What would you call Nonfiction?

[Jack7]

We got snowed in this weekend.

So right before the storm, since I knew I wasn't gonna be working this weekend, I started reading a series of essays by a non-fiction author. He was complaining about how nonfiction is a sucky title/designation for the subject matter. It defines nonfiction only by what it is not, namely not-fiction.

I write a lot of nonfiction and I gotta agree with the guy. It's like calling football non-baseball, or a telescope a non-microscope. It's basically a stupid, useless title or designation.

So what would you call nonfiction if you had your druthers or could devise a new term?

Well, thanks again for your help everybody.

The sky has cleared and blued up and since the snow is so thick I think I'm gonna take my Danes and my spotting scope and hike down to the river, see if I can track any deer or coons. Forests look really nice blanketed in snowfall and it'll also make the signs easy to read.

See ya.

 

[Mark]

If you mean Creative Nonfiction, I suggest looking into Gay Talese (whose book on the subject, [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Creative-Nonfiction-Literature-Reality/dp/0060465875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266090990&sr=1-1]Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality[/ame] is used as a text for classes on the subject) or the essays of Joan Didion such as [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Slouching-Towards-Bethlehem-Essays-Classics/dp/0374531382/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266091054&sr=1-4]Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays[/ame]. Otherwise, nonfiction generally refers to histories, biographies, and straight journalism.

 

[Jack7]

If you mean Creative Nonfiction, I suggest looking into Gay Talese (whose book on the subject, Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of... is used as a text for classes on the subject) or the essays of Joan Didion such as Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays . Otherwise, nonfiction generally refers to histories, biographies, and straight journalism.

Yeah, kinda. I know about Creative Nonfiction. I've done it for a long time.

And I know all about the sub-categories of nonfiction.

But what I was really shooting at is, can you think of a good general term (that might stick) for nonfiction that would be the equivalent term to Fiction but which does not use a negative prefix (or negative implication) to describe all Nonfiction.

Something like Faction (though it would have to be a variant definition to what people commonly think of as faction).

For instance rather than defining nonfiction by what it isn't, you'd define it by what it is. As an example:

Fiction: that class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form. something feigned, invented, or imagined; a made-up story: an imaginary thing or event, postulated for the purposes of argument, explanation, or entertainment.

Faction: that class of literature comprising works of a factual nature or believed to be of a factual nature, esp. in prose form. something factual, verifiable, known to be real. based upon historical truth. presented in structured forms with the purpose of exploring, explaining, or debating reality.

I kinda like the term faction, but then again I also suspect a better term could be designed, invented, or redefined, to accommodate this problem.

It bothers me though that nonfiction is defined (terminologically speaking) by what it isn't, rather than what it actually is.

Anyone know of or ever invented a better term than nonfiction or faction to describe what nonfiction is?

 

[Quantum]

I got it, friction.