Liars are Liars, no matter how much they lied.

I have learned that how you say something is just as important as what you’re saying. I don’t blame writers for wanting to be a little more artistic in the way that they weave their tale, but no matter how beautiful the final art project is, people won’t appreciate it for long if it falls apart. This is what tends to happen when good, average stories are stretched and pulled and rearranged to make a larger-than-life story that is meant to make the audience gasp in wonder and admiration. Books have to be 100% true in regard to the events that took place and the people that were affected by them for a book to be considered non-fiction, but the writer is an artist that is allowed to decide how they will tell a story. They can blow up a small thing because that may be important to them, or put emphasis on a certain person or accomplishment as long as it actually happened. Half-truths won’t cut it, though because reading a book with the expectation that it’s going to be true, and investing your time and attention to it only to find that it’s half  true is the same as lying to someone’s face in person. Just plain wrong. I find myself very disgusted that this person, who is the face of such a noble charity and an inspiration to many, is probably a liar and a thief. Justifying a half-true non-fiction is just plain ludicrous and immoral. We can’t keep trying to grey the area between truth and lies. David Shields is a liar, no matter what good things he has done. And it’s even worse that these people label themselves as non-fiction because that is deceiving. These are the kind of things that make me want to have clear lines between the different genres so that maybe we will be more careful before believing everything we read. Even if it is “non-fiction.”