tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post6481067471317512176..comments2023-06-28T22:58:28.247+10:00Comments on Sixth In Line: Fact and Fiction in WritingElisabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-58176195290180751312009-03-17T21:56:00.000+11:002009-03-17T21:56:00.000+11:00Thanks for your thoughts, Rachel. I get tired of ...Thanks for your thoughts, Rachel. I get tired of the old arguments between fact and fiction, given that I suspect neither exist as absolutes, and yet I still think these are discussions we need to have. <BR/>In the end, I suspect the quality of the writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, is more important than the actual nature of the content, whether so-called fact or fiction and of course an assessment of quality is inevitably subjective, and linguistically, culturally and generationally biased. <BR/>So many voices fail to be heard for so any reasons, while others of what some might consider lesser quality rise to the top. <BR/>But life's like that across all domains. <BR/>Enough sermonizing from me. <BR/>One last question: What is it about this blog business that lends itself to pontification and trying to right all the wrongs of the world in two or three sentences.<BR/>I find myself getting sucked into it all the time. <BR/>LisElisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28133718.post-5631815003313623732009-03-17T17:42:00.000+11:002009-03-17T17:42:00.000+11:00Fascinating post. And a devastating description of...Fascinating post. And a devastating description of that breakdown of relationship with your brother. How painful that must be.<BR/>What a fraught question--whether our 'rights' to our own experience can have limits, when it is inevitably shared with others. Your book idea is compelling, precisely because your versions of events would differ. But the very thing that would make it so interesting is what would also make it so contentious--as you discovered.<BR/>I have a sister who remembers everything entirely differently to me--and with such conviction that I have learned to assume my own recollections are unreliable. She is also one of those types that does not indulge literary 'embellishments'--the kind I'm prone to make for the sake of a good story. Has made for some awkward moments!<BR/>I think writers exist on a spectrum--some, like HG, reliant on their acute observations at one end, to those able to invent stories with little reliance on actual lived experience--just out of their imaginations--at the other. But there has got to be room for both coming under the name of fiction. Fiction is different in INTENT to non-fiction--and that, to me, seems the most important thing.<BR/>'Monkey Grip' might have originally been writings in a diary--but in the hands of a writer (or anyone perhaps?), that does not make it a purely factual document. And in HG's case, what a diary!Rachel Powerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18076347414401820489noreply@blogger.com