The Reality of Writing

Dear MC,

First off, I'd like to apologize for the delay in my response. I feel like each of my letters begins this way, but alas, life happens.

Your question about genre and readers' expectations and perceptions of truth is a fascinating way. While I have not yet read Eaters of the Dead, it sounds like an enjoyable read, and I will have to put it on my ever-expanding "to read" list.

The notion of genre has expanded dramatically in the last decade or so, not just within the literary realm, but also in media. Since the advent of Netflix, our ideas of genre have grown more expansive, as we can now identify categories such as "witty TV shows," "binge-worthy TV dramadies," or "strong female lead." Having the language to identify such specific genres is helpful in understanding what kind of media we as viewers gravitate towards, although it also runs the risk of creating rigid expectations for shows and movies. These genres have standards and patterns in order to adhere to an algorithm that can identify and categorize media based on existing code.

So perhaps as we learn how machines learn and "think," we begin to mirror that mindset (this is a totally un-founded hypothesis and I have no evidence to back this up, like the poor researcher that I am). If Netflix's algorithm were to sort out literary texts, chances are, it would see footnotes alongside first person narrative and funnel that text into "biography" or "nonfiction." So perhaps we are trained to identify these markers of genre in machine-like ways, and grow confused and upset when the conventions and the genre fail to align.

We see this almost obsessive categorization in other facets of life as well: think about the notion of things like sexuality and gender. In strides to be more inclusive, the LGBTQ+ community included categories such as pansexual, asexual, agender, greygender, and abrosexual. While members of this community can hold comfort in knowing that there is a term that matches their preferences and experiences, these categories can also be limiting and exclusive. Sometimes, with more options comes less flexibility.

Eaters of the Dead was written in 1976 (thanks Google!). While certain genres did hold identifiable conventions, given that there were more texts within that genre, there was perhaps more room to play and pushback against these conventions. After all, they were more guidelines than actual rules. As readers accepted and expected broader genres that guided, rather than prescribed, a kind of text, there was perhaps more interest in the story, rather than the question of reality.

Now there seems to be an easy fix, as the beginning of all fictional texts come with the disclaimer that all names, events, and places are fictionalized.

There is still a certain ambiguity in clear cut nonfiction though. When reading a memoir or autobiography, we cannot expect authors to remember every single thing they thought or said word-for-word. There has to be room for creative liberty, or nobody would write nonfiction. But there is also this fine line between creative liberty and falsifying information. For instance James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces came under fire (and was removed from Oprah's book club) when it was revealed that he had lied about the length of his jail sentence and how his girlfriend died. Many readers felt upset and duped, as there was the clear expectation that all of the events in Frey's life would reflect reality.

And yes, I would agree that it's fairly simple to be truthful about the number of years you served jail time, or how your girlfriend died. But memory is a tricky beast, and it's oftentimes our perceptions and our judgments that shape how we articulate "truth." Nothing can be 100% neutral—it's not until college that we are invited to challenge the blatant rewriting of history that happens in middle and high school textbooks. When we see influencers (you knew I would bring up YouTube somewhere in this blog), we are under the impression that we are seeing their true, authentic lives, when they are heavily edited and constructed to fit a brand or a performance of self.

So my question to you is this: what constitutes reality in texts? What crosses the line? What is acceptable creative liberty, and is a lie? When an influencer showcases a "favorite lipstick" in order to receive a $20,000 paycheck, how can we make the distinction between reality and fabrication? And how might we solve these issues of fabrication—creating more genres? Fewer?

In other words, how might we snap back to reality?

Until next time,

Kira