Law and Ethics (Ch. 11)

"They're not just words--they're whole ways of looking at things. And it's crucial for nonfiction writers to make their own vocabulary and not let other people control it." --Bob Reiss, quoted by Philip Gerard, page 205, Creative Nonfiction

One of the hardest obstacles to overcome in writing about real events is other people. Other people want to tell the story their way and/or heavily influence how you tell it. In some genres, it's okay to let the people tell the story; simply present what they said to the reader, and let the reader draw his/her own conclusions. But part of what makes creative nonfiction different is that it allows you as a writer to shape the story more and make it mean more in some ways. Even though the story might not have anything to do with you specifically as a person, you are the one telling it. You have to tell it how you decide it should be told, not how other people want it to be remembered. It's important to have standards and ethics when writing other people's stories, or even your own, too, but the most important thing to me is to tell the story my way. Otherwise, it could have been told by anyone.