The first time that I’d ever seriously attempted a novel, it was around 2002 and I was at Mansfield University completing my undergrad studies. My novel writing class had been building on studying formatting and narrative patterns throughout the semester. We’d been mainly supplementing “How to Write a Damn Good Novel” by James N. Frey with a few different specific novel forms.
After some inspiring words and some time to write, I came up with a damn good idea: a post-biblical Revelations world ravaged by environmental factors. The three main characters would travel from New York City toward Portland, Ore., in search of the New Jerusalem. Fifty pages into the book, we completed our first group workshop, and I got my first feedback. I remembered specifically my classmate mentioned that the storyline sounded familiar. I took it as a good sign and kept working.
But, during the second group session, the same student suddenly recalled the connection, and he exclaimed, “That’s it. Stephen King’s ‘The Stand.’ You ever read it? Cause your story sure sounds awfully familiar.” Now mind you, that year there was controversy in the college community about instructors teaching King in major author courses and masters classes. Call me a literary snob, but I was lost in my literature courses, had a love for “Moby Dick” and Ralph Waldo Emerson and wasn’t particularly thrilled about my classmate’s King connection. Of course I had seen the big-name adapted films, “Misery,” “Carrie,” “Cujo,” and of course, “The Shining,” but the only novel I’d read by the master himself was “Thinner,” and I’d only read one-third before quitting. Needless to say, I’d never even heard of “The Stand.”
Some months later while working on the manuscript, I was unable to get that classmate’s feedback out of my mind and I abandoned the topic completely. Then for added stubborn measure, I personally banned all King from my future reading lists. Strangely, I haven’t actually gotten around to reading or watching “The Stand” to this very day. But I’ve made my peace with King, and I will admit on the record that I actually loved “On Writing.”
In any case, I hadn’t thought of this Portland-bound novel memory until last week when I began researching this column. As both a journalist and a creative writer, it seemed to me that genres like narrative nonfiction and travel writing appearing in creative journals didn’t appear to be much different than journalistic reporting I’d seen done in major magazines. So, what was the difference in the writing? Was there a major difference? My inquiring mind began to explore the topic.
For two weeks, I’d planned out what I hypothesized were the real distinctions between journalism and creative nonfiction. Then, a few days ago, as I clicked on this month’s “Poets and Writers” magazine online, there, before my eyes, Michael McGregor, journalist and associate professor of nonfiction writing at Portland State University in Oregon, had published a thematically familiar article. However, this time, instead of personally banning Michael McGregor to an unwavering fate similar to King, my curiosity made me read.
As I continued “Green-Haired Gumshoes or Hidebound Hacks? Creative Nonfiction vs. Journalism,” McGregor’s points on nonfiction and journalism unwrapped my mind, polishing it like fine silver, shining brilliantly from one idea to another. He continued by balancing the second half of the article with inquiries exploring Dinty Moore’s “literary journalism” and “new” new journalism vs. “old” new journalism, and why journalists get a bad rap amongst creative writers.
Then, McGregor’s ideas fully diverged from my own as he masterfully questioned the validity of Lee Gutkind’s opinions of the creative nonfiction genre. Of Gutkind he writes, “In his ‘Godfather’ essay Gutkind stresses, too, that ‘creative nonfiction writers must always work as hard as necessary to be true to the facts.’ But while making vague statements about the need to avoid ‘a loss in substance, integrity or verifiable facts’ when using story to enliven an otherwise journalistic account, he never defines these terms or tells us where the ‘substance’ and ‘facts’ come from. He condemns outright inventions such as making up ‘saucy dialogue’ to improve a story, calling them ‘inexcusable laziness,’ but he never suggests how much research, or what kind, a ‘true’ nonfiction account requires.”
It appears that McGregor added a spin to things as he also interestingly explored craft vs. art in journalism. He writes, “What distinguishes [new journalists] from traditional journalists is that they trust their perceptions, accept that objectivity is a myth, and work hard to communicate the human dimensions of their subjects by using storytelling techniques — a narrative approach, a distinctive voice, scenes and dialogue and setting. What sets them apart from those who insist on words like creative and art is that they’re reporters and researchers first. Gumshoes and craftsmen.”
In the end, it appears that whether McGregor, King or I had similar ideas, the parallels didn’t matter. There is no doubt that from each of our unique life experiences and world views if each of us had been asked to create a story from the same exact writing topic, different papers would surely be produced. So, when it comes down to ideas, it truly is the thought that counts.
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