How
true does a book have to be in my mind for it to be considered non-fiction?
In
my opinion a non-fiction book should be 99% true because by definition a
non-fiction book is " writing that is about facts or real events"
(Merriam-Webster dictionary). Of course in a book the author will not be able
to write exactly what happened on everyday of a specific event, that's why I
say it should be 99% true. Also an author is going to most likely going to
over-exaggerate a little bit, because the author wants you to feel
how they think they felt, at that exact moment even if that means that they
throw in an extra expression that didn't actually occur. As a reader, I also
understand that an author is going to have some creative juices flowing while
writing a non-fiction piece and may come up with extra details to give the
novel some more drama while keeping the story as close to the truth as possible
while also writing a good, interesting book.
Are
half-truths okay if it’s still a good story?
I
do not believe that half-truths are okay even if it turns out to be a great
story! As I said above, an author should stay as close to the truth as possible
and try their best to not stray far from the truth. If an author were to write
a half-truth than I believe that they should either put a disclaimer in the
book, or not call their book non-fiction, or a memoir and just say it is a book
that has some elements of actual events that occurred in real life.
Do
we need lines between genres? Do we need to label something fiction or
non-fiction?
Due
to the issue of authors creating memoirs that contain only half-truths, I do
think that it's necessary to have lines between genres. And we also do need to
label something fiction or non-fiction because now we have writers who think
they can get away with creating a story that is partially true and partially
false, and I think that they should create a new genre that is a mix of fact
and fiction. That way it would allow authors to tell half-truths and people not
get mad about it.
I totally agree with you. If an author labels a book as true, I think readers should be able to trust that. I also liked what you said about making a new genre that's a mix of fact and fiction. I never thought about that, but it would be a good solution!
ReplyDelete