Post#5

The true book can have some lies in it to be considered non-fiction. Like 95 percent of the book needs to be true and the other 5 percent can be lies. In history books having something not true is not okay as the information needs to be 100 percent accurate. Also, if a doctor is performing a surgery and his handbook is made up of half-truths, the patient could get a wrong treatments or the operation might be messed up. In turn, the patient could die from any complication. The author and the doctor could be held responsible for this and they both can suffer the consequences as the patient’s family can sue the doctor and the author.   

Half-truths are ok if it is a good story. As long as the half-truths make the story good or help it in some way they are okay. If the half-truths are very dramatic and do not fit in the book, they are not okay. David Shields is correct. We need lines between genres and we need to label something as non-fiction or fiction for what we label the book as makes a huge difference. For example, if you label a fictional book as a nonfictional one, the reader would be angry as it is not true. If you were to label a nonfictional book as fictional, the reader would see that the whole book is real and true. The reader therefore would be mad as well.