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The relationship between fiction and reality, precisely when fiction ceases to be just fiction and becomes reality is the subject of various debates in literature.

I believe the first common error is the theory,rather simple, that the reality of a literary text lies in the story itself.  In other words, if a text is talking about events or people whose existence can be proved by historical facts, then the text in question must be real and one must believe the author for the simple reason that many of the facts presented hold some historical evidence.  (This mentality allowed the phenomenon of the DaVinci Code despite the fact that Dan Brown's book is nothing but fiction.)

Myself, I lived my entire life with the secret hope of learning to speak the universal language of human expression.  At different times I was sure I did, as I became a committed translator of different perceptions of reality.  . But, when someone recently asked me what kind of a writer I was, my only option was to admit to anything on the spot, with the secret hope of buying some time to think it over.

It turns out that my true self revolves around my imagination.  George Bernard Shaw once said,“Imagination  is the beginning of creation.  You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last you create what you will.”

When I find myself before a clear piece of paper I want to write something real, with characters close to the people I know or knew at some point in my life, however, I cannot resist the temptation of re-creating, adding small touches to the original, introducing this way details that will give my story a spectacular (in the good sense of the word) spin.

What I am trying to say is that I find it impossible for creative writing to be also real, in the sense we understand truth.

The statement could be disappointing for certain readers,especially for those followers of the conspiracy theory in Dan Brown's novel, but any disappointment, any amount of it, is preferable to error, in my opinion.