My creative writing class had an interesting discussion regarding the last assignment.  The challenge was to describe a feeling--anger, fear, joy, envy, etc.  The constraint was you could not use the word or its synonyms in the essay.  You had to make the reader feel the emotion.

In the course of the discussion, my teacher underscored the fact that the objective of the writing was NOT to be true to your feelings, but to make the reader feel the feelings.  Some people were intrigued by this statement. 

This has actually been a recurring theme of the class--that creative writing is manipulative (terrible but appropriate word). It is similar to acting in that the actor does not personally want to kill or rape or steal.  He/she is not actually that brave or strong or sexy. However, it is his/her job to make you think that he/she is. 

So too with writing, the feelings that you express have some basis in reality--all of us feel the entire spectrum of emotions--however, in writing them, we distort these feelings, we exaggerate them or we subdue them, in order to invoke or provoke a response from the reader.