Fiction and Truth

Writers are inspired by real life, of course, including people they've known and the tragedies and triumphs they have witnessed. People sometimes accuse fiction writers of relying too heavily on reality, in the mistaken belief that they ought to be inventing everything out of thin air if they want to call their work fiction. But writers don't present "reality" without alteration. They turn things around and mix things up -- so that people who never met in real life are suddenly lovers, and events that took place years apart are suddenly on the same day. Ironically, in distoring and rearranging reality, they hope to achieve truth. Writing is the "reimagining" of reality.