Yet again, I am thinking that the borders between fiction and nonfiction are much more porous than we want to admit. All these new names for subgenres of nonfiction seem to me like they are carving notches along a continuum.
I do think finding a name for a type of writing can be useful, to some extent, but isn’t it mostly about marketing? Genre seems to matter most of all when you try to sell your work. I’m reminded of something someone said about Agnes Varda, who blended documentary, memoiristic, and fictional techniques in her filmmaking. To her, genre categories were all “minor roadblocks on the way to self-expression.”
Carving notches along a continuum (<< love spelling that word), yeah, I'll add historical fiction to that, too. It does all blend. Heck, I could argue that memoir is fiction. This one, specifically though, felt like learning an equation to get at some new answer I couldn't find otherwise with innovative openings and bizarre leaps and follies that stay grounded long after they would have floated away in fiction.
Yet again, I am thinking that the borders between fiction and nonfiction are much more porous than we want to admit. All these new names for subgenres of nonfiction seem to me like they are carving notches along a continuum.
I do think finding a name for a type of writing can be useful, to some extent, but isn’t it mostly about marketing? Genre seems to matter most of all when you try to sell your work. I’m reminded of something someone said about Agnes Varda, who blended documentary, memoiristic, and fictional techniques in her filmmaking. To her, genre categories were all “minor roadblocks on the way to self-expression.”
Carving notches along a continuum (<< love spelling that word), yeah, I'll add historical fiction to that, too. It does all blend. Heck, I could argue that memoir is fiction. This one, specifically though, felt like learning an equation to get at some new answer I couldn't find otherwise with innovative openings and bizarre leaps and follies that stay grounded long after they would have floated away in fiction.