I’ve been following the story of author James Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces” with great interest. Right now I’m helping an author content edit his (very interesting, I might add) memoirs. When my author is relating a story from when he was 11 years old, he has to take a certain amount of liberty with what he was thinking and feeling at the time. He can make his best guess, but unless there was an MTV “Real Life” camera crew following him around 40 years ago, no one will really know for certain what exact words were said. Memories are subjective.
For some reason, this reminds me of a quote a former client (when I was a social worker) said to me one time: “There are two sides to every story…and then there’s the truth.” Two people can experience the exact same situation and come away with a different understanding of what actually happened.
Now, obviously, you shouldn’t do anything intentional to make up things about your life or take huge liberties, as James Frey is accused of doing, but sometimes you have to combine events so the story keeps moving. Makes you wonder how thick the line is between fiction and non-fiction.