Kirby's Wright's Weblog

What is "creative non-fiction?"

I suppose you could say novels such as Dreiser's SISTER CARRIE are full of creative non-fiction because the book is based on the life of times of Dreiser's own sister. Side bar: Can anyone tell me what character is Dreiser in disguise?!

Hemingway says write about what you know and, if the writer listens to Papa, then all fiction has certain elements of non-fiction in it. How could it not? But, a truly imaginative writer doesn't really need to experience something first hand in order to write about it. For example, consider Stephen Crane and THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. He never went to war but still wrote about it. And Maxine Hong Kingston never went to China but still did a magnificent job of writing about it in CHINA MEN.