My approach may have been fractional (i.e. I focused mostly on the years 1930-1940, covering the rest of their lives in a text-only author’s note), but it is at no point fabricated. It may not be comprehensive (even by picture book standards), but what IS there is factual. I can back up every line with the source, usually multiple sources per fact. All dialogue is actual quotations from interviews, and I cite that on the copyright page. (In this case, there is no known documentation stating the exact date some of those things were said, so their placement within my text can’t be confirmed, but that does not invalidate the fact that they were actually said.)

Taking a narrative approach to nonfiction does not automatically negate authenticity. It depends on the author’s meticulousness and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

And generally, if omission calls accuracy into question, then ALL biographies are on some level fictionalized because NONE contain EVERY detail of a life.

This summer I blogged a two-part piece about this, the “truthiness” of biography, inspired by a NEW YORKER article: http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2009/08/your-life-my-book-morality-of-writing.html.

On a related note, I also recently blogged about the library process of determining where to shelve picture books on real people – in the picture book biography section or in the section corresponding to the area of the person’s accomplishment. (This was also two posts: http://noblemania.blogspot.com/search/label/libraries.) In other words, is a picture book on Babe Ruth better served in picture book biography or in sports?

BTW, in my library, Amelia/Eleanor is indeed in pic book bio.

1) Since my favorite genre of books is fantasy/scifi, the plot I would have to say I would not miss if I never saw it again would be the “hero’s family is killed/captured by villan, hero spends entire book vying for revenge, finally gets it” whitewash. Yes, there are authors who play off of this genre and create something truly unique and awesome, but a LARGE majority do not, and become ‘trashy airplane novels.’

2) Personally, the only thing that has ever made me close a book within three pages is a lack of time. I have a rule to read at least 50 pages to see if anything can be salvaged.

3) Lack of personality or adherence to a stereotype personality. No person is a true fit for a stereotype, and what are book characters if not attempts to truly recreate people? I was going to say lack of drive as well, but there have been several good exceptions.

I had fad reading like when harry potter came out, there are endless books of kids who go to magic school and now the latest fad reading twilight and im in a sea of angsty vampire books. NO FANFICTION.

The first three pages have to be filled with a playful enigma or it has to start out relate-able. For example, Pendragon by DJ Machale starts out with a normal kid meeting a girl before this basketball game. Then his uncle (the call of heroism tells him to leave the girl and come on an adventure).

They cant be too perfect. Plus, they cant go form heroic to docuhebag

sometimes it feels like there’s so much media about media that it doesn’t feel like anyone is even considering the content of what is being delivered.

i think, along the lines of a slow food movement, what we need is a slow tech movement – people deciding they do not need to upgrade to the latest gadget every 9 months. just because we can have e-readers doesn’t mean it should be the only way a book is delivered.

anyway, thanks.

Thanks for putting it so neatly. This quote is now living on a Post-it at the edge of my computer monitor.

Sigh.

It’s only the first draft that’s really fun when it comes to writing. After that, editing gradually bleeds away any pleasure I have derived from creating a new novel, play or short story.

Sad but true.

But without good, intensive editing, a written work just doesn’t “cry and sing” so, in the end, I have to suck it up and put nose to grindstone.

Hang in there…

Real reform, not the type of BS sloganeering that Bush and Reagan tried to foist upon us. In fact, I’d prefer that any reform to education not come top-down but more grassroots.