Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
Chit Chat (Talk About Anything)
message 51:
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Yolanda
(new)
Jun 03, 2016 10:14AM
It is a true memoir. I'm just not marketing it as such. Therein lies my problem. But never mind. I realize I'm in the wrong place to chit chat about this. Thanks for the heads-up.
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No problem. Actually, I am curious as to how often this happens and why. You said you didnt want people to be offended but I am wondering if there are other reasons other authors would market as fiction. I always thought it was because some things were fiction, as in the case of James Frye, which was basically a memoir and marketed as such but some things were embellished. I would probably pass up a fiction book but if it was marketed as nonfiction I would be more likely to check it out. Not sure if I am saying this right and I mean no offense. I think there are way more fiction readers than nonfiction readers so maybe fiction is the way to attract more readers. I'm not sure. What do others think? Would you be more likely to check out this book if it was marketed as fiction, nonfiction, or doesnt it matter?
yea I don't bother with fiction anymore.If you are upfront and are who you say, then that is a memoir and you change everyones names to protect the guilty, you can say that at the beginning.
But if its under a pen name then no...but people will find out sooner or later anyway, eg the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was mostly autobiographical, but she made out like it was fiction and published under a pen name. Also she didn't publish it in her own country at first.
Really it was because certain people she knew could have been offended and it was a personal subject that not many people at the time it was written were brave enough to confront - mental illness.
Yolanda wrote: "I need help/advice/readers. I just self-published a memoir disguised as fiction under a pen name to protect myself in case anyone depicted in the story takes offense or recognizes themselves. I'm n..."You need to add one of those disclaimers -- "Any resemblance to real persons living or dead, or to actual firms may be intentional, but will be denied in court."
Selina wrote: "yea I don't bother with fiction anymore.If you are upfront and are who you say, then that is a memoir and you change everyones names to protect the guilty, you can say that at the beginning.
But..."
However, memoirs can be partly fiction. I hadn't realized that until I read one by someone I know well. There were family stories everyone else not only remembered differently, but they all remembered them the same way--only the author was different. This author also gave one of his kids a high school vocational ambition of becoming a priest, when not only did that kid not even go to church in high school, I knew them in a special theatre project and we were all mega serious about acting at that time.
That was the book that taught me, more than any other one, just what an unreliable narrator is, lol.
Well a memoir is just one persons point of view, if you writing fiction you can have omnisicent point of view, or multiple narrators/points of view.Biography is usually someone who is not closely related to the subject of the bio and is more impartial. Or done after that person has died.
Memoirs can be self-serving though...
Selina wrote: "Well a memoir is just one persons point of view, if you writing fiction you can have omnisicent point of view, or multiple narrators/points of view.Biography is usually someone who is not closely..."
Yes, biographies can be more impartial, but they aren't always, especially if they are being written about people who have been dead long enough that no one is going to sue the author. Also, and another example, most biographies about Walt Disney have been sanitized because Disney only allows writers access to their archives, etc, if they promise to let Disney read the manuscript, etc, before publication. My daughter learned this for a school project that was a pairs, but couldn't use it because they wrote their thesis statement prior to doing research and it was one where they couldn't change the statement later.
Oh thats how you get 'authorized biography' and 'unauthorized'. A memoir doesn't really need someone else's permission as its mostly about the writer.
Selina wrote: "Oh thats how you get 'authorized biography' and 'unauthorized'. A memoir doesn't really need someone else's permission as its mostly about the writer."And "authorized" can often mean "this is what I want you to know about my life."
Selina wrote: "Oh thats how you get 'authorized biography' and 'unauthorized'. A memoir doesn't really need someone else's permission as its mostly about the writer."Yes, but if you are writing a memoir, you still need to be careful about what you write about others.
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Koren wrote: "Ever read a book you just cant put down but you want it to last as long as possible? But you just cant put it down. And you have other things you should be doing. But you cant put it down. Well, yo..."Definitely yes- too bad all books are not like that!
I have been there many, many times, Koren.
why sure I got in trouble at the library for reading a book once.
Selina wrote: "why sure I got in trouble at the library for reading a book once."Wait, what!?
yea I was supposed to be working in the library workroom but I was reading a book instead. I can't remember what it was now, but the manager saw me and took it away from me. I never read books ordinarily when working in the library you see, only when the manager can see me. lol
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That wasn't a LOL-worthy episode, though. It just about broke my heart.
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I know! Kind of scary that when we finally retire and have all the time in the world to read that something will happen. I figure I'll probably be blind from wearing my eyes out with all the reading I do now.
Librarians don't retire.Of making many books there is no end....I thought I had, but everyone just keeps chucking books at me.
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I got a used copy of STAR 80 in the mails yesterday -- oddly it came just in time for me to watch it on the anniversary of the murder it talks about (Dorothy Stratten's).
Koren wrote: "Watched Billy Jack last night, an old movie from 1971. I remember seeing it when it first came out in the theater. Still love it and has a message that is still relevant today."I loved that movie too! Have not seen it in years.
http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/loca...I would like to know why anybody would steal and use another person's library card?
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I would like to know why anybody would steal and use another person's library card?"
Doesn't make sense.
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Koren wrote: "Sooo... every month this year I've averaged 10 to 12 books a month. So far this month I've only finished 4. So if anyone is wondering why I haven't been here a lot this month, hopefully next month ..."I usually average 4 books a month so 10-12 is great.
I'm reading all my library books and then going on holiday so I will take a few beach reads with me. What do others read on holiday? Something light or just the usual?
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What do others read on holiday? Something light or just the usual?"
The usual. Bios and True Crime.
Selina wrote: "I'm reading all my library books and then going on holiday so I will take a few beach reads with me. What do others read on holiday? Something light or just the usual?"
I read heavier stuff during a week off than I can concentrate on during a typical work week.
I read a novel/fiction for a change.It was historical fiction.
I finished it just as we were going to board the gate home.
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"A farm is such a carnival of birth and death," the Scottish poet Edwin Muir wrote, "there is no wonder it should frighten a child." We no longer live off the labor of animals as we did less than a century ago, although we still eat their flesh. What's changed is the way we choose to think about hem or not to. The Amish, who live most closely with animals, don't allow their children to read stories with talking animals, not just because such a thing is unreal but because it sets up an impossible relationship. Like most farmers, Ed doesn't kill his won livestock. The work is compartmentalized, and his calves will be passed along at auction to another set of hands to be fattened on corn until they weigh twelve hundred pounds and are sold again. Then its on to the slaughterhouse and death on the assembly line, as removed from the farmer as from the consumer who buys his steak in shrink-wrapped increments at the supermarket.
I am not a vegetarian but I know some of you are. This really made me think. Any thoughts?
There are people spread out all along that particular spectrum, that's for a sure. I have a friend who eats meat, but if it still has the bones in it she can't touch it -- they make her aware that it used to be alive. I have never killed anything other than a mosquito and have certainly never killed anything, then proceeded to gut, cook and eat it. I wonder if I could. Obviously, people get used to it, but would I want to? I have heard that butchers and slaughterhouse employees kill themselves off at a horrendous rate. But that may not be part of being around death, but more about the callous attitude towards it. The Bushmen kill with bows and arrows, and apologize to the animal as it dies, to show respect. That's not much like American factory farming! Neither is the Native American belief that if they are able to kill an animal, it must be because the animal put itself in the hunter's path willingly. Tibetan Buddhists are allowed to eat animals, but only if they fell off the side of a mountain and died -- killing them creates undesirable karma. Who makes up all these rules!?But as Mr. Spock once pointed out, we all feed on death -- even vegetarians.
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I used to fish. Havent done it for years. I can clean the fish but don't like to do it. My dad would catch buckets of bullheads and make us kids clean them and we didn't think anything of it. People that hunt tell me you have to see the animal as food, not as a cute little critter. My neighbor had a beautiful calf with the biggest brown eyes and I asked him what he was going to do with it. " He looked at me kind of strangely and said "eat it of course". I asked him how he could do that and he said "oh, no, you're not one of THOSE!".
What really struck me about the passage I posted was the part about the Amish not letting their kids read books that had talking animals because it humanizes them. I had never thought of that.
I became a vegetarian because someone said if I was opposed to hunting I shouldn't eat meat. However, I'm not opposed to hunting, I just would never hunt myself.
That would be a tricky proposition anyway, Bella! Staying one step ahead of yourself when you're chasing yourself down with a bow and arrow is no small feat.Now that the heatwave is over I'm finally getting a few things done. I moved some overcrowded perennials around, finally found myself that cobwebby sempervivum I've been wanting on the Greatly Reduced Rack (marked "COLLECT ALL 72!" -- are they kidding???) and received and planted my tulip bulbs.
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I agree Bel. I could never hunt but I have no problem with the people that do. If we didn't have hunters the deer population would be huge and they would starve to death and get hit by cars. We hit a deer quite a while ago and it was horrible, for the deer and for us. The poor thing laid on the highway thrashing around and someone came along that had a knife and cut its throat to end its suffering.
Fishface wrote: "That would be a tricky proposition anyway, Bella! Staying one step ahead of yourself when you're chasing yourself down with a bow and arrow is no small feat.Now that the heatwave is over I'm fina..."
It's all done with smoke and mirrors.
I think as long as you give thanks for the food its ok.The Jewish people offered their first fruits to God and also gave their finest animals as sacrifice for their sins. Its sad that an animal has to die so we can live but thats the way life is.
I would rather eat meat that was hunted or killed humanely than chemical junk made from I don't know what. Its important to eat your greens though as thats originally what everyone ate. Even if its seaweed.
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The Jewish people offered their first fruits to God and also gave their finest animals as sacrifice for their sins. Its sad that an animal ha..."
The chain of life. Even the cavemen ate meat when they could. That's the problem I think. The cavemen didn't eat meat every day.
One problem with our ancestors is that they appear to have been killing and eating each other. How hungry would you have to be to do that!?
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Pretty hungry I would think. I wonder if it was rare, medium or well-done?
Considering that the guys on that rugby team couldn't build a fire at all and they were eating their friends frozen solid, well, I think we have to leave that question dangling. I suppose some forensics expert could look at a calcined skullbone or femur and know that it was subjected to such-and-such a level of heat for about so long. We might be able to answer it someday.
I now have a group on goodreads if anyone is interested in joining, its called Book Chooks. Its not restricted to memoir and autobiography its just all books. You can search for it on the groups on here. We also on the radio, so you can listen to us!!
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Make it something "fast and gory," as Steve King would put it.
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Ahh, haven't read a Stephen King book in a long time.
Check out this great CSpan show online about the First Ladies During Wartime.https://www.c-span.org/video/?415360-...
Very interesting. About a hour long.
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
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