Table of Figures

Creative Nonfiction can be the typical history book or intriguing personal accounts of real life events. Dividing the two relies on the integrity in the author for the account being recorded.

Historians may briefly overview wide periods of history with simple labels like the Industrial era, but that leaves out people in history that didn't experience Industrialism during that time. Likewise, an author can go over periods of life in a biography; however, both the historian and the author can engage in creative nonfiction if they add fictional techniques to the real events they record.

"Table of Figures," by Brenda Miller, takes the form of a nonfiction description for a Miller's younger years and introduces, by way of the diary account, the emotional discourse unique to the Miller.

The narrator is Miller, yet she is separate and merely observing the girl's experiences. She records significant parts of the girl's life with editorials for how she feels, signaling to the reader that this is really Miller's experiences. At that point, the piece becomes creative nonfiction.

Creative Nonfiction lets a true story reveal personal growth of characters and do so by engaging the reader in the events. This type of nonfiction is not the listing of fats--it's an explicative account of events through literary techniques.

Miller uses a narrator and emotion to record her years as a girl while a biography notes a timeline. "Table of Figures" can be a biography and that is why it can be considered Nonfiction. The integrity of her account does not mar the real events she is describing.

David Darner