Post 5- Truth in a Memoir 

I would say a book has to be about 99% true in order to be considered non-fiction. It has to have all the facts right/true, the story line isn’t even bended a little, all true, otherwise it would be a lie and just some made up story considering it to be fiction instead. It’s okay though to change small detail, just not facts or storyline. For example a person in the story is wearing a red shirt, but you decide to change it to blue, just small unnecessary detail.

Half-truths are not okay, even if it’s a good story, you’d be lying to your readers, and it wouldn’t be a memoir anymore just a plain out fiction story that has some true facts to it.

David Shields is right, we do need lines between genres. It separates nonfiction and fiction, without it we wouldn’t know what the truth is or if it’s just a story.