Tim O'Brian

     Non-fiction is typically a genre avoided by pleasure readers due to its lack of personality, and ability to paint a picture in the reader's mind; fiction can be too farfetched for truth seekers. The facts of a story contradict with how the characters would have perceived it at the time, so author's always avoided crossing over the fiction, non-fiction line. In Tim O'Brian's How to Tell a True War Story he embraces the gray area between fiction and non-fiction. He explains how to really be able to put the reader in the shoe's of the character, he must tell them the truth how the character saw it not the facts. Because of his choice of topic, he is able to describe the events in such a manner that could make most relate in our war ran world.I love the emotions that are accessed through this method in his writings. He eliminates the one thing that I thought always made non-fiction so dry, telling the history books facts rather than the person's experience. As he beautifully words it, “What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way." I love his perspective on the sentence War is hell because stereotypes and generalizations are not very hard hitting, instinct believed statements. I feel like his blunt explanation of morals is a great way to cut out the Hollywood perspective that so many now have of a glorious moral war and weed out those that are told for entertainment purposes only.