The difference between creative nonfiction and fiction is unassuming: fiction is derived from the fabrications of an author’s imagination, whereas creative nonfiction is contingent on facts. A novelist has the freedom to create scenes which never existed, whereas an author of creative nonfiction must convey a truthful story. However, the line between creative nonfiction and fiction, fact and falsehood, has become ever so thin as “writers of memoir [have been] revealed to be frauds and fiction writers masquerade as memoirists in order to sell books” (Bradley 203). Recent events have revealed authors such as James Frey and Tim Barrus to have combined elements of fiction and nonfiction within their creative nonfiction books (Buck 56), further blurring this line. Overlooked embellishments and whole fabrications were found to exist within their alleged creative nonfiction works – stirring angst within the nonfiction community (Bradley 208). Allegations arose and investigations ensued, all revolving around the question: who is to blame? As a result, the entire creative nonfiction genre received negative publicity and harsh criticism (Bradley 203). For creative nonfiction to restore its legitimacy and veracity as a genre, authors, and not publishers, are to be held responsible for ensuring their creative nonfiction books are truthful.
Creative nonfiction, often labeled the “fourth genre” (Bradley 203), requires the depiction of factual events and happenings through past memories, with a literary touch. Books under this genre include memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies. However, memory is malleable and fades. Hence, authors are given leeway in this respect and to be “truthful” is defined as an author recollecting and portraying p...
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...ate to. For authors to deceive readers knowingly through a creative nonfiction medium is to rob readers of the intrinsic connection and empathy felt towards the story. The story becomes significantly less powerful and not as personally important to the reader. It is then dismissed as fiction, an untrue fairy tale once lost in the nonfiction realm. Writers of creative nonfiction books must then write truthfully to ensure creative nonfiction books are truthful. This is the only practical approach for the creation of true creative nonfiction books. Fact-checking is too onerous a practice when applied to the book publishing industry and avoids the inherent issue at hand: deceitful authors. For the fiction itself created by these authors is not the issue, but the deception, the robbing of unsuspecting readers, which has created this entire mess in the first place.
To write a true war story that causes the readers to feel the way the author felt during the war, one must utilize happening-truth as well as story-truth. The chapter “Good Form” begins with Tim O’Brien telling the audience that he’s forty-three years old, and he was once a soldier in the Vietnam War. He continues by informing the readers that everything else within The Things They Carried is made up, but immediately after this declaration he tells the readers that even that statement is false. As the chapter continues O’Brien further describes the difference between happening-truth and story-truth and why he chooses to utilize story-truth throughout the novel. He utilizes logical, ethical, and emotional appeals throughout the novel to demonstrate the importance of each type of truth. By focusing on the use of emotional appeals, O’Brien highlights the differences between story-truth and happening-truth and how story-truth can be more important and truer than the happening-truth.
Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd Ed. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
When I decide to read a memoir, I imagine sitting down to read the story of someone’s life. I in vision myself learning s...
It should be noted that gaining an identity in autobiographical writing is crucial “because literacy becomes a way of creating an identity where before there was none in the public discourse” (Finkelman, vol.2, 190). Although the identities of William and Ellen Craft may have been revealed partially before their narrative, their own words and experience have a much greater impact on the reader than if told by a secondary source.
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried has readers and critics alike scratching their heads with wonder about the meaning of “story-truth” and “happening-truth.” Although, he served in the Vietnam War from 1968 until 1970, he fabricates the events of the war throughout The Things They Carried. At the same time, he insists that the truth lies at the heart of the emotion in the story, an idea that many readers question. Furthermore, it is pointless for the reader to attempt to sort through the stories and differentiate between the “story-truth” and “happening-truth,” because it is nearly impossible. This tactic is one of O’Brien’s more ingenious writing methods. He does not want the reader to know the difference between the two because in his opinion that fact is irrelevant. O’Brien obviously thinks outside the box and has everyone questioning reality. However, this fact is truly ironic, because the point is not to care what type of “truth” it is, but to instead feel the raw beauty of the emotion and to accept it as the truth. While trying to define “story-truth” and “happening-truth,” a couple chapters in particular focus on the idea of truth, “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Man I Killed” and “Good Form.” O’Brien believes that the most important thing for a reader is to experience the emotion of the story, be it “story-truth” or “happening-truth,” as long as the real emotion is conveyed and understood by the reader, then it is as true as it could possibly be.
Not every story we hear is real nor what it seems. A person could calmly and accurately relate a story without an ounce of reality to it or exaggerate facts to make it more fantastic. Before agreeing to a story’s credibility, it is vital that you observe the tone, gestures, and the conviction with which the storyteller is relating the story. It is the reader’s responsibility to distinguish between facts and fiction and realize that, although a story was told in perfect detail does not mean the event was real. A reliable storyteller should be able to give details with clarity and transparency. Being consistent and rational are but few of the characteristics that would give away a reliable story.
The two essays, Splintered Literacies and Writing in Sacred Spaces, both revolve around the inherent “why” of storytelling. Each addresses a different facet, with the former delving into how the types and varieties of writing we experience affect our identities. Meanwhile, the latter explores the idea of thought concretization. Humanity developed writing as a tool to capture the otherwise intangible. Whether belief or abstract concept, the act of putting something in writing creates a concreteness, trapping the thought in a jar like a firefly. The thoughts and ideas we manifest onto the page or into the air give life to our knowledge, perpetuating its’ existence.
Ida Fink’s work, “The Table”, is an example of how old or disturbing memories may not contain the factual details required for legal documentation. The purpose of her writing is to show us that people remember traumatic events not through images, sounds, and details, but through feelings and emotions. To break that down into two parts, Fink uses vague characters to speak aloud about their experiences to prove their inconsistencies, while using their actions and manners to show their emotions as they dig through their memories in search of answers in order to show that though their spoken stories may differ, they each feel the same pain and fear.
In “The Truth about Stories”, Thomas King, demonstrate connection between the Native storytelling and the authentic world. He examines various themes in the stories such as; oppression, racism, identity and discrimination. He uses the creational stories and implies in to the world today and points out the racism and identity issues the Native people went through and are going through. The surroundings shape individuals’ life and a story plays vital roles. How one tells a story has huge impact on the listeners and readers. King uses sarcastic tone as he tells the current stories of Native people and his experiences. He points out to the events and incidents such as the government apologizing for the colonialism, however, words remains as they are and are not exchanged for actions. King continuously alerts the reader about taking actions towards change as people tend to be ignorant of what is going around them. At the end people give a simple reason that they were not aware of it. Thus, the author constantly reminds the readers that now they are aware of the issue so they do not have any reason to be ignorant.
The truth is subjective and how we see the truth impacts the way we understand meaning. Each individual’s memory is a result of what they deem to be true. Sarah Polley questions this concept through her film ‘Stories We Tell’ and brings to light the topic of reliability and subjectivity in terms of memory and the truth.
In much of The Things They Carried, stories are retold time and time again. One reason for this is the idea of keeping a story’s story-truth alive. In “Good Form,” O’Brien differentiates what he calls story-truth from happening-truth. Story-truth seems to give us a better understanding of O’Brien’s sentiment in a particular story even though the story itself may not be true at all. On the other hand, happening-truth is what actually happened in the story, but may not contain as much emotional authenticity as story-truth. According to O’Brien, story-truth is therefore truer than happening-truth. Relating back to storytelling, O’Brien retells stories continuously to maintain their sentiment and emotional value. Without this continuous repetition, this sentiment fades away and the emotional value of the story is lost.
In “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien, Orwell’s ideas are questioned and the competition between the truth and the underlying meaning of a story is discussed. O’Brien’s story depicts that the truth isn’t always a simple concept; and that not every piece of literature or story told can follow Orwell’s list of rules (Orwell 285). The story is told through an unnamed narrator as he re-encounters memories from his past as a soldier in the Vietnam War. With his recollection of past encounters, the narrator also offers us segments of didactic explanation about what a “true war story” is and the power it has on the human body (O’Brien 65). O’Brien uses fictional literature and the narration of past experiences to raise a question; to what extent should the lack of precision, under all circumstances, be allowed? In reality, no story is ever really truthful, and even if it is, we have no proof of it. The reader never feels secure in what they are being told. The reliability of the source, the author, and the narrator are always being questioned, but the importance of a story isn’t about the truth or the accuracy in which it is told, but about the “sunlight” it carries (O’Brien 81).
War veterans wrote Slaughterhouse-Five and The Things They Carried. Some parts of the book are made for readers to believe and the other parts give realistic examples of war. The authors introduce their plots as truth-based on purpose. In the chapter “Notes”, O’Brien admits: “that part of the story is my own.” (O’Brien 151). In the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut begins with: “All this happened, more or less.” (Vonnegut 1). The authors create a picture for the reader on their past experiences to make their stories real. Even the parts that are fiction are not lies, because the writers have the knowledge to be able to generalize, shorten, and produce events in the book. O’Brien writes: “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (O’Brien 172). It seemed as if Vonnegut and O’Brien used fiction to make the story more exciting. They write abo...
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write because there is some lie I want to expose and some fact I want to draw attention to…”
...corporating fiction into the concept of who they are. To resolve the issue of false memories occurring, there must be an alternate verification used to determine the validity of the chain of memory. Due to the need for an alternate form of verification, it is apparent that memory alone is not sufficient enough to determine personal identity. An example of this is a person who was born in 1964 who claims to remember sitting in the car behind John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated. Considering the assassination occurred in 1963, the person is either lying or experiencing a false memory.