Mark Twain on Story-Telling ~

"If you attempt to create & build a wholly imaginary incident, adventure or situation, you will go astray, & the artificiality of the thing will be detectable.  But if you found on a fact in your personal experience, it is an acorn, a root, & every created adornment that grows up out of it & spreads its foliage & blossoms to the sun will seem realities, not inventions.  You will not be likely to grow astray; your compass of fact is there to keep you on the right course."

~ Mark Twain, written in a scribbler

Mark Twain An Illustrated Biography, Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns. Knopf, 2001.