Terms of the Craft
Glossary
The vocabulary of nonfiction we use in class, gathered in one place.
The Forms
- Creative Nonfiction
- True stories told with literary craft: scene, voice, image, structure. The umbrella term for everything in this course.
- Place Essay
- An essay about the relation between a person and a place — what the place does to the writer.
- Personal Essay
- A reflective, first-person essay that thinks on the page, often digressive, usually turning toward a deeper subject.
- Memoir
- A true narrative drawn from one strand of the writer’s life, shaped by the older self’s understanding.
- Autobiography
- The account of a whole life, usually chronological. Memoir chooses; autobiography covers.
- Flash Nonfiction
- A compressed true narrative, usually under 750 words.
- Lyric Essay
- An essay that moves by image, fragment, and association rather than argument.
- Profile
- A portrait of a living person built from observation, scene, and testimony.
- Oral History
- A narrative in the speaker’s own words, gathered by interview and shaped by the writer with the speaker’s approval.
- Braided Essay
- An essay in which two or more strands alternate and illuminate one another.
- Hermit Crab Essay
- An essay that borrows an existing form — a list, form, résumé, or notice — as its shell. The term was coined by Brenda Miller.
- Ekphrasis
- Writing in response to a work of art.
- Collective Memoir
- A book of many true voices about a shared place, time, or experience.
The Craft
- Scene
- Time slowed, the reader in the room: dialogue, gesture, sensory detail.
- Summary
- Time compressed: years or events reported rather than dramatized.
- Double Voice
- In memoir, the interplay of the experiencing self and the remembering self.
- Persona
- The version of the self a writer constructs on the page.
- The Turn
- The moment an essay pivots from its apparent subject to its real one.
- Segment
- A discrete section of a fragmented essay, separated by white space, numbers, or titles.
- Telling Detail
- A concrete particular that reveals character, status, or feeling without explanation.
- Primary Source
- A document or object from the time itself: a photograph, a letter, a brochure, a lease.
- Secondary Source
- An account written later about the past: a history page, an encyclopedia article.
The Ethics
- Consent
- A living person’s informed permission to be written about or quoted.
- Composite
- A character or scene built from several real ones. In nonfiction, composites must be disclosed.
- Right to Withdraw
- A contributor’s right to remove their words or likeness before publication.
- Fact-Check
- Verification of every name, date, place, and quotation before a piece is shared.