Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Reflection #7

Can Non-fiction be a lie?

I think that in order for a book to be considered non-fiction or a memoir, they need to be 100% true. I don’t want to hear an exaggerated story or the twisted truth, when all along I thought it was real. If it wants that title, it should stick to the facts.

I think half-truths can make great stories. I think that’s where a lot of books come from- something happened to the author but they changed it to make it more exciting and worth the read. Books shouldn’t be considered non-fiction, if this is the case because the author is lying to the audience.

There should be a break between fiction and non-fiction. It’s like in the movies when they say, “based on a true story.” You can tell when that’s said, not everything is going to be true. In the book world, they could create a subsection under non-fiction, informing the reader what they’re about to get in to.  It lets you know that while some things did in fact happen- others did not.

 It can still be a great story despite the added scenes or lies - it’s just a matter of clarifying where the information came from.

No comments:

Post a Comment