By Ratika Deshpande
Sometime around the beginning of my twenties, I fell in love with creative nonfiction (CNF). So I set to studying the form, reading work published in magazines like Longreads and Literary Hub. I tried writing some essays and I read articles on how I could make them better.
But it wasn’t long before I found myself thinking that I can’t do anything in this genre. Unknowingly, I’d come to accept what I now know are myths about writing CNF, as detailed below:
#1: You have to write about the sad stuff
Almost every essay I read or saw recommended dealt with death, abuse, trauma, or some other difficult experience. Those stories may or may not have happy endings, but at their core were some of the worst things life can throw at people. This kind of writing has value both for writers, who find meaning in articulating their experiences, and for readers, who are able to understand the diverse lives everyone leads.
But when one repeatedly encounters the same themes, it becomes easy to think that that’s what this genre is about. I thought deeply about my two decades of life and found that there was nothing sad or traumatic in it, at least nothing significant enough to write about.
I once tried to write about that time we could have lost our mother had her brain surgery not gone well. But after writing several drafts at various points, I realised I was trying to find meaning in an event which had no story to tell. It was just something that happened, and now everything is well. I couldn’t force it to be something it wasn’t. It felt dishonest.
But then there was nothing that I was left with to write essays about, because I believed that good CNF means writing about the sad stuff. However, as Austin Kleon has said, “you don’t have to write about the bad stuff.”
And that’s true. Consider, for example, the essay, “A Single Small Map Is Enough For A Lifetime” by Alastair Humphreys, which celebrates the stories and sights we can discover in our local surroundings.
#2: You have to be old(er)
How much does one know at 20? Adults here in India have a common line they retort with whenever someone younger gets a little idealistic or equals them in conversation: “beta, tumne abhi duniya dekhi nahi hai.” (Child, you’ve not seen the world yet.)
In my case, this was true. I was 20 and had spent most of my life at school and at home. We didn’t travel or go out much because we couldn’t. I studied and wrote and read books. There were no enlightening vacations, no heartbreak, no work experience, no talking to strangers. And so I thought, “Well, then. I can’t do this right now. I have to go out there and do a lot of different things if I want to write CNF.” Once more, I came close to giving up.
But you don’t have to be older to write CNF. Check out Kim Liao’s excellent and inspiring essay about collecting rejections as an aspiring writer.
#3: You need an interesting life
Relatedly, I believed that being young wouldn’t be a problem if I’d led an “interesting” life, which, as discussed above, I hadn’t.
But good CNF isn’t about the event as much as it is about the way the event is described and reflected upon. If you have that skill, then the most ordinary things—like baking bread or going on a walk—can become an essay that keeps people reading. The interest comes from your perspective, not from the event itself.
For an example, check out “The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews,” a personal essay that goes way beyond the self and finds beauty in something commonplace yet moving.
#4: You have to do a lot of research and reporting
When writers in the CNF magazines I read weren’t writing about their own experiences, they were writing deeply reported pieces about murders and wildlife and interesting people from the past who are hardly known today. But research and reporting require access to resources like time and money to travel, conduct and transcribe interviews, read books and articles, and then put them all together; resources I didn’t have.
In addition, while looking up things because they interested me was fun, this sort of basic internet research isn’t adequate for writing CNF. You have to go deeper. But the thing was that I liked the writing part of writing, not the researching or the note-taking. I felt another door closing.
But as the essays I shared above show, not all CNF requires extensive research. Some can be about your experiences with a single thing—a person, a book, a movie. Consider the piece, “In This Essay I Will: On Distraction” by David Schurman Wallace, which talks about procrastination while also discussing an unfinished novel by the French novelist Gustave Flaubert.
#5: You have to be an expert
Relatedly, I believed that in order to research, I had to be an expert. How could I write about the psychological phenomena of awe without having a PhD in Psychology, for example?
While expertise has its place in nonfiction—I really wish experts had to write layperson friendly books and essays instead of dry academic articles as part of their jobs—topics don’t come with some sort of locked door that only a few can access. A lot of good nonfiction comes not from subject experts but from people who are good at doing their homework—looking in the right places, asking good questions, knowing what to keep or discard, and how to arrange it all to tell a good story. You don’t need credentials or years of experience, but you do need to work hard (something I admit I wasn’t willing to do back then).
#6: Writing about oneself is looked down upon
About a decade ago, there was a lot of discussion about the internet’s obsession with personal essays. There was a lot of fair criticism pointing out how these essays sensationalised life experiences, encouraged people (especially women) to confess everything and expose themselves to the world, and contained little in the way of reflection and introspection, instead becoming content for the internet to make viral.
But not all writing about one’s self has these attributes. They vary from writer to writer, and from platform to platform. Consider the essays in Terry Pratchett’s A Slip of the Keyboard, in which the author writes about everything from picking mushrooms early in the morning to the right to die after getting diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Stephen King’s On Writing is not just a guide but also a recollection of his childhood and youth, of the development of a writer.
Our own selves—especially the perspectives with which we look at the world, applying our own filters on it—are the richest resource we have at our disposal to bring into our writing. It’s not bad to use that resource; the problem arises when the writing lacks the elements of good CNF–reflection, introspection, consideration, and, when needed, research (as opposed to self-centredness, sensationalism, an overabundance of details, and never considering things from a different perspective). Consider the following:
- “How to Learn Everything: The MasterClass Diaries” by Irina Dumitrescu
- “My Year of Writing Anonymously” by Stacey D’Erasmo
#7: You have to “write” “essays”
Creative nonfiction is playful. Its boundaries and definitions aren’t fixed. You don’t have to write a set of paragraphs. You can write lists. You can write letters. You can make comics about your experiences. You can turn them into poetry or lyric essays. You can convert them into graphic essays. You could even record podcasts or write scripts for YouTube videos.
Writers work with words. No one said those words had to be on paper, or couldn’t be put into speech bubbles. “Creative” can mean anything. Check out the following:
- “How Does a Person Lose Track of Their Diary?” by Sophie Lucido Johnson
- “Home Is a Mug of Coffee” by Candace Rose Rardon
In conclusion
When I look back upon my reading, I realize that I believed these myths because I was looking at what was popular, what was selling. It was only when I started looking beyond recommended essays and reading according to my interests that I discovered the kind of CNF I would like to write. There was nothing holding me back from writing what I wanted, except myself. What I actually needed to do was as Mary Oliver said in her poem, “Sometimes,” the only tip for writing CNF one really needs:
“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
Ratika Deshpande is a writer from India. Her work has appeared in Authors Publish, Reactor Magazine, the Brevity Blog, and other platforms. You can support her writing here.
