“Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.”

— Ralph Ellison , book Shadow and Act

Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), Introduction, p. xix; in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 56.

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Ralph Ellison 82

American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer 1914–1994

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“The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.”

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Attributed variant: The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
Clancy here expresses an idea evoked in similar statements made by others, all derived from the orignial made by Lord Byron:
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Mark Twain: Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't.
G. K. Chesterton: Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
Leo Rosten: Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense. (attributed)
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“Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.”

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