An interviewer asked a famous writer: “How do you know what your characters are going to say?”

“Because they’ve already spoken,” she responded. “They’re real people and I’m just trying to remember what they said.”

“Then you aren’t really writing fiction?”

“I’m adding fiction to life,” the writer said, “making up a parallel world.”

“So much for your much-admired imagination,” the interviewer said.

(Pause)

“So, a famous writer was being interviewed,” the writer said in a somber voice, “by someone who kept questioning her methods and integrity. After putting up with it for as long as she could, the famous writer took a pistol from her purse and carefully shot the interviewer in his left eye.”

(Another pause)

“That’s not funny,” the interviewer said.

“Perhaps not,” the writer said, “but it’s not entirely fictional, either.”

– Charles Tarlton