About this quote

Good fiction and skilled storytelling do two jobs: they reveal what people feel and they can earn a living. If you work with stories, choosing which facts to keep and which to shape is a craft decision, not just a moral debate. Notice which moments in your work carry honest feeling and protect those, then tighten everything around them so readers stay. If you want stories to pay the bills, make the emotional truth clear and the execution sharp.

When to use it

• At a bookstore reading Q&A, a novelist answers a question about honesty in fiction: "Stories may be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent."
• In a creative writing workshop, a teacher tells students, "You can bend details if the scene delivers the truth you want the reader to feel—care about the feeling first, craft second."
• While explaining freelance income to a partner, a short-story writer says, "My work isn't literal history, but these stories bring in rent money, so I polish them until someone buys them."
• At a family dinner, a grandparent shrugs and says to a curious child, "I may make parts up, but the story will teach you something real you won't forget."