Contrary to all those times you've heard a writer confess at a reading that he writes fiction because he is a pathological liar, fiction writing is all about telling the truth.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.
The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.
Fiction is the truth inside the lie.
One of the questions writers bump up against in their work, whether they know it or not, is about lying. Because fiction is a form of deceit, and one's abilities are measured by how convincingly one can persuade readers that these events really happened.
Telling ourselves that fiction is in a sense true and at the same time not true is essential to the art of fiction. It's been at the heart of fiction from the start. Fiction offers both truth, and we know it's a flat-out lie. Sometimes it drives a novelist mad. Sometimes it energizes us.
Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.
I think novels are profoundly autobiographical. If writers deny that, they are lying. Or if it's really true, then I think it's a mistake.
The best thing about being a fiction writer is that where the truth is inconvenient, I could veer away.
As a writer of fiction, lying is the central thing to all books.
Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.