Topic Subtopic Writing Writing Creative Nonfiction

[Pages:172]Topic Literature & Language

Subtopic Writing

Writing Creative Nonf iction

Course Guidebook

Professor Tilar J. Mazzeo

Colby College

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Tilar J. Mazzeo, Ph.D.

Clara C. Piper Professor of English Colby College

Professor Tilar J. Mazzeo is the New York Times best-selling author of The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, the story of the ?rst international businesswoman in history, and The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World's Most Famous Perfume. The Widow Clicquot won the 2008 Gourmand Award for the best book of wine literature published in the United States.

Professor Mazzeo holds a Ph.D. in English and teaches British and European literature at Colby College, where she is the Clara C. Piper Professor of English. She has been the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at The George Washington University, and her writing on creative non?ction techniques has appeared in recent collections such as Now Write! Nonfiction: Memoir, Journalism, and Creative Nonfiction Exercises from Today's Best Writers.

An experienced travel, food, and wine writer, Professor Mazzeo is also the author of Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma and Back Lane Wineries of Napa. Her travel essays have appeared in publications such as Food & Wine magazine, and her narrative non?ction account of life in the Hotel Ritz in Paris during the Second World War is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

Professor Mazzeo divides her time between coastal Maine and the California wine country.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Professor Biography ............................................................................i Course Scope.....................................................................................1

LECTURE GUIDES

LECTURE 1 Welcome to Creative Nonfiction .........................................................3 LECTURE 2 Finding the Story ..............................................................................10 LECTURE 3 Honoring the Nonfiction Contract .....................................................16 LECTURE 4 Writing Great Beginnings..................................................................22 LECTURE 5 Show, Don't Tell ................................................................................28 LECTURE 6 Launching a Narrative Arc ................................................................34 LECTURE 7 Cliffhangers and Page Turners.........................................................40 LECTURE 8 Building Dramatic Sentences ...........................................................46 LECTURE 9 Rhetorical Devices and Emotional Impact........................................52 LECTURE 10 Putting It All Together........................................................................59

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Table of Contents

LECTURE 11 Revealing Character in Words and Actions ......................................66 LECTURE 12 Creating Compelling Characters ......................................................71 LECTURE 13 Character Psychology ......................................................................78 LECTURE 14 Getting Inside the Heads of Your Characters ...................................83 LECTURE 15 Using Narrative Perspective .............................................................89 LECTURE 16 Shaping Your Voice ..........................................................................95 LECTURE 17 Writing the Gutter--How to Not Tell a Story ...................................100 LECTURE 18 Dialogue Strategies in Creative Nonfiction .....................................108 LECTURE 19 Researching Creative Nonfiction .................................................... 117 LECTURE 20 How to Not Have People Hate You.................................................126 LECTURE 21 Revising Your Work ........................................................................132 LECTURE 22 Building Your Audience...................................................................138 LECTURE 23 Getting Published ...........................................................................143

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Table of Contents

LECTURE 24 Being a Writer.................................................................................148

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL Glossary .........................................................................................153 Bibliography ....................................................................................159

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Writing Creative Nonfiction

Scope:

Have you ever wished that you could capture a vivid memory or experience in words? Do you dream of writing about a historical or cultural ?gure who fascinated you? Is there a family history you have always wanted to share, or one of your life's adventures that you have always said to yourself would make a wonderful story? Have you ever wanted to launch a new career as a writer or wanted to explore writing as a private passion? Writing well is not only useful, but it helps us preserve our life experiences as they truly occurred or as we felt them. It lets us share stories in ways that others ?nd compelling. Creative non?ction can open whole new windows on the way you and your readers experience history-- maybe your history.

This course will help you write effectively about the things that matter to you, and it will introduce you to the exciting and quickly growing ?eld of creative non?ction--the art of bringing all the traditional strategies of ?ctional storytelling to narrating real-life events. In this course, you will learn how to craft powerful memoirs and family histories, how to write a biography of a fascinating ?gure, the history of an inspiring moment, or a work of riveting travel writing.

This course takes you from the beginning to the end of the process of writing creative non?ction: from ?nding your story and crafting great beginnings to ?nding an audience for your book and working through the revision process. It offers ?rsthand advice from a bestselling author on breaking into the world of publishing and plenty of hands-on exercises for anyone simply interested in learning how to write more powerfully about his or her personal experiences.

Along the way, you will also learn about how to write chapters that are page-turners, how to develop gripping characters, and how to ?nd the right structure for your story. You will learn how to develop the research skills to support your writing and how to write about the lives of people

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you know in ways that will not make them uncomfortable. You will learn how to use cliffhanger endings that keep your readers on the edge of their seats, how to keep your reader imaginatively engaged in factual history, and how to avoid common pitfalls like mixed metaphors, purple prose, and stock characters. You will also learn about the ethics of writing about true experiences, biographies, and autobiographies and how to avoid--unlike some recent controversial authors--breaking what writers and editors call the non?ction contract.

In this course, you will practice new writing strategies that will help you master the art of storytelling so you can tell the stories of your experience and of the world around you from new perspectives, with panache. You will learn how to revise and edit your own work with new insight and con?dence, how to ?nd a community of fellow writers, and the secrets of the seven habits that professional writers cultivate to keep on writing and to manage writer's block.

Your professor--an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author-- will guide you through the genres of personal creative non?ction writing that both interested amateurs and professionals can enjoy, including the memoir, cultural history, travel writing, personal essays, and biography. Lectures offer practical advice on selecting and organizing ideas, establishing the goals and themes of your work, and publishing ?nished products.

Your professor uses memorable examples from well-known authors and speci?cally tailored craft exercises to help you learn the secrets of great writing from personal experience. You will learn highly effective research techniques to help you pursue your personal interests in prose, as well as how to craft the non?ction story you have always wanted to tell--beautifully. With the right instructor, writing creative non?ction is a skill everyone can master and enjoy.

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Scope

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