With fiction you can talk about plot character and narrative whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.
Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.
The general consensus among historians among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is in fact historical fiction is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that beyond that we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original.
My mother whom I love dearly has continually revised my life story within the context of a complicated family history that includes more than the usual share of divorce step-children dysfunction and obfuscation. I've spent most of my adult life attempting to deconstruct that history and separate fact from fiction.
Irish fiction is full of secrets guilty pasts divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history.
For one who reads there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived for fiction biography and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world in all periods of time.
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers if 'facts' are fictional how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?
What does it say about a president's policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record? What does it say about the fiction of old liberalism to insist that good jobs and good schools and good wages will result from policies that have failed us time and again?
Julia progresses from cradle to grave showing how government makes every good thing in her life possible. The weak economy high unemployment falling wages rising gas prices the national debt the insolvency of entitlements - all these are fictionally assumed away in a cartoon that is produced by a president who wants us to forget about them.
The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
Blade Runner appears regularly two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.
The claim made by Team Obama that every dollar in stimulus translates into a dollar-and-a-half in growth is economic fiction. The costs of stimulus reduce future growth. No country has ever spent itself to prosperity. The price of stimulus has to be paid sometime.
I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining but are also I hope well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.
When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.
It's funny with fiction - once you cut something it hasn't happened anymore.
People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book' but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me because in my view fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.