Truth In Memoir

                              For a book to be considered non-fiction to me every thing that is stated in the book must be true. Because if everything is not true then how can it be considered a work of non fiction? I think that if something is added then the book loses its meaning, because a non fiction book means to me means that the author is writing about events that actually took place. And if they write about something that did not take place then to me there is no point in calling that book a work of non fiction.

                              I also think that half-truths are not okay because then it's also a half-lie. And to me a book that is a half-lie cannot be a work of non-fiction. Especially if the lie makes the book a better story, because then the meaning of the book is changed from telling a story about your experiences to the reader, to a story that is meant to entertain. And that is not a work of non-fiction, even though a non-fiction story can still be entertaining.

                               I disagree with Shields, I believe that their should be a very distinct line between Fiction and Non-fiction, because then a memoir does not really hold any purpose because the reader reads the book to learn about the experiences of other people and if there was no line between fiction and non-fiction then the reader does not really know if they are getting what they want. So I think that the line between fiction and not fiction matters a whole lot.