Is Fiction A Type of Fabrication? Part 2 of 10
Let me just say thanks for all the comments keep it up. They are insightful, and helpful. I’m pleased that you all came and that you left so many comments, wasn’t expecting that. If you are new, please read the yesterday’s blog for the email which prompted this series.
I have to say Jennifer’s comments were one of the best, in a way the freedom to write fiction is very liberating. I write in both fiction and non-fiction. and both are in their won way liberating. I do more research with non-fiction, but that is make sure that my facts are correct. Fiction though also improves my creativity.
For example, when I write a fantasy novel I create a new world, of course, I not only outline my novel, but I also draw the world, I am a visual person, so sometimes I’ll draw the character. Of, course I am in no way a professional, or amateur for that matter, in the art of drawing and my people tend to look a bit like stick figures gone bad, but it gives me the general idea.
Put to the test I suspect one could argue that I am fabricating a world. I would say it is more like I am creating something. I need to ground it in reality though, and if I bend rules, it won’t work. People need some sort of rules. For example, if my characters can live underwater, how is that possible?
I have to make what I tell the reader believable, or otherwise my writing is not more than scrap printout. This means of course, my researching comes to full circle, I’ll do a bit less than what I would for a non-fiction but I do some.
In its own way, I would say fiction gives me more time to create, to think, and to plan, since it comes from my won mind. Non-fiction comes from somewhere else, and with my help makes itself into a book.
I disagree with the email’s comment that fiction doesn’t require me to think. I’d have to say it does. Perhaps more so, since you think like a reader would.
5 Comments
Koala Bear Writer
Fantasy is a genre to itself, because your “facts” can be made up, but they still must be consistent throughout the novel. And if you look at fantasy novels, they usually are still fairly close to the real world. Artemis Fowl simply asks “what if fairies really exist?” and adds some hi-tech details, but otherwise, the entire novel is set in England as we know it and the fairies operate under similar laws/rules.
I’d also disagree with “fiction doesn’t require thinking.” It does. The best fiction is the fiction that makes us think and ponder and grasp a truth about our lives. 19th century writers wrote “to teach and to entertain” and some of the best fiction still does that. In fact, I’d say that’s part of why Dickens and Austen and writers like them are still popular today.
Jennifer Roland
I agree with Koala Bear wholeheartedly. If fiction doesn’t make you think, then it hasn’t done its job.
A lot of people look down on genre fiction, in particular, but some of the best and most thought-provoking works I’ve come across have been genre pieces.
Thanks, Rebecca, for doing this series and for the kind words about my comment yesterday.
Rebecca
I will say this right now, that if any of you haven’t been to these commentors blogs, you must go it them, they are awesome!
Becky
Hey Rebecca,
I think you get a bit more leeway in Fantasy (and speculative fic in general) than you do in mainstream fiction as well. You can get away with one or two unexplained implausibilities (like people who live underwater) if the rest seems coherent. Readers of fantasy will accept certain things – like magic or merfolk – in a fantasy world. What they won’t accept is incoherency. And sometimes the plausible is unacceptable in fiction. Look at coincidence – it happens all the time in real life, but readers hate it and find it implausible.
I think it comes under “Life doesn’t make sense but fiction has to”.
Becky
Rebecca
Becky
you are exacly right, fantasy is one of the leeway fictions, but I agree it has to be grounded in “something” making the rules that stick is one thing, making the reader believe is another.