Blog #2


One of Lott’s first points was, “Creative nonfiction is, in one form or another, for better and worse, in triumph and failure, the attempt to keep from passing altogether away the lives we have lived” (Lott 359).  To go along with Lott, I feel that creative nonfiction is a journal of your life, and also a release of built up emotions that one was never able to express. Creative nonfiction allows you to tell stories of your lives, without having any judgments or critical comments made.  Lott open ups the emotions involved with creative nonfiction.  In Frank O’Connors letter to a friend he quoted, “We are what we are, and within our limitations we have made our own efforts.” It seems that Frank is putting creative nonfiction on a entirely new level. To go along with Frank, I feel that telling your personal story through creative nonfiction has no boundaries or limits. No matter what a writer says in a creative non ficiton story or passage, nothing can ever be too extreme.

   Gutkind discusses the dramatic aspects of CNF. Gutkind also puts CNF on another spectrum, “..then and now, is the set of parameters that govern or define creative non-fiction-the concepts writers must consider while laboring in or struggling with what we call the literature of reality.. “ (Gutkind 350). Gutkind measures and challenges the amount of truth that CNF actually contains, which I do not necessarily agree with. Creative nonfiction tells a story about someone’s life experience, certain things may be dramatized, but the basis of what everyone needs  to know is true; which is the point of CNF. Gutkind addresses the characters that are discussed in ones writing. I agree that the characters one may discuss in a piece of writing, should be protected. When writing CNF, there is always that one chance that the person you are writing about could read over your work. To protect friendships, relationships, and even professional jobs, characters in writing should have some sort of protection.

 I truly enjoyed reading these articles; and looking at their beliefs and ideas of CNF. I do not necessarily feel that things were left out. However, I do not fully agree with everything Gutkind said about CNF. Although Gutkind says there are no rules when writing CNF, the article gives me other reasons to go against that.

 Definitions of creative Nonfiction are definitely changing in the light of digital publishing. The main reason is of course, blogging today. Creative nonfiction is open to the public, meaning people of all certain ages. That being said, teenagers today are blogging. In my junior field, one of the high school classes involves blogging; some students even have their own blog! It is something to consider when reading creative nonfiction blogs, who knows what really is true online? It is something that will always be thought twice about.