Blogs as Creative Nonfiction

30 Jul, 2024

In my personal journaling I've been contemplating the fate of my epilepsy essay that I want to complete, and it returned me to thinking about creative nonfiction as a genre. My basic understanding of the genre is that it's factual information delivered with literary devices (i.e. writing in prose). The best example that came to mind was Howard Tayler's story "No, I'm Fine"(Robison Wells benefit antholoy, 2014). Leaving aside how I identified with several aspects of his story, this is the kind of writing that I associate with the creative nonfiction genre.

In doing my research (sources below) however, I now realize that this genre contains multitudes. Things like personal essays are definitely included in the creative nonfiction umbrella, which reassured me a little in that what I was writing doesn't need to be changed in structure and I can continue with what I'm doing. But with everything that "counts" as creative nonfiction, I wonder:

Can we consider blog posts as creative nonfiction?

What I mean is, if you were to submit something to a publication¹ could you take one of your blog posts and submit that? I mean, usually what bloggers write fall under the "5 R's" (from https://writers.com):

1. Write about real life
2. Conduct extensive research
3. Write a narrative
4. Include personal reflection
5. Learn by reading

(More about the "5 R's" here)

I think the idea behind The 5 R's is that your piece should check all the boxes but my interpretation is that the writing should check most of the boxes. I mean, sometimes you don't need to do "extensive" research, but some research should be expected². However I think most of the other bloggers I read probably do check all the boxes.

Another question: does it really matter how we label blog posts? My answer is "no", but for me this is more about validating my own thoughts about my writing and what I'm pushing out to the world. Instead of telling myself "this isn't good enough" I could be telling myself "you're already doing what you want to be doing". As you can see, as it usually does, it circles back to feelings of insecurity regarding my writing.

At the same time, I read examples of creative nonfiction and it does make me feel a little more insecure about my writing. All these writers - they have full, thick paragraphs with descriptive writing. Here I am in my blog posts with short paragraphs that don't fill more than 2-3 lines on a screen. I want to be better than this, I say. But I shouldn't be comparing my writing to others (but when does that stop anybody?).

What I should do in the meantime: practice. If I want to write "better", it's all on me. There's nothing anybody else can do, and there's no magic wand to wave and make my writing better (by my standards).

Sources:

1. What Is Creative Nonfiction? - Creative Nonfiction
2. Creative nonfiction - Wikipedia
3. Understanding Creative Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write It | Writers.com
4. The Five R's of Creative Nonfiction - Owlcation

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