hmm...seems to me she wrote more of a "based on a true story" bit of fiction. Just mo, though. My eleven cents. :)

From this "interview" with Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction Journal here's a explanation.

I will say how creative nonfiction differs from fiction and traditional journalism, however. Fiction, from a literal standpoint, is not true - or at least not totally true (not so as the writer is willing to admit) while creative nonfiction, if not completely true, is as true as the writer can make it. I am not unaware of the foggy gray line being drawn here, but one can't be easily literal about art and literature. The creative nonfiction writer tries to be as truthful and factual as possible. Making things up to enhance the narrative is unacceptable. But creative nonfiction is very similar to fiction in technique.

The creative nonfiction writer is permitted (encouraged, in fact) to take advantage of all of the literary techniques available to fiction writers and poets. By this I mean writing in scenes, using description, dialogue, specificity of detail, characterisation and point of view. By 'point of view' I mean that the reader can be made to see the world through the eyes of the writer, the subject about whom the writer is writing - or through the invisible third person objective eye.

Emphasis added.

So, I guess it would be approaching non-fiction with the language of fiction-description and emotional? Sounds a tad precious to me, but at any rate, it doesn't include making stuff up to make your story better. That's fiction. (Mebbe Jayson Blair's confusion, eh? she typed sarcastically)

I am not unaware of the foggy gray line being drawn here, but one can't be easily literal about art and literature.

Dear Lee Gutkind: One can, however, take one's extremely pompous head out of one's arse and examine the compulsion to stick a label on everything in order to make creativity as confusing a concept as possible to those trying to husband it within themselves.

God. I ABOMINATE stuff like this. Just WRITE, already.

I know, it's crazy-making. But if you're looking to market something to small presses it helps if you can classify it, especially as the sort of thing they publish. Astarte, thanks for that, it's been forwarded to the other members of m group.

So, instead of writing a traditional three-paragraph synopsis (This is a novel about..."), a writer these days should instead come up with a small dissertation along the lines of "The deep creative wellspring that propels the fictional segment of this otherwise truth-based "memoir" should in no way be construed as...."

(sound of head cracking open and brains leaking out)

Wow. I still don't get it. Does that mean that anytime I use anything resembling world events in a novel, I'm somehow offering "truth"? Whereas, if I'm writing fiction I'm offering - um, what?

This is too weird for me to wrap my head around.

No, not. Incorporating truth into fiction is an accepted practice. Nothing would ever get written, else.

Where this person was having trouble was in calling her fiction story (based on fact) nonfiction. When she changed facts, it ceased to be reportage and became fiction. You're all good. No brain-leakage. You know what you write and where you stand. In the sane corner, right?

In the sane corner, right?

Well, I thought so.

Very weird concept.

Not going to ever read any books about how to write and how it breaks down, nuh-uh. It would just mess me up.

edit: OH! She was trying pass fiction off as fact? Dude, that's a very slippery slope. Why not just fictionalise it entirely and do a "based on a real incident" disclaimer? I mean, that worked pretty well for Jospehine Tey,

Why not just fictionalise it entirely and do a "based on a real incident" disclaimer?

Bingo! But she had the "c-n" thing embedded in her conscious, and I needed an "official" (not just me) definition to deflect her. No honey, no matter how precious it sounds? This isn't that.

My pleasure, Beverly.

Without knowing the name for it, I was noticing recently how many "memoirs" are coming out. From Enron to the making of a Hollywood blockbuster, there's apparently a huge appetite for the personal spin on public events.

Call it reality publishing.

Call it reality publishing.

See, that's a label I would actually find useful, because it's at the marketing end, not at the creative end.

The thing about the personal spin on public events is that really, if they're one person's view of a ral situation? No different from Thomas Moore's crap book about Richard III. A pure gossipy one person viewpoint.

Which is where I'm heading with my own series, that history can only ever be presented one POV at a time, which makes believing it on the first readthrough potentially disastrous.