Based on a true story' : the problem of the perception of biographical truth in narratives based on real lives

Despite a sustained interest in the ethical issues around writing narratives that are 'based on true stories', much of the public discourse around this matter has fallen into a repetitive and non-productive rut. This begins when a published work, usually a memoir or work of investigative, biographically focused journalism, is exposed to contain some obvious untruth. Outraged media commentary fans a firestorm of literary scandal, which often increases book sales and then dies out. While these conflagrations could prompt significant investigation around both the complexity of attempting to represent reality in writing as well as what contemporary readers' demands for authenticity reveals about them, too often public discussion as well as more scholarly discourse stalls either at the same stage of backward-looking moral superiority or post-modernist explanations that all truth is relative. This paper uses a detailed case study approach, focusing on a series of factually based works by Australian playwright Nick Enright to illuminate some of the practical and ethical challenges writers face when they draw on the power of real stories to create cultural product.