If it is properly done, the 'as told to' autobiography represents how the subject wants his story told.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.
Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
I think you tell the story that has to be told. You tell the story that's the truth. You tell the story that readers will be interested in and should know about.
There's always a slight tension when you sell a book to Hollywood, especially a nonfiction book. The author wants his story told intact; the nonfiction author wants it told accurately.
All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
A good autobiography is like a document: a mirror of the age on which people can 'depend.' In a novel, by contrast, it's not the facts that matter, but precisely what you add to the facts.
So many people had been asking me to write an autobiography, or threatening to write my biography without any input from me, that I thought I'd better tell my story before other people told it for me.
You should not do an autobiography if you want to tell the truth. There are a lot of things I know about people. If I can't say something good about a person, I don't want to say anything. And since I don't want to say anything bad, I won't write a book.
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
I don't like the word 'autobiography.' I rather like the term 'autofiction.' The second you make a script out of the story of your life, it becomes fictional. Of course, the truth is never far. But the story is created out of it.