Reflection 7

The appeal of a memoir is that every event described within the text actually occurred. There’s no way to justify the fabrication or altering of any event, no matter how minute the impact may be. The distinction between nonfiction and fiction isn’t flexible, and is relatively limpid compared to the dictations of most other genres. A book is a piece of nonfiction if the events described are factual, not if only most are true.

                In the case of memoirs, people expect to be told a tale from the first-hand prospective of the author. While other pieces of nonfiction may rely on accounts from various individuals, because the events may be somewhat unclear, memoirs are without this burden because the story is told from the prospective of the same person who experienced these events directly; people expect the truth because of this. Omitting the absolute truth, for whatever reason one may conjure up, abolishes the book’s status as someone’s memoir. People read fiction if they want to read about events that were specifically crafted out of nothing that characters experienced, and people read memoirs to read about factual events that a real person experienced.