““The real measure of 'truth' in any novel is not whether the characters, places and events portrayed exist beyond the pages of the book, but, rather, whether they seem authentic to us as readers. When we open the pages of a novel, we enter into a pact with it. We want to immerse ourselves in its milieu. We want to engage with the characters, to find their actions psychologically plausible. We invest a little bit of ourselves in the narrative and, while never quite forgetting that it is fiction, experience the disappointments, humiliations and petty successes of the characters as if they were our own. A novel is, in Sartre's phrase, 'neither true nor false'; but it must feel real.””
![“When it [truth] emerges it often bears out the saying that 'truth is stranger than fiction.' A novelist has to appear plausible, and would hesitate to make use of such astounding contradictions as occur in history through some extraordinary accident or twist of psychology .” quote by Bill Vaughan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bfa/bill-vaughan-706_accidents_when-it-truth-emerges-it-often-bears-out_184836.jpg)
