Post 13

When talking about whether Creative Nonfiction is more Fiction or Journalism I still don’t know how I feel about it.  In the beginning of the class I was thinking it was more towards the Journalism side then the fiction side because of the idea that no matter what, you are going to be telling a story.  The story is also a true story so that’s why I would lean towards the Journalism side.  I felt the fiction side of it was more because of the idea that you are using heavy description to describe the moments and how they felt in a real story.  To me that sounds a lot like a journalist.  But then I forget now what was said in class that made me flip back to the fiction side but it got me thinking about the dialogue.  When you think about it you aren’t going to be able to get EXACT dialogue unless use a recorder.  And if you use a recorder it ends up being more journalism then anyway.  So if you create dialogue to make the story move smoother would that make it fiction? Even now writing this I’m flip flopping on where I think creative nonfiction stands.  I still think though that Creative Nonfiction falls about halfway between journalism and the half-way point.  I just feel the main idea is to get a story that you feel is important across to people who you feel need to hear what you have to say.  I can see why people would feel it could be more fiction then journalism but I just don’t feel as strong about it.   Even if someone takes parts of a story and puts them together to make it seem like they were there for the whole thing like the one story we read about the meth addict from Philly who found the money in a bag, still to me is considered more of a journalistic type of story.   It might not be AS journalistic as some of the other stories but it still has a journalistic feel to it by the way the author still had to do research and was imbedded in the situation like a journalist  would be.