Not Non-Fiction

I have a Master’s Degree from the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, and for the past 20 years I’ve taught a course in Literary Nonfiction (a course that I developed). A constant frustration I encounter, whether from students, administrators, other faculty, bookstores, libraries, or Wikipedia, is the misspelling of nonfiction as the hyphenated “non-fiction.” In none of the dictionaries I have is nonfiction spelled with a hyphen. And there is no reason for doing so. Yes, there are some compound terms (not words) that require a hyphen with the non- prefix:  non-faculty, non-student, non-thinking, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-prefix. But the overwhelming majority of words (not negative compounds) that have a non prefix do not have a hyphen: nonachiever, nonaddictive, nonbeliever, nondeductible, nonessential, noninvasive, nonkosher, nonlethal, nonobjective, nonlinear, nonprofit, nonresistant, nonresponsive, nonsense, nonsmoker, nontoxic, nonviolent (I could go on) – and oh yes, nonfiction.

When I confront others (students, colleagues, librarians) with this misspelling, I’m usually branded a nitpicker (not nit-picker). But as someone who writes and teaches literary nonfiction, it’s something of a sore point with me. The literary nonfiction genre is problematic in its naming. It requires the adjective “literary” to distinguish it from non-literary (another acceptable use of the non-hyphen) nonfiction – most journalism, science writing, history, biography, et al. Some people use the term creative nonfiction, and that’s not offensive, but it implies that other nonfiction prose is not (or non-) creative, and as I try to teach my students, all writing – even the thoughtful shopping list or suicide note – has creative potential. (Take William Carlos Williams’ note to his wife: “I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox // and which you / were probably / saving / for breakfast // Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold”) The essential quality that defines literary nonfiction is the use of literary techniques – plot, character, setting, imagery, figurative and poetic language, etc. – in telling a nonfiction story, describing an actual person or place, or reflecting on an experience or idea. As Virginia Woolf writes in “The Modern Essay”: “The principle that controls it is simply that it should give us pleasure . . . The essay must lap us about and draw its curtain across the world.” (Note her use of metaphor; her essay about the essay is a literary essay.) The most salient characteristic of the genre is not that it’s actual, but rather that it’s aesthetic.

The problem with the term literary nonfiction (or creative nonfiction) is that it requires an adjective to distinguish this genre from other nonfiction genres. Fiction, poetry, and drama don’t have this problem. Why was “nonfiction” selected to designate this fourth genre? Why not “nonpoetry”? “nondrama”? It’s prose, of course, and often involves narrative, character, and setting, so it most often resembles fiction. (It’s often difficult to distinguish between first-person realistic fiction and first-person narrative nonfiction, if they aren’t labeled.) But tacking on the non- prefix to fiction instead of coming up with a wholly different term, forever relegates literary nonfiction as a negative – it’s not fiction – and thereby sublimates it as a genre. Many have tried in vain to come up with an alternative term, but nothing has of yet taken. At the very least we should dump the hyphenated misspelling of the term, as it only emphasizes the genre’s sublimation. Or maybe we could just start referring to fiction as non-nonfiction.