Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

My husband and I went to see this movie only because we happened to be up visiting our families and my MIL offered to watch the kids.  21 was the only movie out that week that seemed even a little palatable.  It was enjoyable, but not a reliable primer for card counting.  It was fantasy and not for a moment did I believe that this is actually how things happened.

Editors and industry analysts say that with sales of fiction flagging, book publishers are pressured toward the genre of dramatic nonfiction. Much like reality television shows, the shift is fed by the sense that what audiences want is reality, but packaged with an excitement and drama that the original facts lack

I wonder if they included romance novels in their stats?

Really, all I’m seeing is mainstream movie makers and authors taking the same kind of liberties with “ true stories” that the Lifetime tv network has taken for YEARS.

I saw “21” last night and found it pleasant and diverting, but not a zomggoseeitnow kind of movie. Sadly, they watered it down from the original book (which in and of itself was an edited version of real events, as you said).  For folks wishing to be dazzled, I highly recommend reading the Wired article written about the same group of genius kids - actually, it was excerpted from the book prior to the book’s publication. (Published in 2002 - do I rock or what for remembering this article???)

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vegas.html

Whatever happened to the old phrase “inspired by a true story”?

Maybe “truthiness” should become a new literary genre.

“inspired by” or “based on” a true story is what this is. It’s FICTION.

I wonder if the reason for “creative repackaging” of nonfiction and yet still calling it nonfiction is the disclaimer that most (if not all) fiction carries?  Fiction typically disclaims any resemblance to real people or events as coincidental.  Admittedly, as there are works of fiction based on real events that are called fiction, I don’t know if that’s the reason.

Sometimes things in real life don’t happen in a way that make for a good plot and therefore things have to be altered for the storytelling.  Sometimes telling the true story fails to convey the emotional impact or is more confusing than complex, and tweaking the events can simplify the story and help the author get the point across.  But in my opinion, it should be called fiction whether it’s based on historical events or recent events.

I think the real underlying problem here is the trend in publishing that assumes that we can’t get powerful messages out of fiction.  A story has to be nonfiction for it to mean something.  And if it isn’t actually a true story… well, let’s market it as a true story!  Go Ask Alice was originally published as a real diary, and even though it’s now marketed as the fiction it is, I know of teachers who still make kids read that book because they believe it’s a true story, and they don’t think kids will take away the message from something that’s not true.

I’m a bit bemused by the pushing of the non-fiction label to tell a story, whether that label is warranted or not.  Not to bash non-fiction—I love well-written non-fiction; I have tons of it on my bookshelves—but why does “this actually happened” make a narrative better?  I’ve re-written this post about four times, trying to figure out why this bugs me so much, and I think it comes down to this: what is it that publishers are trying to get across with labelling a book non-fiction?  Is it an attempt at voyeurism, like the literary equivalent of reality TV?  Is it to get across a message?  To tell a story?  I think of non-fiction as “here’s what happened”; narrative non-fiction, of course, can be vastly entertaining when it’s done well, but the best of it still simply lays out the facts. 

The Globe article used the word “collage” to describe Mezrich’s technique; when I think of “collage” in non-fiction, I think of books like “Devil in the White City”, where various threads are interwoven, and the “story” arising from the conflict within and between those threads.  I don’t think of it as combining characters, changing details, and conflating events: the point at which the writer changes things to make the story better is the point at which it becomes fiction.  Reality fails to alter itself because a writer doesn’t know what to do with it.

Telling a story (as opposed to describing facts or events), delivering a particular message...these are the things at which fiction excels; they’re why fiction was created.  Why does it seem to be falling out of favor with publishers?

I keep thinking about how the ability to differentiate what is real from what is not real is a huge and important life skill.  We are not born with this skill.  We must learn it, develop, mature.

This is why a few decades back, there was a huge outcry about how products were marketed to kids, and this outcry changed the way Saturday morning commercials were aired.  When kids are young, it’s all real.  Marketing to kids is slightly scummy.

Childhood development is BIG with the concept of reality.  “Johnny, you said bye-bye.” And then… “Look, dear, it’s Johnny’s first lie.  Isn’t he cute.” And only months later… “Hey there, Mister, if you think we’re that stupid you’ve got another thing coming!  We know a lie when we see one.”

And then there’s all the social etiquette on the shades of gray that is “being polite.”

So, being able to discern what is fact and what is fiction dominates us from childhood.  We do not like being lied to, generally speaking.  Reality is what we think we know, and we like to be in control of that.  Plus we got a-talking-to when we lied, so no one else can do it either.

So, here we are, making decisions about truth and omission every day, all day.

But in fiction, we say, tell me something that is better than the truth.  It’s not a lie because I know you’re making this up.  Tell me something big!  Dazzle me.  Give me a sense that things make sense.  I can’t see the end of my own life, so let me see someone else’s life. Remind me of greatness or despair.  I’m ready.  Let’s go.  This is myth, and in myth, I will place myself in the role of hero.  I participate by creating the world in my mind.  ... And so on.

In N-F, we say, okay, back to reality.  This is true human experience.  This is fact.  If we can’t trust this, then why should we believe anything, because we’re all agreeing that it’s true. 

A true n-f book does have more impact because we’ve been taught to value what is real and true VERY highly.

Which is also why it p*sses us off so very much when someone tells us a book is true and it is not.

So, why would someone crave the word “truth” when “fiction” would be the accurate word?

My Theory:

The High Value of Truth = Perceived Power
Ego Power
Ego controls Hands
Hands type Non-Fiction on Cover Page

Months pass.

Ego defends Cover Page with use of Truth-like and collage
Ego Says, “Power Good. Yum.”

And there you have it. 

Johnny is cute all over again.

Movies that are not true and that are marketed as true stories have been pet peeves for some time now. I used to see a movie and become interested in learning more and look it up. Time and again, I found out that the movie bore little resemblance to the actual story.

Really, people, if your story needed to be changed so much, it wasn’t worth telling to begin with.