A non-fiction book needs to be 100% true. Dictionary.com defines non-fiction as, "the branch of literature comprising works of narrative prose dealing with or offering opinions or conjectures upon facts and reality, including biography, history, and the essay." You cannot just embellish facts to make the story more interesting because it is now creative and fiction work; made up.
Then I was wondering: is a memoir nonfiction? or is it allowed to be flawed?
Barbara Doyen stated, "memories are faulty, so a little leeway is given to authors of memoirs, but they are expected to be honest and to check their facts for accuracy. Creating fiction and passing it off as nonfiction, as apparently was done by James Frey in his controversial A Million Little Pieces, is completely unacceptable."
So a memoir is supposed to be all facts, but a couple of slip ups, say recalling a conversation from when you were six, is okay. I just think that if you don't know all the information, why put it in a book and sell it as the true story of you?
I love non-fiction. I recently read the book Moonwalking With Einstein, which is a non-fiction account of the author, Joshua Foer, going to a memory championship. It included cited facts from other memory books, and Foer also talks about bringing a recorder with him, so you know that the conversations are true. There is nothing made up in that book, therefore it is non-fiction.
If you need half-truths to sell your life story, maybe it shouldn't be written down.
And we do need to label our books between fiction and non-fiction. No one would be able to trust any book on factual information if they don't know if it is fiction or not. There are so many books out there; we need categories to place them in.
If we couldn't label our encyclopedias as non-fiction (100% true), we couldn't use them to prove a point, because someone could have gone in there and changed definition because that's how they felt it should be. WE NEED FACTS.
Then I was wondering: is a memoir nonfiction? or is it allowed to be flawed?
Barbara Doyen stated, "memories are faulty, so a little leeway is given to authors of memoirs, but they are expected to be honest and to check their facts for accuracy. Creating fiction and passing it off as nonfiction, as apparently was done by James Frey in his controversial A Million Little Pieces, is completely unacceptable."
So a memoir is supposed to be all facts, but a couple of slip ups, say recalling a conversation from when you were six, is okay. I just think that if you don't know all the information, why put it in a book and sell it as the true story of you?
I love non-fiction. I recently read the book Moonwalking With Einstein, which is a non-fiction account of the author, Joshua Foer, going to a memory championship. It included cited facts from other memory books, and Foer also talks about bringing a recorder with him, so you know that the conversations are true. There is nothing made up in that book, therefore it is non-fiction.
If you need half-truths to sell your life story, maybe it shouldn't be written down.
And we do need to label our books between fiction and non-fiction. No one would be able to trust any book on factual information if they don't know if it is fiction or not. There are so many books out there; we need categories to place them in.
If we couldn't label our encyclopedias as non-fiction (100% true), we couldn't use them to prove a point, because someone could have gone in there and changed definition because that's how they felt it should be. WE NEED FACTS.
I completely agree that a non-fiction story should be based on facts. I also like the definition you added in there.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you
ReplyDeleteI true book should be a true book. If some of it's made up, then it shouldn't be called true.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, books shouldn't be called true if they aren't. but, dialouge can be slightly made up because you aren't going to remember what people said.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that a non-fiction book has to be 100% true. Any other way, it's fiction.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we need to have a line between fiction and nonfiction because otherwise the reader wouldn't know whether the information was true or made up.
ReplyDeleteA little harsh I think you are on authors who are just trying to get their book published, I mean it wasn't as if Frey didn't try it a fiction book first, nor that its contents are any less valuable. "If you need half-truths to sell your life story, maybe it shouldn't be written down." A tad mean if you ask me, and also, isn't it fallicious to say that they shouldn't be written down when it's their lesson they're trying to sell-- not themselves? I think maybe you went too far as to restrictions, but I also enjoy your tenacity and conviction as to what is what.
ReplyDelete