Creative Nonfiction

Hoping to inspire individuals to write, I considered hosting a retreat to provide an opportunity to submerge themselves in their writing.

I researched writing retreats and came across one hosted in Paris, France. The pariscafewriting.com website states, "Our focus is creative nonfiction. This means writing about real people, real places, and really good food! Can you then spin it into creative fiction? Absolutely."

Once I understood that creative nonfiction, for example, describing the Paris café they were sitting in, could be used in a scene of a fictional piece of writing, I realized it was brilliant! What a great way to practice writing without the overwhelming thought of writing a book.

Writing creative nonfiction provides the foundation for your novel, memoir, or nonfiction book. If you have already been working on a manuscript, your creative nonfiction writing can fill in details often skipped over in the desire to stitch the plot together or have the characters say the right thing at the right time. But perhaps most importantly, producing these pieces of writing ahead of time will prove to yourself you can do it, and that can go a long way!

Give it a try! Study a unique character in that coffee shop (hopefully without them knowing), and you can develop an interesting side character.

— Cindy