What is Creative Nonfiction? Intro to Writing Personal Essays

I’ve always loved to listen to stories. My family played audiobooks in the car while I was growing up, and I would close my eyes and escape into the lives of other people. I sailed across the ocean with Odysseus, or walked with Mother Teresa through the streets of Calcutta, or followed Leslie and Jesse across the Bridge to Terebithia. I loved to listen to the stories of other people—but I was never quite sure how to write my own. 

For a long time, I avoided writing any sort of personal essay—a type of creative nonfiction that reflects upon an experience in the writer’s life—because I couldn’t imagine how the events of my life could ever create a compelling narrative. Why would anyone be interested in me? My experiences seemed so normal. I didn’t think I had anything to say. 

It wasn’t until I began applying to college and looking for scholarships that I learned how valuable personal essays can be. At first, I was forced to write this type of essay for my applications. But in doing so, I realized that I’d been given an opportunity to understand myself better, reflect on my growth, and appreciate my own life experiences. 

For one of my application essays, I spent eight hundred words describing my ten years of piano lessons. That topic could easily become tedious if I only offered an account of the countless practices and recitals I endured. However, after the first draft, I noticed something interesting: while on the surface the essay recounted my journey as a pianist, I had actually written about my journey with anxiety, the pressure I experienced as an eldest daughter, and my relationship with my parents. It turns out, I did have something to say. 

Years later, in my senior year of college, I took a course in creative nonfiction. What is creative nonfiction? I barely knew. During the first class, my professor introduced us to Lee Gutkind, the founder of the magazine Creative Nonfiction. Gutkind was among the first to establish the genre as both an accepted field of creative writing and an academic discipline. He explained that “creative nonfiction writers do not make things up; they make ideas and information that already exist more interesting and often more accessible.”

Creative nonfiction, which includes the personal essay, is a genre that bridges reality and storytelling. It taps into the innate human instinct to find meaning in our experiences, and share that understanding with others. From anecdotes to family legends to proverbial tales, we’re always turning our personal lives into stories. Recognizing this practice as an official genre of writing helps us to define it, refine it, and broaden its reach.

In my course, we read Joan Didion’s “On Keeping A Notebook,” in which she describes her note-taking process and its thought-provoking role in her life. We were caught up in the gripping events of Tara Westover’s life in her memoir Educated, as she became independent of her family in pursuit of education. We studied “braided essays”—an essay in which multiple unrelated narrative threads are woven together—with Will Buckingham’s “How Tove Jansson Taught Me To Live With The Apocalypse,” in which he connected a favorite childhood book to nuclear threats and the beginning of junior high. 

Whether trivial as fragments of notes in a journal, or dramatic as a harrowing escape from a dangerous situation, these authors transformed parts of their lives into riveting and meaningful stories.

In my journey with creative nonfiction and personal essays, I realized that it wasn’t what I wrote about that made my story interesting. It was how I wrote about it. 

“Thanks to this genre,” Gutkind told us, “writers of nonfiction can now use the tools of the reporter, the points of view and ear for dialogue of a novelist, and the passion and wordplay of the poet.” The genre of creative nonfiction is broad and flexible, and a personal essay can be grounded in almost any experience. In addition to personal essay, here are a few more subgenres that fall within the bucket of creative nonfiction: 

• Travel writing centers on the experience of new places, and can reflect on different cultures, cultural barriers, and displacement from home. 
• Food writing is intimately focused on the creation, sharing, and enjoyment of food. It can offer reflection on cultural identity, family, and personal taste. 
• Writing about a place invites readers somewhere specific, and often includes rich descriptions of location. It can generate reflection on history, population demographics, memories, and the environment.
• Memoir can include all of these subgenres, but considers them in the context of overall life experiences. It often follows a story of growth or change, and might focus on a particular theme that unifies the events into a cohesive narrative. 

There are many other ways to approach creative nonfiction and personal essays. But again, it’s not what you write about— it’s how you write it, by puzzling together relevant facts, making surprising connections between ideas, and layering your story with thoughtful and eloquent reflection. Like Gutkind said, with creative nonfiction, you are the reporter, the novelist, and the poet—all at once! 

Humans are complex creatures, and because we all approach life with our own unique perspective, we all have stories to share. Personal essays are an opportunity to know ourselves better, and reveal the inherent value in our identities and experiences. 

Even if you don’t think you have anything to say, give it a try. The world is listening, and your story already exists.You only need to figure out how to tell it. 

About Madison Zuñiga:

Madison Zuñiga recently graduated from university with degrees in creative writing and studio art. She never wants to stop learning about the craft of writing, and finds that the best way to do so is to read the work of others. She’s still pretty new to creative nonfiction, but has recently been enjoying the writing of Thérèse of Lisieux, Annie Dillard, and Thomas Merton. She wholeheartedly believes that everyone has a valuable story, and works to inspire people to share them.