What is Creative Non-Fiction (to me)

I actually had a few discussions about taking this class.  When talking to other friends who are starting schools and discussing our schedules I had gotten a few weird looks as soon as I explained that I had a Creative Non Fiction class.  "What's creative about non fiction?"  was the most prevalent question.  How can something that is already in existence be creative?  Naturally, as  a Theater Major I had plenty of answers to the question.  My whole life is mostly taking a story that has been told and figuring out a new way to tell it, or in my case, make it visible in a different and "new" way.   Most of us have been told several times throughout our academic career that nothing is actually new.  Everything has been done before.  i disagree because even if you try to replicate something no one can.  My favorite part about theater is the live human experience leaves so much for interpretation, so many things to go wrong, or differently, that makes everything different, no matter how hard we all try to make each performance exactly the same.

The same can be said of any writing including non fiction.  Although people styles of writing have been mimicked there is something distinctly different.  What discourages us (besides our moral compass) from plagiarizing is the idea that we will get caught.  And every year when we attend our first day of class every professor tells you that your way of writing is like your fingerprint.  It is distinct and if something is "off"  about your writing they CAN tell and they WILL find out.  It's the difference in all of our styles that makes anything although striving to reach standards and emulate our favorite authors, that we will always be definitively different no matter how hard we try.

It seems like I think that difference= creativity.   It's a small part but the other part of creativity is not only what is innate in all of us.  It's beyond the elements of our character that we ooze and the way it influences what we make.  The other part of creativity is what we have taken in, what we have learned, what thought processes we go through, what other people say, what we know we do well, etc.  It is everything we have been taught and what we have internalized and the way we project it to the world that is creativity.  Even if something already exists the way we recycle it and present it to the world is creative.  That's why we love "reality" television, why we are intrigued by documentaries, why we religious watch shark week every year.  Sharks don't change mating habits or how they tear surfers apart but we watch a new interpretation of it.  Creative Nonfiction to me is taking the creativity and perspective that is natural to each of us as individuals and applying it to something real.  It then becomes an interpretation which is the centerpiece of creative nonfiction.  Yes it is real.  Yes we may already know the facts but what makes it creative is the aspect of interpretation.  At least, that's what I think.