Why should we spend time reading or bother turning on the TV to watch a movie? Why hop into a fictitious world when bigger things are going on in the world? We all might have somewhere faced this in our train of thought or simply overlooked it. Let’s reflect on the ways in which fiction influences us.
It may seem like reading fiction is a waste of time or an escape way from reality, but fiction teaches us more in less time. It costs us time to save us time. And it gives us a gateway to someone’s imagination, filled with thrills and adventures. A rollercoaster of emotions and events that would take years, decades, centuries, or even millennia to experience. It takes the readers to places or positions where we could not ever go directly.
Fiction lets you experience the sensation of sitting on a train and looking at a passenger with the longing that you will never witness them again, the cry of a parent when their disabled kid got cured, the despair when your lover tells you that they are in love with someone else, the dilemma when the doctor gives you an ultimatum that they can either save your wife or your newborn infant, the loneliness we feel in a new city or a county, the inability to ask questions in class in fear that the teacher might snub you, the smile of a naive child sitting in a car when he looked at you whilst the traffic signal was red, the misery of losing a job or the trauma due to the death of a loved one.
Fiction broadens our imagination. It does not tell the reader or the viewer what is, but lets them think what it might be, thus knocking on the door of imagination of the reader or the viewer. When we read fiction, the story and the characters are imagery – images themselves are not given by the writer – and the reader draws the scenes, characters, and happening in their mind in conjunction with their imagination. Fiction spurs imagination by taking the readers into a realm that is encapsulated with the imagination of an unknown superficial space where the reader simulates and interprets reality.
We are weirder than we assume: we cannot say explicitly what is in our mind. Our ideas and imagination are chained with the shackles of reality and its predefined norms that we have to conform to.
As the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “In the work of a writer of genius, we rediscover our own neglected thoughts.’’
In fiction, we find the true portrayal of ourselves. The writers draw the events and write them into words where we find pieces of ourselves, we discover our ideas that are shunned by the people around us. Fiction does not judge us, it gives us the mirror so we can see ourselves, reflect upon ourselves, and makes us think twice before making a choice.
Reading fiction is a great way to develop critical thinking skills, as it often requires us to analyse and interpret complex ideas and themes. Our insight towards life is augmented drastically when we read fiction: we see life from a bigger picture. Fiction is open to interpretation, and readers engage in critical thinking to understand the meaning behind the text. This can involve analysing literary devices such as symbolism, imagery and foreshadowing.
As readers dig deeper and deeper into understanding the character, motivations and intentions, they engage with different perspectives and worldviews which can challenge their assumptions and broaden their critical thinking skills. In a nutshell, fiction lies in between reality and imagination.
In life, our greatest fear is the fear of failing or messing up, or regretting making a bad choice. Interestingly, most fiction depicts failure. That is to say: in many ways, novels, plays and dramas are about the people who messed up. Writers make us sympathetic to the characters and the positions in which they are in, their inability to fight through the conflict, the adversity, the pain and the loneliness. The readers become the characters who are going through all of this. Fiction makes us at home with them so that we can take a shred of reality from the characters.
Fiction shows us what things look like from another person’s eyes. Our beliefs and opinions are tied with biases and prejudices because of our surroundings. We deliberately acknowledge the information that we acquire from our surroundings despite having the hunch that it might be counterfeit. To fight against this process of assimilation, writers empathise with us, unlike the media which draws the situation one-dimensionally and often misinforms us. Books don’t manipulate us; they are our true friends.
The writers share their experiences embedded with imagination, so the reader learns more about the world where we live by showing all the dimensions of the circumstances that the characters are going through.
Overall, fiction provides a rich opportunity to understand life and make it better. But if fiction is capable of doing all of this, we should reflect upon fiction.
It is not merely an escape, a distraction, or entertainment. It is much more than that, a life-simulator, a therapist, a listener from whom we can learn more about ourselves. Consequently, fiction helps us leave this world with a little more wisdom and righteousness.
It may seem like reading fiction is a waste of time or an escape way from reality, but fiction teaches us more in less time. It costs us time to save us time. And it gives us a gateway to someone’s imagination, filled with thrills and adventures. A rollercoaster of emotions and events that would take years, decades, centuries, or even millennia to experience. It takes the readers to places or positions where we could not ever go directly.
Fiction lets you experience the sensation of sitting on a train and looking at a passenger with the longing that you will never witness them again, the cry of a parent when their disabled kid got cured, the despair when your lover tells you that they are in love with someone else, the dilemma when the doctor gives you an ultimatum that they can either save your wife or your newborn infant, the loneliness we feel in a new city or a county, the inability to ask questions in class in fear that the teacher might snub you, the smile of a naive child sitting in a car when he looked at you whilst the traffic signal was red, the misery of losing a job or the trauma due to the death of a loved one.
Fiction broadens our imagination. It does not tell the reader or the viewer what is, but lets them think what it might be, thus knocking on the door of imagination of the reader or the viewer. When we read fiction, the story and the characters are imagery – images themselves are not given by the writer – and the reader draws the scenes, characters, and happening in their mind in conjunction with their imagination. Fiction spurs imagination by taking the readers into a realm that is encapsulated with the imagination of an unknown superficial space where the reader simulates and interprets reality.
Interestingly, most fiction depicts failure. That is to say: in many ways, novels, plays and dramas are about the people who messed up
We are weirder than we assume: we cannot say explicitly what is in our mind. Our ideas and imagination are chained with the shackles of reality and its predefined norms that we have to conform to.
As the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “In the work of a writer of genius, we rediscover our own neglected thoughts.’’
In fiction, we find the true portrayal of ourselves. The writers draw the events and write them into words where we find pieces of ourselves, we discover our ideas that are shunned by the people around us. Fiction does not judge us, it gives us the mirror so we can see ourselves, reflect upon ourselves, and makes us think twice before making a choice.
Reading fiction is a great way to develop critical thinking skills, as it often requires us to analyse and interpret complex ideas and themes. Our insight towards life is augmented drastically when we read fiction: we see life from a bigger picture. Fiction is open to interpretation, and readers engage in critical thinking to understand the meaning behind the text. This can involve analysing literary devices such as symbolism, imagery and foreshadowing.
As readers dig deeper and deeper into understanding the character, motivations and intentions, they engage with different perspectives and worldviews which can challenge their assumptions and broaden their critical thinking skills. In a nutshell, fiction lies in between reality and imagination.
In life, our greatest fear is the fear of failing or messing up, or regretting making a bad choice. Interestingly, most fiction depicts failure. That is to say: in many ways, novels, plays and dramas are about the people who messed up. Writers make us sympathetic to the characters and the positions in which they are in, their inability to fight through the conflict, the adversity, the pain and the loneliness. The readers become the characters who are going through all of this. Fiction makes us at home with them so that we can take a shred of reality from the characters.
Fiction shows us what things look like from another person’s eyes. Our beliefs and opinions are tied with biases and prejudices because of our surroundings. We deliberately acknowledge the information that we acquire from our surroundings despite having the hunch that it might be counterfeit. To fight against this process of assimilation, writers empathise with us, unlike the media which draws the situation one-dimensionally and often misinforms us. Books don’t manipulate us; they are our true friends.
The writers share their experiences embedded with imagination, so the reader learns more about the world where we live by showing all the dimensions of the circumstances that the characters are going through.
Overall, fiction provides a rich opportunity to understand life and make it better. But if fiction is capable of doing all of this, we should reflect upon fiction.
It is not merely an escape, a distraction, or entertainment. It is much more than that, a life-simulator, a therapist, a listener from whom we can learn more about ourselves. Consequently, fiction helps us leave this world with a little more wisdom and righteousness.