Fictional and non-fictional text have a misconception of being genres of literature that must be separate from each other. In “Experiments in Life Writing”  the merge of life writing and experimental fiction in the 20th and 21st century are discussed.  The experimentation of mixing fiction and nonfiction together in types of writing such as biographies, autobiographies, and novels is covered as well. It also talks about how these different types of writings are experimented within areas such as Modern Europe, targets an audience that is specifically interested in history and politics, yet seek to understand or learn about these things through a more interesting lens. Fiction informs life writing, as some parts of the text will no doubt be fictionalized to portray the message the author is trying to send, while at the same time combining elements of non-fiction using factual details.

Many types of books nowadays use this type of life writing as it is hard to entirely base a story off of strictly facts and real life details. This is why many books are based on true-stories. Many films are also inspired by real life scenarios and events, and contain fictional and non-fictional details in order to give the audience a depiction of what actually happened in a way that would make it more interesting, yet understandable for the audience.

Fiction is defined as a type of writing that typically depicts an imaginary event with made-up characters. Life stories are usually types of writing such as biographies and autobiographies that contain experiences, memories, or stories. Other examples could be diaries, memoirs, or even emails.  Although biographies and autobiographies are usually non-fiction, elements of fiction can definitely be present, especially in biographies as there is no way that all the information will be accurate about personal experiences, or memories unless it is written by the people themselves, which in that case would be an autobiography. Furthermore, there have been countless examples of life writing that are done fictionally to show a person’s life in a way that is not accurate factually but so that it can create a sense of story. Many biographies have been adapted in different ways, such as comic books and shows, and usually contain elements of fiction in their storytelling.  Overall, fiction has definitely had an impact on life writing in terms of creating a more story-like narrative by mixing fiction and non-fiction elements together.