Brenda Miller - Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction

Copyright 2019 by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truths superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind

EMILY DICKINSON

Bernard Cooper

Brian Doyle

Marjorie Rose Hakala

Barbara Hurd

Michel de Montaigne

Jericho Parms

Kristen Radtke

Paisley Rekdal

Brent Staples

Ira Sukrungruang

Ryan Van Meter

Gwendolyn Wallace

Feeling overwhelmed by data, random information, the flotsam and jetsam of mass culture, we relish the spectacle of a single consciousness making sense of a portion of the chaos.... The essay is a haven for the private, idiosyncratic voice in an era of anonymous babble.

SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS

When Emily Dickinson wrote, Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant/Success in Circuit lies, what did she mean? We think she meant that truth takes on many guises; the truth of art can be very different from the truth of day-to-day life. Her poems and letters, after all, reveal her deft observation of the outer world, but it is slanted through the poets distinctive vision. We chose her poem as both title and epigraph for this book because it so aptly describes the task of the creative nonfiction writer: to tell the truth, yes, but to become more than a mere transcriber of lifes factual experience.

The more you read and study, the more you will discover that creative nonfiction assumes a particular, creating self behind the nonfiction prose. When you set about to write creative nonfiction about any subject, you bring to this endeavor a strong voice and a singular vision. This voice must be loud and interesting enough to be heard among the noise coming at us in everyday life.

We see all the chapters in Tell It Slant as presenting a series of introductions, lessons, and sometimes provocations in the art of writing creative nonfiction. We aim to present the most comprehensive information about creative nonfiction possible, in an accessible form, with a sense of how these techniques have played out in the lives of working writers.

We also want all of the concepts we present to be translatable immediately into actual writing ideas, so each chapter begins with a short personal narrative to give you a sense of how we, the authors, have negotiated the territory. Because we recognize the limits of what we know, we have provided tips from many of the best nonfiction writers working today to expand our expertise in particular areas of creative nonfiction. At the end of each chapter, we provide a series of prompts to help you put into action the principles weve explained. Use them as starting points to tell it slant and create your own brand of creative nonfiction.

Since the first edition of Tell It Slant was published in 2003, creative nonfiction as a genre has been growing and shaping itself before our eyes. The term creative nonfiction was first used in English in the late 1960s, a fraction of a second in literary history. The term lyric essay, now so important in our genre, was introduced in 1997, by John DAgata in the journal Seneca Review. All of us who are part of this living, growing genre still make our way through a young and exciting literary landscape.

In 2012, we produced an updated, second edition that responded to the exponential growth in the field, highlighting new forms and innovations while also looking in-depth at the tools you need to produce great writing.

Now, seven years later, we saw the need for a new, fully updated third edition that addresses how the field of creative nonfiction continues to evolve in a quickly changing world, even as we keep those basics of great writing, revising, and publishing in mind. Whenever its time to update this book, we return to the job with renewed excitement. Part of that feeling is our love for this genre. Part of it, too, is how much, even in a few years, there is to talk abouthow much has happened in creative nonfiction thats truly new. We continue to see great growth, formal experimentation, and much discussion about what this genre can and should do.