So I'm touring my old issues of North American Review and reading the various creative non-fiction stories that each issue has to offer and, I must admit, I'm stumped. I think I'm thinking too much about the elements of creative non-fiction; my mind is twirling and twisting like an old circus pretzel! Can anyone quickly list differences between creative non-fiction and fiction other than the obvious rule that one is real and the other false but still believable? Can creative non-fiction be written about a memory or event that happened to me or does it have to be solely steeped in facts about someone or some place outside of myself (like the John Adams series on HBO)? This last question may sound silly but is there any guideline or "rule" about the number of facts I must interject into my story if the non-fiction account is written about me? (For example [and this is bad writing, I know!] : As a child, I wouldn't dare drink after a friend or sample a friend's hamburger in the stuffy cafeteria. I guess my germaphobia must have started young, as perhaps it did for Howard Hughes, who was often seen lining up his peas like pale green soldiers in an endless quest for cleanliness and order." Thanks for your help!
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