Author Tim O'Brien reminds his readers that the protagonist of the novel is a writer, an individual whose job it is to meld memory and imagination into a new product for others to derive meaning from. O'Brien has melded these elements and created an innovative form for the novel that combines his own experiences — he is a Vietnam veteran — and his ability as a fiction writer to animate fragments of memory through embellishment and invention. In other words, O'Brien uses the "real" as a point of departure for his storytelling because he believes that imagined accounts could have legitimate kernels of truth.
As in "How to Tell a True War Story," O'Brien reprises differentiating between, as "O'Brien" puts it, "story-truth" and "happening truth." "O'Brien" bluntly states his objective as an author: "I want you to feel what I felt," which underpins and justifies "O'Brien's" major admission in the chapter: "I did not kill him."
