Post 8: Memoirs

I think that memoirs and nonfiction need to be 99% true. This is because the genre that they are publishing it in is telling people before they even read it that it is true.  People are expecting a true story and if they weren’t they would read a different genre. I don’t think the author should use half-truths just to make the story more interesting. As readers, we are relying on the author to tell the truth and most the time we don’t really have a way to verify it is the truth so if authors start telling half-truths, it will hurt their credibility. Saying this though, I believe that everybody’s opinion on an event or story will be different so what one person may think is true, another person who went through the same thing may think otherwise.

I disagree with David Shields because I think that the genre labels help readers find books they like. Although many books aren’t just one genre, I think readers acknowledge that. I think the labels that distinguish between fiction and nonfiction are important because if we didn’t have these labels, readers would be curious as to whether or not these things actually happened. The labels help us find the books we love and naturally gravitate towards rather than having to go through an entire book store. Even though many authors may not like the fine line between fiction and nonfiction I think readers like it and appreciate it so we definitely need these labels.