Post 8: Truth in Memior

In my opinion, “half-truths” can still be considered a good story; however the story is no longer a memoir or non-fiction.  Of course if an author is trying to recollect a specific dialogue that occurred when he/she was five years old, the author will not be able to rewrite word for word exact what was said- but as long as the main idea of the conversation remains the same and no significant things were add, I think that conversation and book could still be considered non-fiction. However changing large details within a story to make it more interesting no longer makes the story non-fiction and I think the author should definably tell the readers the story has be altered. If I found out that Aron Ralston didn’t really cut off his arm and someone came save him but he changed those details in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place to make it more interesting, then I would no longer find the book as inspiring as it was before. I think we do need labels between Fiction and Non-Fiction because a miraculous story has even more value if it truly occurred the way the author wrote it. So if an author wants to bend the truth to tell their story, they should be able to, however their story should no longer be labeled as non-fiction.