What Is Creative Nonfiction?

[Chuck Stromme]

"Creative Nonfiction". CNF for short here if you'd like. It's a fairly new term for me, too. The first time I heard it I immediately thought "THAT's what I've been writing all these years." Who knew?

Wikipedia says "Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is a genre of writing which uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives." (Thank you, Wiki.)

That makes sense to me and it's the definition I'll use here for convenience. It's not an exclusive definition here or anywhere else, it's just useful in understanding the concept. You're not bound by it except for the "factually accurate" part. Creative nonfiction is never ... fiction. Can we agree on that, please?

I have always fancied myself an essayist, writing about what I see and what I imagine surrounds what I see. That ought to fit in our definition. I can also create stories around events I have witnessed or that have been related to me. I've been around long enough to have witnessed and experienced more than a few, including a war, a revolution and two mega-earthquakes.

And I helped raise (largely from afar) a girl-child. That's like an ongoing mega-earthquake. She turned out OK in spite of it all, though. She's member #3 on our site and I'm proud of it. Good kid.

Chuck

[Monte Olsen]

Darkness falls early on Corvallis and the Oregon State University crew team this time of year. After all, it is mid-February, and Pacific Standard Time dictates that there will be many cold, wet, bone chilling afternoons like this in the cloudy Northwest before the enveloping warm embrace of spring arrives.
The year is 1973, and a flurry of snowflakes descends softly into the night air, creating a ghostly aura under mercury vapor lights. The river, always a torrent this time of year, roils past OSU’s crew docks bubbling and blustering its way downstream to Portland and the ocean.

With steam pouring from their grey, sweatshirted backs, eight fatigued rowers bend to their shell and prepare to swing the fragile boat over their heads and onto their shoulders. Doubled over like that, they look like a team eight hunchbacks leering into the night.

It has been a long afternoon: one that started under light grey skies and is now ending with a familiar bone aching numbness in absolute darkness. There’s still a 3-kilometer jog to come, and, quite probably, a ton’s worth of weight lifting in the crew’s old yellow barn.

Like those who join the French Foreign Legion, each of these rowers has his or her own reason for seeking the rewards and body pounding of one of the nation’s least known but most grueling sports. How I wound up participating is a story probably not unlike the others: For me, crew provided a chance to put my daily odysseys behind and laser focus on that one thing that captivates every rower: the perfection of the stroke.

Crew provided a mental vacation at a time when more intrusive, uncivilized thoughts would have me concentrate on things I would rather forget. It had only been two years before that I sat on the receiving end of incoming mortar and rocket fire in a far less hospitable place.

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Darkness falls too early on Tay Ninh Forward Combat Base in South Vietnam. This base camp was plopped along the Cambodian border at the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to help disrupt southbound enemy traffic. This trail, actually a loose network, is a major access route for North Vietnamese army troops moving into the southern half of what was then known as the Republic of South Vietnam. Then, in February 1971, this combat base and the surrounding province often gain the unwelcome attention of these unfriendly visitors, who often like to demonstrate their dislike of western foreigners in the form of exploding rockets, mortars and perimeter probes or attacks. For those in the infantry, things are even worse. They have to slog through these jungles rarely even seeing the confines of a place like Tay Ninh.
As the sun descends to the horizon, the scene shines in a golden glow just minutes before night’s dark blanket covers the landscape. GIs are nearing the end of a hot, humid day. Some will go on to occupy bunkers and towers on the base camp’s perimeter, while others will man radios.

It is midnight, and there is no mistaking the sound of mortars leaving their tubes, heading into our area of the base camp. Seconds later:

Krumpf! Krumpf-krumpf!…

Mortar rounds start impacting the bunker line, causing the earth to tremble and sending shards of concertina wire flying into the air. If I had been feeling sleepy, I’m certainly not now. The rounds are still a hundred yards or so away. While that may not be close enough to prompt a quick sprint to the welcome safety of a bunker, it is close enough for me and my friends to start thinking about walking in that general direction.

Slowly, the mortar rounds step their way toward us, like a giant stomping on the ground, ever closer with each impact. The rounds explode into the light night air. Since we are the only full-sized American unit left in what is a ghost town, nights like these are more common than not. And we often find ourselves the targets of such attacks.

The North Vietnamese Army mortar team pauses to adjust their tubes before the cycle starts again.
Krumpf-krumpf… Krumpf… . This barrage has been building for a few minutes when the mortar rounds draw close enough that the explosions begin cracking the night air. That is a sign for most people to stop goofing off and get serious about heading for safety. For most of these GIs, mortars are not as bothersome as rockets, which are more unpredictable and tend to land in huge, explosive swarms.
The ground continues to shudder with each impact, but many of the men on the receiving end of the barrage try not to hurry. That would be bad form. Well, bad form unless the rounds drop right on top of us, which would suddenly send people into a reflexive dive to the earth, hugging the ground or curling into a fetal position.

Krumpf! Krumpf! Krumpf! This mortar crew appears to be in no particular hurry. In fact, they seem to be softening up the bunker line in an almost casual way. We don’t learn until the next morning that a force of several hundred NVA are preparing to assault the northern side of our base camp. All we know at this moment is that things are starting to get dicey and we probably should pick up our pace.

[Chuck Stromme]

Monte, this is terrific stuff. Thank you for sharing it here. I am honored. You should put this story in its own discussion thread within the Creative Nonfiction section, not just a reply to my humble question. Click into the section, then "Start a New Discussion", then cut and paste.

I can feel the krumpfs with you. I didn't know (or maybe just didn't remember) that our tours of duty overlapped. I was in Bien Hoa that Feb. 1971 night, that night and many others. I wasn't in the danger you were, though.

I love the juxtaposition of 1973 and 1971. At first I didn't know where you were going with it. Very nice job.

More, please.

Chuck

[SGTsickcall]

I liked the way you started in a direction and just when I was into the rhythym, you took a round about and I was headed back in time. I remember the rockets and mortars, too as a midwestern thunderstorm that sweetened the thick humid air and for a few seconds I could breathe that fresh light air chocked with ozone. Shortly the air would begin it's inexhorable increase in humidity, just as the mortar and rocket attacks would cease, bring a moment of peace, but I new there would be more. I new not when they would come, but I new there would be more.