"What is truth?" asked jesting Pilate.

Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous. If you go beyond the facts, things can happen, like Joshua's [one of her characters] being shot. But wonderful things can happen, too.

In Kenneth Grahame's beautiful book, THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, Mole and Rat go to the holy island of the great god, Pan. It is a superb piece of religious writing, but because it has gone beyond fact, it is deeply upsetting and untruthful to some people. If a story is not specified as being Christian, it is not Christian. But that is not so.

I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.

                        --Madeline L'Engle, Margaret Edwards Award
                         Acceptance Speech, June 27, 1998

I also refer you to the concept of "ficton."

Reality is a weak crutch, Amos.