Bug posted earlier about her class on first person narrative. It was for the fiction students, so I was at the non-fiction genre seminar at the same time. I wonder, however, whether the same lesson would apply to memoir and personal essay writing, or whether the fiction writer who is using a first person narrator would need to do anything different from the non-fiction writer? Is the difference internal to the craft/narrative or is it solely in the relationship between the narrative and the "real world"?
This semester, we have to write one craft essay instead of eight craft annotations. My topic is on the merging of fiction and memoir. The spanner in the works with respect to the non-fiction aspect of memoir, as far as I can see it, is that it is based on memory as opposed to research about the facts. So there is a lot more room for disconnect between how it really happened and how it is remembered.
My first objective is to see if there is a difference from a craft perspective. Does a work of fiction posing as a memoir read just like a memoir (or need to, if it is a good one?)? Do memoirs employ significantly different narrative techniques from fictional narratives? Is there a relevant distinction to be made between the truth and the facts?
If you have anything to say about these questions, chime in, chime in!
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2 comments:
Were you in the seminar where someone said, "The best fiction should read as fact, and the best memoirs should read as fiction"? I think whoever said it was paraphrasing a famous writer... Hope that helps. (I also answered your questions on my blog)
I don't remember that, but it doesn't mean I wasn't there (the trouble with relying on memory strikes again!).
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