#7: How True Books Need To Be

I think it is definitely okay for authors to blend truth with non-truth, but they should certainly tell us when they do. People seem to really love stories filled with drama and intense action, but life isn’t always like that, so authors make up details to make the book a better experience for readers. People really love real stories because the events actually happened, making them really think about what could happen to them. Blending truth and made up things is okay to a certain extent. If an author wants to write a book that is entirely true, then they should really tell the press, publisher, and readers that information. When blending truth and fiction becomes not okay is when the author lies about it. Authors should always be true to the millions of readers who love their books, and the press. They shouldn’t take shortcuts to get their work published like Frey did. While his book is said to be a very good one, it also has a lot of controversy, because he called it a memoir. If readers picked up a memoir, they would automatically assume it’s all factual. But he decided to call it a memoir with it having certain things that aren’t true about it. While it’s very alright for authors to mix fiction and non-fiction, it’s not alright for them to call it a memoir if some of the things in it are made up. He only called it a memoir so that he could get it published. Unfortunately, I think this negatively affected people’s opinions on the book. This shows that a fantastic piece of literature can be forever tainted with the author’s stupid mistakes of making an untrue claim.

#6: Who Decides What Good Writing Is?

I think when it all comes down to it; the people who decide what good writing is are critics and scholars. They usually get to decide because critics review and pick apart things for a living, so why would it be any different with books? Scholars get to decide what good writing is because they’ve gone through years of school and are supposedly very educated on writing. While there are scholars who’re educated exclusively on writing, many of them are not. They expect everyone to agree with their opinions on books, but we all have different tastes and interests. We as readers should decide what a good piece of writing for many reasons: One being that we are the majority. Since we are the ones who are reading books, it’s up to us to decide whether or not it’s good. I think it’s seriously wrong for us to believe everything critics spew out of their mouths. Another reason we should decide because one person can’t decide if a book is good enough. For every person who thinks the writing in a book is good, there is one who thinks it is not. Like I said, we all have different opinions. That is what’s so great about reading. It is up to you to decide to read a certain book or not, and it’s up to you to either love the style of writing, or hate it. We as a whole will never all have the same opinions on a book. Many of us do, but many of us don’t. For example, The Hunger Games; I know that many, many people really love this book. I for one really do enjoy it. But the beginning starts out way too fast for my taste. I like books that slowly build up anticipation, but I’m sure other people like books that just dive right into the main plot. This further proves my point on how everyone has different tastes. We as readers should most definitely decide what’s good, and what’s bad.