anthology, "No Bars and a Dead Battery". 

About Rebecca van Laer

Rebecca van Laer is a writer, editor, and the author of two books, including the novella How to Adjust to the Dark. Her work has been featured in literary magazines such as AGNI, Breadcrumbs, and TriQuarterly.

Creative nonfiction is a genre of creative writing that approaches factual information in a literary way. This type of writing applies techniques drawn from literary fiction and poetry to material that might be at home in a magazine or textbook, combining the craftsmanship of a novel with the rigor of journalism. 

Here are some popular examples of creative nonfiction:

• The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
• Intimations by Zadie Smith
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Creative nonfiction is not limited to novel-length writing, of course. Popular radio shows and podcasts like WBEZ’s This American Life or Sarah Koenig’s Serial also explore audio essays and documentary with a narrative approach, while personal essays like Nora Ephron’s A Few Words About Breasts and Mariama Lockington’s What A Black Woman Wishes Her Adoptive White Parents Knew also present fact with fiction-esque flair.

Writing short personal essays can be a great entry point to writing creative nonfiction. Think about a topic you would like to explore, perhaps borrowing from your own life, or a universal experience. Journal freely for five to ten minutes about the subject, and see what direction your creativity takes you in. These kinds of exercises will help you begin to approach reality in a more free flowing, literary way — a muscle you can use to build up to longer pieces of creative nonfiction.

If you think you’d like to bring your writerly prowess to nonfiction, here are our top tips for creating compelling creative nonfiction that’s as readable as a novel, but as illuminating as a scholarly article.

Write a memoir focused on a singular experience

Humans love reading about other people’s lives — like first-person memoirs, which allow you to get inside another person’s mind and learn from their wisdom. Unlike autobiographies, memoirs can focus on a single experience or theme instead of chronicling the writers’ life from birth onward.

For that reason, memoirs tend to focus on one core theme and—at least the best ones—present a clear narrative arc, like you would expect from a novel. This can be achieved by selecting a singular story from your life; a formative experience, or period of time, which is self-contained and can be marked by a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

When writing a memoir, you may also choose to share your experience in parallel with further research on this theme. By performing secondary research, you’re able to bring added weight to your anecdotal evidence, and demonstrate the ways your own experience is reflective (or perhaps unique from) the wider whole.

Example: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking , for example, interweaves the author’s experience of widowhood with sociological research on grief. Chronicling the year after her husband’s unexpected death, and the simultaneous health struggles of their daughter, The Year of Magical Thinking is a poignant personal story, layered with universal insight into what it means to lose someone you love. The result is the definitive exploration of bereavement — and a stellar example of creative nonfiction done well.

📚 Looking for more reading recommendations? Check out our list of the best memoirs of the last century .

Tip: What you cut out is just as important as what you keep

When writing a memoir that is focused around a singular theme, it’s important to be selective in what to include, and what to leave out. While broader details of your life may be helpful to provide context, remember to resist the impulse to include too much non-pertinent backstory. By only including what is most relevant, you are able to provide a more focused reader experience, and won’t leave readers guessing what the significance of certain non-essential anecdotes will be.

💡 For more memoir-planning tips, head over to our post on outlining memoirs .

Of course, writing a memoir isn’t the only form of creative nonfiction that lets you tap into your personal life — especially if there’s something more explicit you want to say about the world at large… which brings us onto our next section.

Pen a personal essay that has something bigger to say

Personal essays condense the first-person focus and intimacy of a memoir into a tighter package — tunneling down into a specific aspect of a theme or narrative strand within the author’s personal experience.

Often involving some element of journalistic research, personal essays can provide examples or relevant information that comes from outside the writer’s own experience. This can take the form of other people’s voices quoted in the essay, or facts and stats. By combining lived experiences with external material, personal essay writers can reach toward a bigger message, telling readers something about human behavior or society instead of just letting them know the writer better.

Example: The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison's widely acclaimed collection The Empathy Exams  tackles big questions (Why is pain so often performed? Can empathy be “bad”?) by grounding them in the personal. While Jamison draws from her own experiences, both as a medical actor who was paid to imitate pain, and as a sufferer of her own ailments, she also reaches broader points about the world we live in within each of her essays.

Whether she’s talking about the justice system or reality TV, Jamison writes with both vulnerability and poise, using her lived experience as a jumping-off point for exploring the nature of empathy itself.

Tip: Try to show change in how you feel about something

Including external perspectives, as we’ve just discussed above, will help shape your essay, making it meaningful to other people and giving your narrative an arc. 

Ultimately, you may be writing about yourself, but readers can read what they want into it. In a personal narrative, they’re looking for interesting insights or realizations they can apply to their own understanding of their lives or the world — so don’t lose sight of that. As the subject of the essay, you are not so much the topic as the vehicle for furthering a conversation.

Often, there are three clear stages in an essay:

• Initial state 
• Encounter with something external
• New, changed state, and conclusions

By bringing readers through this journey with you, you can guide them to new outlooks and demonstrate how your story is still relevant to them.

Had enough of writing about your own life? Let’s look at a form of creative nonfiction that allows you to get outside of yourself.

Tell a factual story as though it were a novel

The form of creative nonfiction that is perhaps closest to conventional nonfiction is literary journalism. Here, the stories are all fact, but they are presented with a creative flourish. While the stories being told might comfortably inhabit a newspaper or history book, they are presented with a sense of literary significance, and writers can make use of literary techniques and character-driven storytelling.

Unlike news reporters, literary journalists can make room for their own perspectives: immersing themselves in the very action they recount. Think of them as both characters and narrators — but every word they write is true. 

If you think literary journalism is up your street, think about the kinds of stories that capture your imagination the most, and what those stories have in common. Are they, at their core, character studies? Parables? An invitation to a new subculture you have never before experienced? Whatever piques your interest, immerse yourself.

Example: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

If you’re looking for an example of literary journalism that tells a great story, look no further than Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World , which sits at the intersection of food writing and popular science. Though it purports to offer a “plant’s-eye view of the world,” it’s as much about human desires as it is about the natural world.

Through the history of four different plants and human’s efforts to cultivate them, Pollan uses first-hand research as well as archival facts to explore how we attempt to domesticate nature for our own pleasure, and how these efforts can even have devastating consequences. Pollan is himself a character in the story, and makes what could be a remarkably dry topic accessible and engaging in the process.

Tip: Don’t pretend that you’re perfectly objective

You may have more room for your own perspective within literary journalism, but with this power comes great responsibility. Your responsibilities toward the reader remain the same as that of a journalist: you must, whenever possible, acknowledge your own biases or conflicts of interest, as well as any limitations on your research. 

Thankfully, the fact that literary journalism often involves a certain amount of immersion in the narrative — that is, the writer acknowledges their involvement in the process — you can touch on any potential biases explicitly, and make it clear that the story you’re telling, while true to what you experienced, is grounded in your own personal perspective.

Approach a famous name with a unique approach 

Biographies are the chronicle of a human life, from birth to the present or, sometimes, their demise. Often, fact is stranger than fiction, and there is no shortage of fascinating figures from history to discover. As such, a biographical approach to creative nonfiction will leave you spoilt for choice in terms of subject matter.

Because they’re not written by the subjects themselves (as memoirs are), biographical nonfiction requires careful research. If you plan to write one, do everything in your power to verify historical facts, and interview the subject’s family, friends, and acquaintances when possible. Despite the necessity for candor, you’re still welcome to approach biography in a literary way — a great creative biography is both truthful and beautifully written.

Example: American Prometheus  by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Alongside the need for you to present the truth is a duty to interpret that evidence with imagination, and present it in the form of a story. Demonstrating a novelist’s skill for plot and characterization, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus is a great example of creative nonfiction that develops a character right in front of the readers’ eyes .

American Prometheus follows J. Robert Oppenheimer from his bashful childhood to his role as the father of the atomic bomb, all the way to his later attempts to reckon with his violent legacy.

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The biography tells a story that would fit comfortably in the pages of a tragic novel, but is grounded in historical research. Clocking in at a hefty 721 pages, American Prometheus distills an enormous volume of archival material, including letters, FBI files, and interviews into a remarkably readable volume. 

📚 For more examples of world-widening, eye-opening biographies, check out our list of the 30 best biographies of all time.

Tip: The good stuff lies in the mundane details

Biographers are expected to undertake academic-grade research before they put pen to paper. You will, of course, read any existing biographies on the person you’re writing about, and visit any archives containing relevant material. If you’re lucky, there’ll be people you can interview who knew your subject personally — but even if there aren’t, what’s going to make your biography stand out is paying attention to details, even if they seem mundane at first.

Of course, no one cares which brand of slippers a former US President wore — gossip is not what we’re talking about. But if you discover that they took a long, silent walk every single morning, that’s a granular detail you could include to give your readers a sense of the weight they carried every day. These smaller details add up to a realistic portrait of a living, breathing human being.

But creative nonfiction isn’t just writing about yourself or other people. Writing about art is also an art, as we’ll see below.

Put your favorite writers through the wringer with literary criticism

Literary criticism is often associated with dull, jargon-laden college dissertations — but it can be a wonderfully rewarding form that blurs the lines between academia and literature itself. When tackled by a deft writer, a literary critique can be just as engrossing as the books it analyzes.

Many of the sharpest literary critics are also poets, poetry editors , novelists, or short story writers, with first-hand awareness of literary techniques and the ability to express their insights with elegance and flair. Though literary criticism sounds highly theoretical, it can be profoundly intimate: you’re invited to share in someone’s experience as a reader or writer — just about the most private experience there is.

Example: The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Take The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, a seminal work approaching Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. Written as a conversation between two friends and academics, this brilliant book reads like an intellectual brainstorming session in a casual dining venue. Highly original, accessible, and not suffering from the morose gravitas academia is often associated with, this text is a fantastic example of creative nonfiction.

Tip: Remember to make your critiques creative

Literary criticism may be a serious undertaking, but unless you’re trying to pitch an academic journal, you’ll need to be mindful of academic jargon and convoluted sentence structure. Don’t forget that the point of popular literary criticism is to make ideas accessible to readers who aren’t necessarily academics, introducing them to new ways of looking at anything they read. 

If you’re not feeling confident, a professional nonfiction editor could help you confirm you’ve hit the right stylistic balance .

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Is creative nonfiction looking a little bit clearer now? You can try your hand at the genre , or head to the next post in this guide and discover online classes where you can hone your skills at creative writing.

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49 Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction

Dr. Karen Palmer

Introduction to Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction has existed for as long as poetry, fiction, and drama have, but only in the last forty years or so has the term become common as a label for creative, factual prose. The length is not  a factor in characterizing this genre: Such prose can take the form of an essay or a book. For this chapter’s discussion, we will focus on the essay , since not only will this shorter version of the form allow us to examine multiple examples for a better understanding of the genre, but also, you may have written creative nonfiction essays yourself. Looking carefully at the strategies exhibited by some successful essay writers will give us new ideas for achieving goals in our own writing.

Currently, creative non-fiction is the most popular literary genre. While generations past defined literature as poetry, drama, and fiction, creative nonfiction has increasingly gained popularity and recognition in the literary world.

Creative nonfiction stories depict real-life events, places, people, and experiences, but do so in a way that is immersive, so readers feel emotionally invested in the writing in a way they probably are not as invested in, say, a textbook or a more formal autobiography. While “nonfiction” (without the creative designation) tells true stories as well, there is less emphasis upon and space for creativity. If regular nonfiction were a person, it might say “just the facts, ma’am.” Creative nonfiction, on the other hand, might ask “and what color were her eyes as the moonlight reflected off the ocean into them, and what childhood memories did that moment dredge up?”

The best creative nonfiction tells a true story in an artistic — or literary — way. This means that the story has certain elements, such as descriptive imagery, setting, plot, conflict, characters, metaphors, and other literary devices. Usually, a work of creative nonfiction is narrated in first-person, though sometimes it can be written in third-person. It can be lyric and personal or representing important moments in history. They also might be more objective and scholarly, like many pieces of investigative journalism.

Key Takeaways

Creative Nonfiction Characteristics

• True stories
• Prose (usually, though sometimes poetry)
• Uses literary devices/is more creative and artistically-oriented than “regular” nonfiction
• Often told in first person
• The narrator is often the author or a persona of the author, but not always

When reading a work of creative nonfiction, it is important to remember the story is true. This means the author does not have as much artistic freedom as a fiction writer or poet might, because they cannot invent events which did not happen. It is worthwhile, then, to pay attention to the literary devices and other artistic choices the narrator makes. Readers should consider: what choices were made here about what to include and what to omit? Are there repeating images or themes? How might the historical context influence this work?

First, let’s do what we can to more clearly define the creative nonfiction essay. What is the difference between this kind of essay and an academic essay? Although written in prose form ( prose is writing not visually broken into distinct lines as poetry is), the creative nonfiction essay often strives for a poetic effect , employing a kind of compressed, distilled language so that most words carry more meaning than their simple denotation (or literal meaning). Generally, this kind of essay is not heavy with researched information or formal argument; its priority, instead, is to generate a powerful emotional and aesthetic effect ( aesthetic referring to artistic and/or beautiful qualities).

In this video, Evan Puschak discusses the evolution of the essay with the advent of technology and gives some really interesting insight into the importance of essays.

How YouTube Changed The Essay | Evan Puschak | TEDxLafayetteCollege

Four Types of Essay

A narrative essay recounts a sequence of related events.  Narrative essays are usually autobiographical. Events are chosen because they suggest or illustrate some universal truth or insight about life. In other words, the author has discovered in his/her own experiences evidence for generalizations about themselves or society.

Argumentative/Persuasive:

An argumentative essay strives to persuade readers. It usually deals with controversial ideas, creating arguments and gathering evidence to support a particular point of view. The author anticipates and answers opposing arguments in order to persuade the reader to adopt the author’s perspective.

In this video, the instructor gives an overview of the narrative and argumentative essays from the writer’s perspective. Looking at the essay from the author’s perspective can provide an interesting insight into reading an essay.

Descriptive:

A descriptive essay depicts sensory observations in words. They evoke reader’s imagination and address complex issues by appealing to the senses instead of the intellect. While a narrative essay will certainly employ description, the primary difference between the two is that a descriptive essay focuses only on appealing to the senses, whereas a narrative essay uses description to tell a story.

Expository:

An expository essay attempt to explain a topic, making it clear to readers. In an expository essay, the author organizes and provides information. Examples of this type of essay include the definition essay and the process analysis (how-to).

In this videos, the instructor gives an overview of the descriptive and expository essays from the writer’s perspective. Looking at the essay from the author’s perspective can provide an interesting insight into reading an essay.

Choosing a Topic & Reading the Essay: Steps 1 & 2

Your first step in writing a paper about an essay is to choose an essay and read it carefully. Essays confront readers directly with an idea, a problem, an illuminating experience, an important definition, or some flaw/virtue in the social system. Usually short, an essay embodies the writer’s personal viewpoint and speaks with the voice of a real person about the real word. Essays might also explore & clarify ideas by arguing for or against a position.

When reading an essay, ask yourself, “what is the central argument or idea?” Does the essay attack or justify something, or remind readers of something about their inner lives?

In this video, I do a close reading of the essay “ The Grapes of Mrs. Wrath .” As in any type of literature, you want to read first for enjoyment and understanding. Then, go back and do a close reading with a pen in hand, jotting down notes and looking for the ways in which the author gets his/her point across to the reader.

Virginia Woolf’s 1942 “The Death of the Moth” is an illuminating example of an argumentative essay. While the essay does not present a stated argument and proceed to offer evidence in the same way conventional academic argument would, it does strive to persuade . Consider this piece carefully and see if you can detect the theme that Woolf is developing.

“The Death of the Moth”

Here are some important items to consider when reading an essay.

1. The Thesis:

What is the point of the piece of writing? This should be your central concern. Once you know what the author’s main idea is, you can look at what techniques the author uses to get that point across successfully.

The title of Woolf’s essay, “The Death of the Moth,” offers us, from the start, the knowledge of the work’s theme of death. What impression does the essay, as a whole, convey? The writer acknowledges that watching even such a small creature as the moth struggle against death, she sympathizes with the moth and not with the “power of such magnitude” that carries on outside the window—that of time and inevitable change, for this power is ultimately her own “enemy” as well. In her last line, “O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am,” what lesson has she internalized regarding herself , a human being who at first observed the autumn day with no immediate sense of her own mortality?

2. Structure & detail:

• opening lines capture attention
• endings offer forceful assertions that focus the matter preceding them
• body converts abstract ideas into concrete details

While this piece is not a poem, what aspects of it are poetic ? Consider the imagery employed to suggest the season of death, for all of nature. The writer describes her experience sitting at her desk next to the window, observing the signs of autumn: the plow “scoring the field” where the crop (or “share”) has already been harvested. Although the scene begins in morning—characterized by energetic exertions of nature, including the rooks, rising and settling into the trees again and again with a great deal of noise, “as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience”—the day shifts, as the essay progresses, to afternoon, the birds having left the trees of this field for some other place. Like the moth, the day and the year are waning. The energy that each began with is now diminishing, as is the case for all living things.

The writer is impressed with the moth’s valiant struggle against its impending death because she is also aware of its inevitable doom: “[T] here was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him.” As is common in poetry, Woolf’s diction not only suggests her attitude toward the subject, but also exhibits a lyrical quality that enhances the work’s  effect: She introduces words whose meanings are associated with youth and energy, as well as sounding strong with the “vigorous” consonants of “g,” “c,” “z,” and “t”—words such as “vigour,” “clamour,” and “zest.” Yet, the author counters this positive tone with other words that suggest, both in meaning and in their softer sounds, the vulnerability of living things: “thin,” “frail,” “diminutive,” and “futile.” In a third category of diction, with words of compliment—”extraordinary” and “uncomplainingly”—

Woolf acknowledges the moth’s admirable fight. In addition to indicating the moth’s heroism, the very length of these words seems to model the moth’s attempts to drag out its last moments of life.

3. Style and Tone

• Style: writing skills that contribute to the effect of any piece of literature
• Tone: attitude conveyed by the language a writer chooses

Woolf’s choice of tone for an essay on this topic is, perhaps, what distinguishes it from the many other literary works on the subject. The attitude is not one of tragedy, horror, or indignation, as we might expect. Rather, through imagery and diction, Woolf generates a tone of wistfulness . By carefully crafting the reader’s experience of the moth’s death, through the author’s own first person point of view, she reminds us of our own human struggle against death, which is both heroic and inevitable.

Step 2: Personal Response

For Further Reading

Believe it or not, people actually add essays to their reading lists! Here are a few folks talking about their favorite essay collections. 🙂

https://youtu.be/ta68Bj7n0o4

Attributions

• Content created by Dr. Karen Palmer. Licensed under CC BY NC SA .
• Content adapted from “Creative Nonfiction, the 4th Genre” from Writing and Literature , licensed under CC BY SA .
• Content adapted from “ What is Creative Non-Fiction ” licensed CC BY NC .

The Worry Free Writer Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Karen Palmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Examples of Creative Nonfiction for the Slightly Confused

If the term “creative nonfiction” gives you pause, I get it. Creativity doesn’t always feel appropriate in every context.

For example, the day before writing this, I was in a dental chair having my gums treated. As the hygienist blasted the only mouth I have with actual lasers, she mused that she considered her profession a “creative” one. I was very interested to learn how creative she was planning to get in the present context.

Turns out, she just meant she actively looked for ways to do her job more effectively—to innovate and problem-solve rather than committing fully to old routines.

You could look at creative nonfiction the same way. It’s the same job as regular nonfiction; the whole point is to tell the truth. But with creative nonfiction, you give yourself more license to play with the delivery of truth… to discover more effective ways to communicate your personal experiences or our shared reality.

If you could use an example of creative nonfiction to clarify the concept, don’t worry. You’ve got a bunch coming your way. You’ll also get a complete breakdown of how this literary art form blends truth-telling with creative writing, why it’s so impactful, and how to master it yourself.

As we so often do here in DabbleU , we’ll start with a definition.  

What is Creative Nonfiction?

All nonfiction is inherently creative. I want to clarify that first and foremost. I mean, think of a technical writer who has to turn a complex concept into a clear and accessible explanation. It takes a ton of creativity to pull that off.

So creative nonfiction isn’t different from standard nonfiction because it takes creativity. It’s different because it incorporates elements of creative writing while still remaining in the world of nonfiction.

More specifically, creative nonfiction turns to literary devices , elements of poetry, and storytelling techniques to communicate the truth in an insightful and emotionally resonant way.

This subgenre of nonfiction is also unique in that the author’s point of view is a defining feature of the work. If you read a news article or textbook, you’ll (hopefully) see that the author has left their perspective out of it. With creative nonfiction, it’s the opposite.

So What Counts as Creative Nonfiction?

There’s an extremely high chance you’ve already read some creative nonfiction. You’ve definitely read at least a few pieces if you completed your high school literature assignments.

Here are a few subgenres where creative nonfiction reins:

Memoir - A memoir is a long work of literary nonfiction in which the author shares their personal experience with a specific event, theme, or topic. 

Personal essay - This is like a memoir, but essay length, if you can believe it. Throw in enough figurative language and literary devices, and you can take it one step further to the realm of lyric essay .

Travel writing - When we talk about creative nonfiction in the area of travel writing, we’re often talking about works that overlap with memoirs, like Eat Pray Love , or personal essays, like just about anything by Pico Iyer.

Nature writing - Here the author shares their real experiences or thoughts on the natural world, whether it’s a travel adventure or deep thoughts about delicate ecosystems.

Speeches - The vast majority of speeches exist to inspire, persuade, or connect. It’s hard to pull that off with cold, hard facts alone. So, naturally, any celebrated speechwriter is going to be well-versed in creative writing. They’ll likely use a lot of storytelling strategies, metaphors, and literary devices that create a sense of rhythm.

Literary journalism - Literary journalism is exactly what it sounds like. It reports on real-world events or sociological issues but incorporates literary elements and leaves room for the author’s point of view. Getting the facts exactly right is still crucial in literary journalism.

Autobiography/biography - This is where the lines begin to blur for me personally. In an autobiography , the author tells the story of their own life. Because the book focuses on their own experiences, there’s no getting away from the personal storytelling that is the defining feature of creative nonfiction.

Biographies, though? They’re a written record of someone else’s life. The author might choose to go the creative nonfiction route, but they can also opt to report on the facts without inserting their own reflections or using a lot of descriptive and figurative language.

No matter what subgenre they fit into, all works of creative nonfiction must center on real stories. But unlike traditional journalism or academic writing, they can be brazenly biased. The fact that they’re personal is what makes them so engaging. 

The Artistry of Creative Nonfiction

It might feel a bit mystifying—this idea that you can put a creative spin on something and still call it the truth.

If you’re struggling to make sense of how this works, it might help to explore some of the literary techniques creative nonfiction writers use to bring their true stories to life for their readers. Techniques like:

A Clear Narrative Voice

Your narrative voice is essentially your personality on the page. It’s made up of several style choices, including diction , pacing, sentence structure, and tone (the author’s attitude about the subject).

In works of nonfiction where it’s important to stick to the facts and present an impartial report, the author’s voice is direct and unemotional. It’s not supposed to stand out, because the information is what matters.

Creative nonfiction writers put much more emphasis on voice, as it makes the work feel more personal.

Real People as Characters

Okay, this is something you have to be careful about if you plan to write creative nonfiction. You don’t want to fabricate personality traits or actions just to make a real person more interesting. In fact, you want to be super careful and deliberate in your portrayal of others. I cover this subject more extensively in this article on memoir .

Having said that, creative nonfiction thrives on the same storytelling elements you’d use in fiction. That means fully developing the human beings who populate your work the same way you would a character.

You’re not just reporting on what they do and say. You’re noting mannerisms, the way they move, the way they evolve, if they evolve, and above all, how you perceive them.

Real Places as Setting

If you write fiction, you know the world of the story is key for transporting the reader, creating an atmosphere, and even working in a little symbolism . The same is true in creative nonfiction.

Say you’re writing a newspaper article about a marathon and it starts raining halfway through. As a reporter, you’d probably inform the public of the time that the rain started and interview a runner about how it affected their performance.

As a creative nonfiction writer, you might linger on the rain a bit more—the dark skies and sharp, earthy smell. You might mention the cold droplets that slip under your collar and slide down your spine. You might think about the personal crisis you’re currently going through and feel a kinship with the runners who keep pressing forward even as their feet slip and the sky threatens them.

Setting isn’t just a fact in creative nonfiction. It’s an experience.

Creative Structure

There’s no official structure in creative nonfiction. If you read a personal essay, you’re unlikely to get a thesis statement followed by three supporting paragraphs.

You might get a true story told in a traditional fiction structure like the three-act structure or the Hero’s Journey .

Or you might get something more experimental. Anything can be anything. The author just has to have a reason for the choices they make.

Figurative Language

You’ve likely picked up on this by now, but you see a lot more figurative language in creative fiction than you do in the standard stuff.

Figurative language includes things like metaphors, personification, hyperbole … basically anything that manages to paint a deeper or more vivid picture by using a phrase that’s not literally true.

You don’t see a lot of that in textbooks, because in that context, it’s extremely important that the reader can identify what the concrete facts are without having to interpret the author’s hidden meaning.

For creative nonfiction, however, figurative language is a powerful tool for creating a psychological and emotional impact. 

Incorporating Research

Not all works of creative nonfiction include facts and figures. But some do, weaving broader research with the author’s personal narrative.

This promotes empathy and understanding by exploring wider societal issues in the context of a single human life. It also grounds the author’s personal story in proven facts. Wins all around.

Balancing What’s Interesting With What’s Real

This is one of the toughest aspects of creative nonfiction writing. How do authors make a creative nonfiction piece read like a story or poetry without compromising the truth?

First, all the techniques we just discussed help a lot. You don’t have to lie to paint a vivid word picture , dabble in metaphors, or experiment with storytelling structure.

It also helps to remember that creative nonfiction is a true account of the author’s observations and experiences. They’re not just reporting on what happened, they’re clarifying how they perceived what happened. 

That doesn’t mean you can lie and call it a point of view. But it does mean you’re not limited to only discussing quantifiable facts.

Examples of Creative Nonfiction

As I mentioned before, you’ve most likely read creative nonfiction before, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. But if the stuff we’ve already covered didn’t bring any immediate examples to mind, here are a few famous ones to help drive these ideas home.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”

In one of the most famous American autobiographies, poet Maya Angelou tells the story of her youth. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings offers deeply personal reflections on racial trauma and sexual abuse, and Angelou’s willingness be forthright on these topics has inspired countless authors to find their own voices. 

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

“Turns out this mantis has been my companion for the last twenty minutes, this whole break in my afternoon, edging closer to me, dancing, then scooting closer still. And when I sit back in my chair, the mantis pulls its head over the glass to see me (am I being egocentric?), swaying as it does so.”

In this collection of lyrical personal essays, Ross Gay records daily “delights”—small joys that are made greater by sharing them. Over the course of the collection, he manages to bring tiny moments to life in intricate detail and cut to the heart of greater societal struggles. It’s pretty remarkable stuff.

Up for Debate: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

“At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them—four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.”

Most people categorize In Cold Blood as creative nonfiction, though it might be more accurate to call it a nonfiction novel (yes, that’s a real term) or “faction,” which is a fact-plus-fiction portmanteau that I personally find confusing, considering it’s already a word that means something else entirely. 

Anyway, In Cold Blood tells the true story of the Clutter family murders , with a few bonus fabrications Capote tossed in for kicks. Is it nonfiction creatively told? You bet.

Can you invent entire scenes and still call it creative nonfiction? Depends on who you ask.

Can you call it literary journalism? You absolutely cannot and that’s why this book is infamous.

Techniques for Writing Creative Nonfiction

Feeling like you’re ready to write a little creative nonfiction of your own? 

Whether you’ve got your sights set on a memoir, personal essay, travel writing, or any other creative nonfiction format, the techniques we discussed above will serve you well.

But just to make sure you’re fully prepared, here are a few more tips:  

Do Your Research

It’s possible that your creative nonfiction stories will be so personal you don’t have to do any research . But remember: nonfiction is, by definition, true.

If you can’t remember that street name, find out what it is. Revisit old news clippings to make sure you’re right about what time it was when that plane crashed into your uncle’s cornfield. And if you want to tie your own story into greater societal themes, working with statistics and interviews is a powerful move.

Tell a Story

While you’re aiming for factual writing, you’re not reporting. So think less about conveying information and more about telling a story.

As we know from fiction, a story centers on a compelling character who (probably) goes on a journey of growth . In creative nonfiction, that character is often you , the author. 

The execution may not look the same as it does in a novel. In fact, in a lot of personal essays, the author’s journey of growth or discovery seems to play out in the telling of the story, not the story itself.

I recommend reading whatever form of creative nonfiction you want to write. Like, a lot of it. See if you can pinpoint the journey the narrator takes you on and make a note of how they get the job done.

Have a Clear Voice and Point of View

Want to know what the secret draw of creative nonfiction is?

In this genre, the author doesn’t hide behind the facts… or fiction, for that matter. Instead, the reader gets to experience everything from inside the author’s head. They get to know the writer’s opinions, feelings, and even some personal details that might further explain the narrative perspective.

So let your point of view and distinctive voice shine through. 

Observe and Interpret

Creative nonfiction isn’t interested in information for information’s sake. Even in the realm of literary journalism, when authors sit down to write about real world events, their goal isn’t just to say what happened but to explain what it means .

This is true whether you’re writing about gentrification in your city or composing a lyric essay about your first trip to the beach. So as a creative nonfiction writer, practice keeping your eyes and mind open. Observe the details in the world around you and examine the thoughts or feelings they spark. 

The Legacy of Creative Nonfiction

So who’s idea was this anyway—applying literary techniques to nonfiction and pairing facts with deeply personal analysis?

As is the case with pretty much all literary genres, it’s impossible to pinpoint the moment this writing style was officially born. Many people think of creative nonfiction as a movement that came out of the 1960s when authors like Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson allowed their own voices to shine through in their journalism.

But really, human beings have been finding creative ways to communicate and examine the truth since… forever, probably. 

The big question now is: what role will you play in the future of creative nonfiction? How will you harness literary techniques to unveil truthier truths than mere facts can reveal?

I hope this article has provided some clarity and set you up to explore this world further. And I’ve got just one last tip before you go.

Plan, write, and revise with Dabble . It’s an all-in-one writing tool that was designed for fiction, which—weirdly enough—makes it incredibly helpful for creative nonfiction. 

Use the Plot Grid to track timelines, symbols, your own journey of growth, and more. Store your research in the fully customizable Story Notes and use character profiles to examine the role real-life people play in your narrative.

The best part is, all these notes are one click away as you write and revise your piece.

You can try it out for free for 14 days by following this link . No credit card is required, which means zero risk of accidental charges.

Now get out there and speak your truth.

Abi Wurdeman is the author of Cross-Section of a Human Heart: A Memoir of Early Adulthood, as well as the novella, Holiday Gifts for Insufferable People. She also writes for film and television with her brother and writing partner, Phil Wurdeman. On occasion, Abi pretends to be a poet. One of her poems is (legally) stamped into a sidewalk in Santa Clarita, California. When she’s not writing, Abi is most likely hiking, reading, or texting her mother pictures of her houseplants to ask why they look like that.

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Essays About Creative Non-Fiction: Top 5 Examples and 10 Prompts

Check out our essay examples and writing prompts guide if you’re writing essays about creative non-fiction.

Creative non-fiction is a skilled and artistic way of telling stories based on true accounts, facts, and interviews. It can include essays, long-form articles, or books. Writing creative non-fiction can be very challenging when writing a literary work as it combines in-depth research and authentic, creative storytelling.

This work requires great attention to detail and getting the facts straight while keeping your readers engaged with your imaginative writing style. In short, authors of creative non-fiction enjoy the best — as well as the paramount challenges — of both the journalistic and poetic worlds. 

5 Intriguing Essay Examples

• 1. Whatever You Write, There You Are  by Kristen Martin

2. The 5 Rs Of Creative Nonfiction Story by Lee Gutkind

3. svetlana alexievich’s nobel prize is a huge win for nonfiction writing by katy waldman, 5. legends of the fall by chiqui jabson chua, 1. types of creative non-fiction writing, 2. creative non-fiction writing tips, 3. a personal memoir, 4. a travel guide and experience essay, 5. business writing, 6. a memorable family gathering, 7. the story behind a painting, 8. creative non-fiction works you love, 9. an unforgettable lesson in class, 10. the person who inspires you the most, 1. whatever you write, there you are   by kristen martin.

“Creative nonfiction can take many forms, be it a meandering lyric essay or long-form narrative journalism, and its practitioners don’t always agree on how creative one can be with the truth.”

For the most part, the authors of creative non-fiction have to constantly choose between sharing their personal experiences and the universal. While creative non-fiction seems biased toward the latter, authors surprisingly understand their inner selves more deeply when they embark on an outward journey to explore material facts. Nine creative non-fiction authors share their experiences of this so-called “backdoor memoir” phenomenon.

“What is most important and enjoyable about creative nonfiction is that it not only allows but encourages the writer to become a part of the story or essay being written. The personal involvement creates a special magic that alleviates the suffering and anxiety of the writing experience; it provides many outlets for satisfaction and self-discovery, flexibility and freedom.”

Gutkind lets readers into his 5R techniques of being a creative non-fiction journalist. These Rs are real, reflection, research, reading, and riting. This immersion journalist, whose extensive experience included participating in an open-heart surgery as a wallflower observer, talks about the main elements of creative non-fiction while writing one along the way.

“After conducting hundreds of interviews, she arranges people’s intimate testimonies into a choir of almost impersonal witness; the resulting works have been called “novels-in-voices,” immersions in experience that are governed by a fierce, purposeful intellect.”

The Swedish Academy surprised the world in 2015 as it awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to a creative non-fiction writer, marking a first in half a century since it happened. The move makes a resounding statement in the literary world on the essence of reportorial documentation after years of its unacceptance and criticism as a literary work.

4. Africa’s Cold Rush And The Promise Of Refrigeration by Nicola Twilley

“Over the next four or five hours, as the heat of the day sets in, gradually wilting the cassava leaves and softening the tomatoes, these men will cover hundreds of miles, carrying food from the countryside to sell in markets in the capital, Kigali.”

In this remarkably creative non-fiction, a journalist poignantly and painstakingly chronicles the daily hardships in Rwanda, where men rise before dawn and help bring food to the market in the next town, often just in the nick of time before spoilage. Twilley immerses in Rwanda and its cold chain problem, interviewing scientists, cold economy experts, and policymakers who all work toward making refrigeration happen for the African country. 

“In the foothills of western Kyoto, towering bamboo trees sway in the mild wind, turning the sunlight into a delicate jade. Nearby, temples and villas sit amid fine gardens and, not too far uphill, a town pulsates with living traditions from ancient Japan.”

This article is an enjoyable descriptive non-fiction piece, giving us a Kyoto tour in early fall and autumn. We follow the author on her commute through an urban neighborhood, up to the mountain, and into one temple after another. With the author’s vivid imagination and ingenuity for words, the readers are led on to a journey in Japan as though they are experiencing firsthand the stillness of Kyoto’s green trails and the serene beauty of its mountainous landscape. 

10 Great Writing Prompts on Essays About Creative Non-fiction

List down the many types of creative non-fiction and explain how they simultaneously promote the presentation of facts and creative storytelling. Like this guide, you may also find your best picks for each type of creative non-fiction. 

Taking tips from some of the essay examples above, determine the common denominators in the authors’ techniques in producing creative non-fictional works. Then, explain how these techniques helped the authors achieve their desired effects.

If you were to write your memoir, what events would you be putting in the spotlight? For your essay, imagine how you would structure your memoir. You can choose either a sad or joyous event. What matters the most is to describe memorable experiences so that you can narrate them in exact detail. To ensure your essay will enthrall your readers, read our storytelling guide . 

Traveling creates wanderlust, a desire to feed yourself with new information and experiences. For this easy, recall a trip, or embark on a new adventure. First, write about the culture of the place and the people around you. Next, describe the place and culture and share the most important lessons you have learned from this adventure. Finally, describe the other future adventures you’d like to go on.

Business writing is not a usual source of attraction for several writers — especially for writers who chose to write because they despised math. There are joys never imagined in weaving stories from numbers. In this essay, offer your readers some tips to enjoy and make a profit in writing creative non-fictional pieces about business.

For this writing prompt, recount a memorable gathering with family and relatives. To make this pass as creative non-fiction, first detail the purpose of the gathering, the settings, and the decorations as vividly as you can. Then, describe each family member present and their unique qualities that make them unforgettable. Finally, recount the conversations and the emotions surging in you as they chattered away. 

Pick a painting that captivates you the most and try to peel into its layers of meaning by researching its history, the stories, and the people that inspired the painter of the work. Next, try to mull the connection between the painting’s story and yours. This could explain what made you entranced at first glance. 

If there are creative non-fiction literary works that have shaped who you are today, talk about them in your essay and elaborate on the reasons you have admired the author’s thoughts. Then, convince your readers to pick up this book to see their self-transformation. 

Some classroom lessons succeed in keeping us engrossed in learning. Some could form the foundations of a hobby, while some could be our first step toward a professional career path. In this essay, reminisce on a class lecture you will never forget. Explain briefly what the subject matter was at the time and what your professor said about it that was forever etched on your memory. 

Each of us has an idol we look up to as an inspiration to reach our goals, whether a historical figure, a fictional character, or a living personality. Share yours and write a piece of creative non-fiction about their story as a hero. Then, point out their qualities, achievements, or advocacies that made you realize your bigger ambitions, find confidence, and believe in yourself. 

If you liked this article and want to put these ideas into practice, check out our round-up of storytelling exercises .

100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction

Hero Images/Getty Images 

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Essays , memoirs , autobiographies , biographies , travel writing , history, cultural studies, nature writing —all of these fit under the broad heading of creative nonfiction , and all are represented in this list of 100 major works of creative nonfiction published by British and American writers over the past 90 years or so. They're arranged alphabetically by author last name.

Recommended Creative Nonfiction

• Edward Abbey, "Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness" (1968)
• James Agee, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" (1941)
• Martin Amis, "Experience" (1995)
• Maya Angelou , "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (1970)
• Russell Baker, "Growing Up" (1982)
• James Baldwin , "Notes of a Native Son" (1963)
• Julian Barnes, "Nothing to Be Frightened Of" (2008)
• Alan Bennett, "Untold Stories" (2005)
• Wendell Berry, "Recollected Essays" (1981)
• Bill Bryson, "Notes From a Small Island" (1995)
• Anthony Burgess, "Little Wilson and Big God: Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess" (1987)
• Joseph Campbell, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" (1949)
• Truman Capote , "In Cold Blood" (1965)
• Rachel Carson, "Silent Spring" (1962)
• Pat Conroy, "The Water Is Wide" (1972)
• Harry Crews, "A Childhood: The Biography of a Place" (1978)
• Joan Didion, "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction" (2006)
• Joan Didion, "The Year of Magical Thinking" (2005)
• Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood" (1987)
• Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" (1974)
• Barbara Ehrenreich, "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" (2001)
• Gretel Ehrlich, "The Solace of Open Spaces" (1986)
• Loren Eiseley, "The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature" (1957)
• Ralph Ellison, "Shadow and Act" (1964)
• Nora Ephron, "Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women" (1975)
• Joseph Epstein, "Snobbery: The American Version" (2002)
• Richard P. Feynman, "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" (1964)
• Shelby Foote, "The Civil War: A Narrative" (1974)
• Ian Frazier, "Great Plains" (1989)
• Paul Fussell, "The Great War and Modern Memory" (1975)
• Stephen Jay Gould, "Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History" (1977)
• Robert Graves, "Good-Bye to All That" (1929)
• Alex Haley, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" (1965)
• Pete Hamill, "A Drinking Life: A Memoir" (1994)
• Ernest Hemingway , "A Moveable Feast" (1964)
• Michael Herr, "Dispatches" (1977)
• John Hersey, "Hiroshima" (1946)
• Laura Hillenbrand, "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption" (2010)
• Edward Hoagland, "The Edward Hoagland Reader" (1979)
• Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951)
• Richard Hofstadter, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" (1963)
• Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, "Farewell to Manzanar" (1973)
• Langston Hughes , "The Big Sea" (1940)
• Zora Neale Hurston , "Dust Tracks on a Road" (1942)
• Aldous Huxley, "Collected Essays" (1958)
• Clive James, "Reliable Essays: The Best of Clive James" (2001)
• Alfred Kazin, "A Walker in the City" (1951)
• Tracy Kidder, "House" (1985)
• Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Childhood Among Ghosts" (1989)
• Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962)
• William Least Heat-Moon, "Blue Highways: A Journey Into America" (1982)
• Bernard Levin, "Enthusiasms" (1983)
• Barry Lopez, "Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape" (1986)
• David McCullough, "Truman" (1992)
• Dwight Macdonald, "Against The American Grain: Essays on the Effects of Mass Culture" (1962)
• John McPhee, "Coming Into the Country" (1977)
• Rosemary Mahoney, "Whoredom in Kimmage: The Private Lives of Irish Women" (1993)
• Norman Mailer, "The Armies of the Night" (1968)
• Peter Matthiessen, "The Snow Leopard" (1979)
• H.L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing" (1949)
• Joseph Mitchell, "Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories" (1992)
• Jessica Mitford, "The American Way of Death" (1963)
• N. Scott Momaday, "Names" (1977)
• Lewis Mumford, "The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects" (1961)
• Vladimir Nabokov, "Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited" (1967)
• P.J. O'Rourke, "Parliament of Whores" (1991)
• Susan Orlean, "My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere" (2004)
• George Orwell , "Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933)
• George Orwell, "Essays" (2002)
• Cynthia Ozick, "Metaphor and Memory" (1989)
• Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (1975)
• Richard Rodriguez, "Hunger of Memory" (1982)
• Lillian Ross, "Picture" (1952)
• David Sedaris, "Me Talk Pretty One Day" (2000)
• Richard Selzer, "Taking the World in for Repairs" (1986)
• Zadie Smith, "Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays" (2009)
• Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation and Other Essays" (1966)
• John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley" (1962)
• Studs Terkel, "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression" (1970)
• Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" (1974)
• E.P. Thompson, "The Making of the English Working Class" (1963; rev. 1968)
• Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" (1971)
• James Thurber, "My Life and Hard Times" (1933)
• Lionel Trilling, "The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society" (1950)
• Barbara Tuchman, "The Guns of August" (1962)
• John Updike, "Self-Consciousness" (1989)
• Gore Vidal, "United States: Essays 1952–1992" (1993)
• Sarah Vowell, "The Wordy Shipmates" (2008)
• Alice Walker , "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose" (1983)
• David Foster Wallace, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments" (1997)
• James D. Watson, "The Double Helix" (1968)
• Eudora Welty, "One Writer's Beginnings" (1984)
• E.B. White , "Essays of E.B. White" (1977)
• E.B. White, "One Man's Meat" (1944)
• Isabel Wilkerson, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" (2010)
• Tom Wolfe, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (1968)
• Tom Wolfe, "The Right Stuff" (1979)
• Tobias Wolff, "This Boy's Life: A Memoir" (1989)
• Virginia Woolf , "A Room of One's Own" (1929)
• Richard Wright, "Black Boy" (1945)
• Stream of Consciousness Writing
• Creative Nonfiction
• Examples of Images in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction
• Writers on Reading
• An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
• Defining Nonfiction Writing
• What Is Literary Journalism?
• List (Grammar and Sentence Styles)
• A Look at the Roles Characters Play in Literature
• Point of View in Grammar and Composition
• Tips on Great Writing: Setting the Scene
• Using Flashback in Writing
• Genres in Literature
• Premise Definition and Examples in Arguments
• Definition and Examples of Formal Essays

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Finding Your Footing: Sub-genres in Creative Nonfiction

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Memoir is perhaps the “flagship” of creative nonfiction, the sub-genre most familiar to those outside of literary and academic circles. Most human beings lead interesting lives filled with struggle, conflict, drama, decisions, turning points, etc.; but not all of these stories translate into successful memoir. The success of the memoir depends on the writer’s ability to sequence events, to tell a story, and to describe characters in believable ways, among other things. Writer Carol Spindel reminds us that in the mid-2000s a scandal surrounding writer James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces erupted after he was forced to admit that large sections of his “memoir” were “fictionalized:” he’d embellished, made things up. A memoir that strays from the truth is not far removed from lying, because regardless of the writer’s intention, the story deceives the reader. Spindel writes that, unlike in novels, “The knowledge expressed in the memoir has the legitimacy acquired through first-hand experience.” Good memoir also provides reflection on the events that have happened to the writer, so it “can give readers insights into society, and even into the larger meaning of life itself” (Spindel).

The Braided Essay

The braided essay is a good tool for introducing writers—especially student writers—to the CNF genre. In a braided essay, the writer has multiple “threads” or “through-lines” of material, each on a different subject. The essay is broken into sections using medial white space, lines of white space on a page where there are no words (much like stanzas in poetry), and each time there is a section break, the writer moves from one “thread” to another. Braided essays take their name from this alternating of storylines, as well as from the threads the story contains; there are usually three, though to have four or two is also possible. Though there is not a strict formula for success, the form usually contains at least one thread that is very personal and based on memory, and at least one thread that is heavily researched. Often, the threads seem very disparate at first, but by the climax of the essay, the threads being to blend together; connections are revealed.

Topical Writing

Perhaps the genre closest to an essay or a blog post, topical writing is an author’s take on a given topic of specific interest to the reader. For example, nature writing and travel writing have been popular for centuries, while food writing is gathering steam via cooking blogs. Nature writing involves exploring the writer’s experience in a beautiful and thoroughly rendered natural setting, such as a cabin on a mountaintop. Travel Writing, as the name implies, details the writer’s experiences while traveling, whether by choice on a vacation or out of necessity due to business or serving in the military. Finally, contemporary food writing explores the writer’s connection to cooking and enjoying food of any variety. All three will occasionally step into the writer’s personal experiences via memories, but these episodes are always related to the topic driving the essay.

Whatever form a creative nonfiction piece takes, it must remain based in the author’s actual lived experiences and perceptions. Like academic writing, the piece must be accurately researched and the sources must be documented. Finally, the author must also always leave room to reflect on how their experiences have shaped them into the person they are now. It’s the reflection that makes the reader feel satisfied: it offers something to the reader that they can carry with them, a way of seeing the world.

Works Cited

Cokinos, Christopher. “Organized Curiosity: Creative Writers and the Research Life.” Writer’s Chronicle 42.7: April/May 2015. 92-104. Print.

Ironman, Sean. “Writing the Z-Axis: Reflection in the Nonfiction Workshop.” Writer’s

Chronicle 47.1: September 2014. 42-49. Print.

Spindel, Carol. "When Ambiguity Becomes Deception: The Ethics of Memoir." Writer's

Chronicle (2007): n. pag. AWP . Association of Writing Programs, 1 Dec. 2007. Web. 13

Sept. 2015.

Terrill, Richard. "Creative Nonfiction and Poetry." Writer's Chronicle (2004): n. pag. AWP .

Association of Writing Programs, Oct.-Nov. 2004. Web. 3 Oct. 2015.

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Write authentic, well-crafted personal essays in this creative nonfiction course.

If you have a story to tell, if you’re fairly confessional and believe that truth is stranger than fiction, then the creative nonfiction, personal essay writing class is for you.

Creative nonfiction and personal essay are powerhouses in the story-telling genre. They’re the volcanic marriage of real life and literary technique, and a chance to deliver our stories with sass, color and voice. By using a variety of techniques such as dialogue, scene, detail and narrative, creative non-fiction and personal essay breathe new life into the ordinary telling of our tales.

Anything is fodder for creative nonfiction; the fight you had with the supermarket check-out person, the time your brother ran you over with his bike, your first real kiss and the lessons you learned about yourself when you stopped to give change to the corner panhandler. By delving into our experiences we squeeze the marrow from our lives and explore our emotional territory, sharing and making meaning out of the ordinary events in our lives.

The ten-week class will focus on finding your voice and locating the heart of your story, as well as finding creative ways to tell these stories, edit what we have, and familiarize ourselves with non-fiction markets. There will be a weekly writing assignment, a chance to post each week and get in-depth, detailed feedback from your peers as well as feedback on five of your stories from Gretchen.

Gretchen was wonderful—positive, understanding, and helpful. She clearly put a lot of time into reading and responding to our work, and I am so thankful for that! —Kathryn Martinak

Introduction to Creative Nonfiction and Personal Writing: Course Syllabus

Each week a new writing lesson is posted and students are given a couple of assignment options as well as a deadline to turn a piece in each week. Writing lessons cover the territory of personal essay with an emphasis on voice, detail, scene, dialogue and resolve.

What is creative nonfiction and the personal essay? Personal essay is about uncovering the truth and telling our stories in our real voices. Creative Nonfiction uses elements of fiction in the telling of a true story. We use narrative combined with live voice to make the writing more melodic, more alive and more accessible.

Beginning our stories. What are we obsessed by and deeply interested in? What are the stories we must tell? Using free writing to unearth raw, unedited material and honing with diversity, melody and voice.

Week Three:

Using memories and images that burn to be told. Using the material from our lives, from our childhood to jump start story and delve in deeply.

Re-working our assignments.

 Week Five:

The stories we’re afraid to tell. Writing as liberation. What aren’t we writing about? Using the hardest parts of our lives as material for story because that’s where the energy is. When we write from these places our stories come alive because we’re writing from an edge.

Truth or Fiction? How creative can the personal essay be? How much can we bend the truth? Where do the boundaries blur?

Week Seven:

 week eight:.

Speaking to the dead. Who lingers in our lives and what kind of power do they hold for us? Choosing friends or relatives to write about, using their stories to tell our larger stories.

 Week Nine

Critiquing the personal essay. How can we help each other tell the truth better? Setting a stage: what stays and what goes? Using the elements that are intrinsic to the telling of the story.

To market to market. Where to sell our work? Ideas and suggestions for where the writers can send their work.

Why Take a Creative Nonfiction and Personal Essay Course with Writers.com?

• We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
• Small groups keep our online writing classes lively and intimate.
• Work through your weekly written lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
• Share and discuss your work with classmates in a supportive class environment.
• Award-winning instructor Gretchen Clark will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Dive into creative nonfiction and the craft of the personal essay. Reserve your spot today!

Student feedback for gretchen clark:.

Definitely very happy with class content. Gretchen's critiques are so, so helpful. I liked the way Gretchen set up the class so that we were able to choose from many options for our assignments. We could revise an essay or write a new one. As a teacher, Gretchen is like chocolate cake with two scoops of vanilla ice cream. Can't get enough of her. I would take any class Gretchen offered. Caroline Commins

Gretchen was wonderful—positive, understanding, and helpful without being negative or overly critical. Her comments were insightful and extremely helpful to me. She clearly put a lot of time into reading and responding to our work, and I am SO thankful for that! Kathryn Martinak

This course helped me expand my understanding of what an essay can be, and encouraged me to push myself to try different forms of expression. I learned a lot from my fellow students and the instructor and received excellent feedback on my writing. I learned so much from Gretchen's lectures as well as from her comments, not only on my writing but on my fellow students' writings as well.  Elizabeth Speziale

Gretchen was great. I have taken over a dozen online writing courses and this one was almost calming. Instead of feeling like I 'had' to submit work for critique, I not only wanted to, but I was anxious to read the other writers' work.  Barbara Reidmiller

Gretchen seems to have a way of seeing things in my writing that I overlook; a series of details, a recurring theme, an underlying emotion I have yet to discover within myself. Her critiques are always thoughtful and thought provoking. She takes the time to read and respond carefully, challenging ideas and questioning my writing while encouraging and offering support. When I was looking for more personal and in-depth editorial critique, it was Writers.com and Gretchen that I turned to. Having taken the Personal Essay class, I knew that she would grant me the time and attention that I was seeking. She seems to have unlimited patience to answer questions and hash out ideas. Working one-on-one with her has provided me with a forum and a conversation about my writing. She is an invaluable teacher and editor.

 I learned a lot and had fun doing it. We were encouraged to think and write outside the box. It made me more creative. Loved the experience.  Svetlana Dietz

Gretchen has great ideas and gives coaching feedback as well as praise. It was exciting to learn about new forms in essay writing and how the form can help carry the story. The group of writers was helpful and positive in providing feedback to each others; I really enjoyed the experience of the community.  Karen McCall

I was recently offered my own bi-monthly column in Blue Water Sailing magazine. Writers.com and private time working with Gretchen has certainly contributed to my work improving enough to be given that opportunity. Heather Francis, yachtkate.com

Gretchen was extremely diligent with her feedback and it felt like nothing I wrote went unnoticed. She took the pains to respond equally diligently even with the re-posted material. Her feedback made me want to write more. Mannu Kohli

I thought Gretchen was great. Despite having a lot of people in the class, I always felt that she gave full attention to her feedback on my submissions. She was always quite responsive to questions I had. I really liked her lectures and her suggested materials, I found all of those quite helpful.  Allison Allen

I loved this course. Gretchen provided me with really helpful feedback and I appreciate how open she was to discussing the works in progress. I wrote ten pieces I want to keep working with and submit to journals, and want to keep playing with the form. I definitely got my money's worth and am happy with the progress I made in the course overall as a writer. Nicole Breit

Do you have a couple hours? Because that is how long it would take me to sing Gretchen's praises. Every piece she has helped me with, let's make that six, has been accepted for publication. All told, actually, I've received 11 acceptances within a relatively short time span for a writer who has just recently begun to submit her work. ... It isn't just that Gretchen is a gifted writer and teacher/editor, she possesses unusual insight. She reads with many eyes, ears, and hearts and on many different levels. She is present to the reading like a psychoanalyst is present to her patient's free associations: unbiased, unattached, letting herself be moved or struck by anything and everything. ... And she is patient and kind and even when her suggestions maddened me because they forced me to think and feel myself more deeply into my story, she was, 98% of the time, right on. ... What more can I say. I just love working with Gretchen! Pat Heim

Though Gretchen included specific assignments with each week's lecture...they were given to us as suggestions and for inspiration, but we were always free to go off on our own and write whatever caught our imaginations that week. I was also very pleasantly surprised at the high level of talent among my classmates in this course. ... Your classes allow every student to write and post something each week, not simply once or twice during the course, as other classes do. Elaine Kehoe

I thought the lectures were thoughtful and inspiring and I liked that the assignments were flexible in that I could write about anything that I wanted, but Gretchen gave us prompts for if we needed some ideas. I also liked that she provided some optional readings and referenced other books on writing, I ended up doing a lot of outside reading which was very helpful. I did feel like I learned a lot..... Gretchen was excellent. Her positive tone was just the thing to keep students in the class encouraged and motivated. She was also very willing to answer any questions students had and seemed to tailor her critique to what students were asking for, which was wonderful. Overall I felt that she was approachable and was there if I wanted to ask anything. McKenzie Long

I've taken several other on-line writing classes with other schools and this unique approach was the most interesting and challenging of all. I thought the teachers were the freshest and most thorough in the time they put into their critiques. I totally enjoyed the class. I would do something unique with these teachers again. Eve Bandler

I was very happy with both the class content and the teacher. Gretchen’s comments on my essays were insightful; she offered suggestions that I would not have thought of on my own. This was my first online writing class, and I will take another. Thank you so much! Kim Baumgaertel

Gretchen's writing and her lessons are superb and she's a great teacher. I learned a ton from her. I had never heard of the lyric essay before. Gretchen gave me a thorough understanding of it - and lots of practice. Bonnie Gold

Gretchen was great, and always available for questions/clarification. I am definitely driven by challenge, and felt that Gretchen has a good way of keeping you on your toes and helping you to consistently improve. Lessons were inspiring and assignments perfect for challenging the creative side of the brain. An advanced lyric class would be awesome! I would recommend the class to anyone interested in writing. I have signed up for several classes through November. Jenifer Patureau

I loved the class. The Lyric Essay is/was/and shall continue to be a favorte of mine now that I've taken this class. The freedom to manipulate material in new ways, soak words with lyric structure, really came through. Feedback was personal and always offered ways to take a piece to another level. Rewrites were encouraged and feedback was prompt and insighful. Keep those new classes coming so I can continue to write on your site for many years to come. Joanna Johns

This course is terrific. The lessons are creative and inspiring--just look at the lecture titles! Gretchen is smart, kind, and encouraging. Her critiques are full of insight and ideas for taking the writer a step or many steps further. I keep recommending Writers.com when I talk w/ friends. I'll be back for another class. Marge Osborn

Creative, inspiring, motivating, delightful, fun. <Gretchen's> lessons were written with so much imagination and creative juice. It just made you rub your hands together and want to dive in. She was encouraging as well. I have considered taking *this* class again! Tatyana Sussex

Gretchen's class was really great!The Lyric Essay was one of the best courses I've taken from Writers.com. I would like to take a "Lyric Essay 2" course. Caroline Commins

The class was wonderful. Couldn't have had better teachers. Wonderful about letting us veer in our own directions at times. They provided a very nurturing environment for everyone. ... Their comments were very helpful and clearly they know their stuff. ... I would absolutely take another class from either instructor. I can't give them a glowing enough review. ... This is the way you dream a class will work. David Ladd

This was my first online course, and I'm very glad I took it. I feel that the tuition was money well-spent and I emerge from this experience wiser about the subject and very much encouraged to continue my writing using techniques I learned in class. Jean Dutton

“Gretchen was wonderful—positive, understanding, and helpful without being negative or overly critical. Her comments were insightful and extremely helpful to me. She clearly put a lot of time into reading and responding to our work, and I am SO thankful for that!” —Kathryn Martinak

About Gretchen Clark

Gretchen Clark has been a freelancer for an online naming company and a creative arts mentor for at-risk teens. Her essay Pink Chrysanthemum  was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  Her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Hamilton Stone Review, 94 Creations, Writer Advice, Literary Mama , Hip Mama , Flashquake , Blood Lotus , Foliate Oak , Skirt! , Word Riot , Quiet Mountain Essays , 34th Parallel , New York Family Magazine , Pithead Chapel , Switchback , Underwired , Toasted Cheese , Celia’s Roundtrip , Brevity , River Teeth , Flashquake , Tiny Lights , Ray's Road Review , Cleaver Magazine,   Hippocampus , The MacGuffin, Awakenings Review,   Nailpolish Stories, and Groundwork , among others.

Gretchen's Courses

Long Story Short: Compressing Life into Meaningful Micro Memoirs Creative Nonfiction and the Personal Essay The Lyric Essay Block Buster: Turbocharge Your Creativity with Breakneck Writing

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Course Syllabus

Experimental Forms

Explore new structures, hybrid forms, and nonstandard narrative perspectives, and discover a variety of strategies for innovation in nonfiction writing..

What are the limits of creative nonfiction? what point does an essay leave the world of fact and enter the realm of fiction or poetry? Are the borders between these genres rigid and unyielding, or are they porous? How can a writer move seamlessly between them during the course of a single essay in order to communicate more effectively the complexity of his or her experience? In this class, you will explore a variety of strategies for innovation in nonfiction writing. You’ll study new exhilarating developments in the genre, encountering the work of many contemporary practitioners of the craft, and discuss which subjects lend themselves to these cutting-edge techniques. You will learn about experimental structures, hybrid forms, and nonstandard narrative perspectives, writing one short 500 word vignettes and one 3,000 word essay.

How it works:

Each week provides:

• writing prompts and/or assignments
• discussions of assigned readings and other general writing topics with peers and the instructor
• written lectures and a selection of readings

Some weeks also include:

• opportunities to submit a full-length essay or essays for instructor and/or peer review (up to 3,500 words)
• optional video/tele conferences that are open to all students in Week 2 (and which will be available afterwards as a recording for those who cannot participate)

To create a better classroom experience for all, you are required to participate weekly to receive instructor feedback on your work.

Week 1: Experimental Structures—Breaking the Rules

Most essays proceed in a linear, chronological fashion— And then we did this, and then we did that . Throughout the week, you’ll talk about strategies for deviating from this standard structure in order to dramatize complex, multifaceted stories. Among other things, you’ll discuss nonstandard essay structures, including: fragmented chronology; flashing backwards and flashing forwards; braided storylines; and the bookended essay. You will practice these techniques by writing a 500-word micro-essay that deploys one of these innovative structures.

Week 2: Hybrid Forms—Incorporating Other Genres

Oftentimes essayists forget that you don’t have to rely solely on your memories to construct an essay. The class will overlook the other textual sources that inform your experiences—the assorted testimonies that can be in conversation with your own interpretations of events. During the week, you’ll talk about how your essays can be a collage of other genres, appropriating material from newspaper articles, poems, song lyrics, business brochures, diary entries—whatever—in order to locate the meaning of your experiences. You’ll talk about how these sources can be integrated effectively into your essays.

Week 3: Nonstandard Narrative Perspectives—Letting Go of the First Person

Writing creative nonfiction doesn’t always mean excavating the terrain of the self. There are countless examples of essayists who have done enough research and have taken enough care to tell other people’s stories compellingly and sensitively. This week, you’ll talk about strategies for writing about other people’s experiences. You’ll review narrative perspectives used by fiction writers to animate the lives of your characters—particularly, second-person, third-person-omniscience, and third-person-close—and you’ll discuss ways you can use these perspectives in nonfiction writing. You will also submit a 3,000 word essay this week. The submission should respond to one of the assignment prompts and draw on the lectures and class discussions.

Week 4: Revision—Recalibrating the Methods of Your Experiment

Whenever you use a nontraditional approach, you must make sure that it contributes to the success of your essay. This week, you’ll talk about how you can determine whether the experiments in your essays are necessary and worthwhile, and how you can adjust your approach to best serve the purpose of the piece. You will also share your Week 3 essay with a small group of classmates for Peer Critiques.

Week 5: Publishing

While some experimental structures will offend classical tastes, increasingly these strategies have been accepted by major literary magazines and publishing houses. This week you’ll discuss print venues that are interested in experimental work. The lecture will also talk about matching your aesthetic sensibility with those of the right magazine. More generally, the class will talk about expectations for the submission process, as well as strategies for increasing your chances to land your work in print.

Nonfiction Essay

Nonfiction essay generator.

While escaping in an imaginary world sounds very tempting, it is also necessary for an individual to discover more about the events in the real world and real-life stories of various people. The articles you read in newspapers and magazines are some examples of nonfiction texts. Learn more about fact-driven information and hone your essay writing skills while composing a nonfiction essay.

10+ Nonfiction Essay Examples

1. creative nonfiction essay.

2. Narrative Nonfiction Reflective Essay

Size: 608 KB

3. College Nonfiction Essay

Size: 591 KB

4. Non-Fiction Essay Writing

Size: 206 KB

5. Nonfiction Essay Reminders

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6. Nonfiction Essay Template

Size: 189 KB

7. Personal Nonfiction Essay

Size: 51 KB

8. Teachers Nonfiction Essay

Size: 172 KB

9. Creative Nonfiction Assignment Essay

Size: 282 KB

10. Nonfiction Descriptive Essay

11. Literary Arts Nonfiction Essay

Size: 93 KB

What Is a Nonfiction Essay?

Nonfiction essay refers to compositions based on real-life situations and events. In addition, it also includes essays based on one’s opinion and perception. There are different purposes for writing this type of essay. Various purposes use different approaches and even sometimes follow varying formats. Educational and informative essays are some examples of a nonfiction composition. 

How to Compose a Compelling Nonfiction Essay

When you talk about creative writing, it is not all about creating fictional stories. It also involves providing a thought-provoking narrative and description of a particular subject. The quality of writing always depends on how the writers present their topic. That said, keep your readers engaged by writing an impressive nonfiction paper.

1. Know Your Purpose

Before you start your essay, you should first determine the message you want to deliver to your readers. In addition, you should also consider what emotions you want to bring out from them. List your objectives beforehand. Goal-setting will provide you an idea of the direction you should take, as well as the style you should employ in writing about your topic on your essay paper.

2. Devise an Outline

Now that you have a target to aim for, it is time to decide on the ideas you want to discuss in each paragraph. To do this, you can utilize a blank outline template. Also, prepare an essay plan detailing the structure and the flow of the message of your essay. Ensure to keep your ideas relevant and timely.

3. Generate Your Thesis Statement

One of the most crucial parts of your introduction is your thesis statement . This sentence will give the readers an overview of what to expect from the whole document. Aside from that, this statement will also present the main idea of the essay content. Remember to keep it brief and concise.

4. Use the Appropriate Language

Depending on the results of your assessment in the first step, you should tailor your language accordingly. If you want to describe something, use descriptive language. If you aim to persuade your readers, you should ascertain to use persuasive words. This step is essential to remember for the writers because it has a considerable impact on achieving your goals.

What are the various types of nonfiction articles?

In creatively writing nonfiction essays, you can choose from various types. Depending on your topic, you can write a persuasive essay , narrative essay, biographies, and even memoirs. In addition, you can also find nonfiction essay writing in academic texts, instruction manuals, and even academic reports . Even if most novels are fiction stories, there are also several nonfictions in this genre.

Why is writing nonfiction essays necessary?

Schools and universities use nonfiction essays as an instrument to train and enhance their students’ skills in writing. The reason for this is it will help them learn how to structure paragraphs and also learn various skills. In addition, this academic essay can also be a tool for the teachers to analyze how the minds of their students digest situations.

How can I write about a nonfiction topic?

A helpful tip before crafting a nonfiction essay is to explore several kinds of this type of writing. Choose the approach and the topic where you are knowledgeable. Now that you have your lesson topic, the next step is to perform intensive research. The important part is to choose a style on how to craft your story.

Each of us also has a story to tell. People incorporate nonfiction writing into their everyday lives. Your daily journal or the letters you send your friends all belong under this category of composition. Writing nonfiction essays are a crucial outlet for people to express their emotions and personal beliefs. We all have opinions on different events. Practice writing nonfiction articles and persuade, entertain, and influence other people. 

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Write about the influence of technology on society in your Nonfiction Essay.

Discuss the importance of environmental conservation in your Nonfiction Essay.

How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal That Sells

Cost: $395 $335 Get 15% off when you sign up by August 26 using the code EARLY.

It’s the most essential element of landing a book deal, but to many writers it’s also the most daunting and mystifying part of the entire process. It doesn’t have to be that way. A great book proposal will not only attract attention from editors and publishers; it will also help you organize your thoughts; map out a comprehensive plan for how your book will come to life; understand where your book fits into the current marketplace; and craft a compelling pitch for why someone should publish it. Shawna Kenney has published an award-winning memoir, authored two nonfiction books, and edited an anthology. In this intensive 4-week class, Shawna will break down four main components of a book proposal (Overview, Chapter Summaries, Comparative Titles, Platform & Marketing), including studying examples of successful proposals, diving deep into what a proposal must include, and discussing students’ own projects. Whether you have a memoir manuscript fully drafted, an early concept for a nonfiction book, or an idea for an anthology, this class will help you understand how to craft a proposal that demands attention. By the end of the four sessions, each student will have drafted four of the main components or a book proposal (not including sample chapters) receiving hands-on guidance and feedback throughout.

This is the right class for you if…

You’ve completed a draft of your memoir or nonfiction book and want to learn how to write a proposal that effectively positions it to sell.

You’ve sent your book to agents and editors but haven’t had success yet.

You have an idea for a nonfiction book and want to understand the full process for getting a book deal.

After this class you’ll be ready to…

Finalize your own nonfiction book proposal and send it out.

This is a 4-week class on Wednesdays from 6pm to 8pm ET, starting November 13th and ending December 11. (No class on November 27.) All Narratively Academy classes are conducted online and accessible to students anywhere in the world.

Instructor Bio: Shawna Kenney was raised in the Washington, D.C., area where she began her writing career by publishing fanzines. She is the author of the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Punk Hostage Press), co-author of the oral history Live at the Safari Club: A History of HarDCore Punk in the Nation’s Capital 1988-1998 (Rare Bird Books), editor of the anthology Book Lovers (Seal Press), and co-author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher). Shawna is a contributing editor at Narratively and her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, Ms., Brevity, Vice, The Rumpu s and many other outlets. She is a creative writing instructor with the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and leads an international writing retreat in Denmark every August.

“Shawna is the visionary writing fairy godmother every author needs — from helping with story ideas and angles to the kind of encouragement one needs when following a big dream. Shawna has helped me get essays published, stay consistent as a writer and sell my book to a major publisher. I wouldn’t be where I am as a writer without her.” —Marni Battista, author of the forthcoming book “Your Radical Living Challenge”

Registration Details: Seats in this class are limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. All purchases are final and nonrefundable. After signing up, you’ll receive an email receipt confirming your purchase. Prior to the start of your class you’ll receive an invitation to access the virtual classroom and view all class materials.

Questions? Email us at [email protected].

More: Check out all of our Narratively Academy online writing classes here .

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