Fiction, non-fiction, borders

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RichMar

Did Erma Bombeck write fiction or non-fiction--how about Thurber, Barry, E. B. White?
 

stormie267

From what I remember (and I loved reading Erma Bombeck's books and columns), I only saw non-fiction, never any fiction. You could do a search on Amazon.com.
 

aka eraser

Not familiar enough with all of them to say for sure, but I think Bombeck wrote creative non-fiction; my own favourite playground.
 

RichMar

I deliberately put this in the humor conference because in humor, fiction and non-fiction overlap frequently. I think I posted this experience before, but what the heck. I wrote a humorous essay for an inflight that published both fiction and non-fiction. To my mind it was definitely a non-fiction piece. It was accepted and published in their Annual Fiction Review.

Most times, it's a toss-up, and I believe many humor writers who write fiction stay away from pubs that print only non-fiction, and vice-versa. The Reader's Digest publishes non-fiction in most of its humor departments, but I don't believe most of the anecdotes are true.

Twice their researchers called me up--"fact checking" as they call it. On one particular piece for Campus Comedy I had to give a researcher my daughter's dorm phone number so she could verify that something actually occurred. It sort of occurred, but not exactly.

Erma Bombeck's kids said many times, "Mom must have had other kids we didn't know about."

I guess you can call some of it "creative non-fiction," but then, some writers may stay away from the fiction pubs because of it.
 

Jamesaritchie

I write the same sort of stuff quite often. It's fiction based on truth. All good fiction is based on truth, on facts. A humor column isn't called fiction or nonfiction, it's called a humor column. It's first and foremst supposed to be humorous. To accomplish this, you start with a kernel of fact, a situation most people can relate to, then exaggerate it greatly.
 

batyler65

I think James is right. Humor really isn't an either/or proposition. It's a mix of both. A pinch of truth, a dash of hyperbole and a couple of banana peels tossed in for good measure.

Take a look at Dave Barry. Heck, his trademark line "I'm not making this up!" ought to tell you something. (If nothing else, that occasionally he uses material that he didn't have to make up. LOL)
 

Redwriter

This is an excellent discussion which has wider implications than just in the humour stream. At what point does non-fiction become fiction (I would think somewhere around the National Inquirer or Fox News, but that's another stream entirely.) There is an argument to be made that humour doesn't exist naturally; it is only someone's interpretation of events. Applying a humourous view to events, it can be argued, is not the same as reporting the event as it happened; ergo something that started out as fact becomes fiction when an interpretation is applied.

Personally, I prefer a more simplistic definition: If it happened in real life, it's non-fiction; if it didn't, it's fiction. I love the Oxford dictionary's definition (shortened to become the title of Fred Stenson's book on the craft of fiction) "A thing feigned or imaginatively invented." Everything else is only fact.

Cheers

Redwriter
 

Yeshanu

If you're looking for humour books, they're generally in the non-fiction section of libraries, bookstores, etc. So the truth is stretched a little here and there... 8)
 

RichMar

Somebody once sent me a personal essay to comment on. It was about a camping trip she took with her husband and three kids. I told her that she had too many kids in the piece, and to get rid of one.

She emailed back, "But I HAVE three kids."

Would getting rid of a kid for the sake of a sharper story amount to changing a non-fiction piece into fiction?

If not--how about if you got rid of two kids?
 

aka eraser

Gonna chime in with my own definition of creative non-fiction (because I'm kinda proud of it and it fits much of what I write). It's writing "inspired by, but not limited to, the truth."

I think that umbrella would cover your question too Rich. Losing a kid or two in her story would make her non-fiction just a tad more "creative."

Edited to add: Nice to see you here Red. I think you'll enjoy the joint. :)
 
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