Storytelling is a bit of a magic trick. You know the lady isn't actually being sawed in half, but you gasp anyway. That’s the heart of it. When people ask what is meant by fiction, they aren’t usually looking for a dictionary definition that says "not real." They’re trying to figure out why we spend so much time obsessing over people who don't exist and events that never happened.
It's a lie. But it's a purposeful one.
Fiction is any creative work—usually a novel, short story, play, or film—that derives from the imagination rather than a strict record of factual history. It’s the "What If" factor. What if a man woke up as a giant insect? Franz Kafka asked that in The Metamorphosis. What if a dystopian government controlled your very thoughts? George Orwell tackled that in 1984.
These aren't lies meant to deceive you, like a scammer or a crooked politician might use. They are simulations.
The Core Ingredients of a Fictional World
If you strip away the fancy covers and the marketing blurb, fiction relies on a few moving parts to actually work. Without these, you just have a collection of sentences.
First, you need a Protagonist. This is your anchor. Most people think a protagonist has to be "good," but that’s not true at all. Look at The Great Gatsby. Is Jay Gatsby a "good" guy? He’s a bootlegger and a liar, but he’s our lens. We see the world through his desperate, green-light-obsessed eyes.
Then comes the Conflict. This is the engine. No conflict, no story. If a character wants a sandwich, goes to the kitchen, and makes a sandwich, that’s a sequence of events. If a character wants a sandwich but the fridge is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon—or more realistically, by their own paralyzing social anxiety—now you’ve got fiction.
Why Truth and Fact Aren't the Same Thing
Here is where things get weird. A story can be 100% fiction and yet feel more "true" than a news report.
Think about Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. It’s a book about the Vietnam War. O’Brien himself served there. But he famously wrote about "story-truth" versus "happening-truth." He argued that sometimes, to make a reader feel what it was actually like to be in a jungle at night, you have to make up a specific detail that didn't happen. The factual record might say "it rained," but the fiction writer says "the sky bled gray ink for forty days."
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One is accurate. The other is true.
The Different Flavors of "Not Real"
Fiction isn't a monolith. It’s a massive umbrella that covers everything from a gritty crime noir set in 1940s LA to a space opera about sentient nebulae.
Literary Fiction is often what people mean when they talk about "serious" books. It usually focuses on the internal state of the characters. Think Toni Morrison or Virginia Woolf. The plot might be thin—maybe just a woman buying flowers, as in Mrs. Dalloway—but the emotional depth is ocean-deep.
On the flip side, we have Genre Fiction. This is your sci-fi, your romance, your thrillers. These stories often follow specific "beats" or tropes. In a romance, you expect a "Happily Ever After" or at least a "Happy For Now." In a mystery, you expect the detective to find the killer.
The Gray Area: Historical and Realistic Fiction
What about when fiction borrows from real life?
Historical fiction places imaginary characters in real settings. Hilary Mantel did this brilliantly with Wolf Hall, taking the very real Thomas Cromwell and giving him a rich, internal life that the history books couldn't possibly know.
Then there's Realistic fiction. This is stuff that could happen. No magic, no aliens. Just people navigating life. It’s the kind of thing you see in a Sally Rooney novel. It feels like eavesdropping on a conversation at a coffee shop.
Is Everything "Made Up" Actually Fiction?
Honestly, no. This is a common point of confusion.
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A biography that gets its dates wrong isn't suddenly fiction; it's just a bad biography. A satirical news article on The Onion is satire. While it uses fictional techniques, its primary goal is social commentary through parody.
To understand what is meant by fiction, you have to look at the intent. The intent of fiction is to create an aesthetic experience. It’s to move you, scare you, or make you think about the human condition by using the imagination as a laboratory.
The "Willing Suspension of Disbelief"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined this phrase in 1817. It’s the unspoken contract between the writer and the reader. You agree to pretend that dragons exist for the next 300 pages, and in exchange, the writer promises to give you an emotional payoff that feels real.
If the writer breaks the internal logic of their world—say, a character suddenly develops a superpower they didn't have before just to escape a corner—the suspension breaks. The spell is ruined.
The Brain on Fiction: It’s Not Just "Entertainment"
There’s some fascinating science here. Researchers like Keith Oatley, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Toronto, have found that reading fiction is basically "flight simulation" for the brain.
When you read a scene where a character is running, the parts of your brain associated with physical movement actually light up. Your brain doesn't fully distinguish between experiencing something and reading a vivid fictional account of it.
- Empathy expansion: Studies suggest that people who read a lot of fiction are better at reading the emotions of others.
- Social processing: Fiction allows us to "practice" social interactions in a low-stakes environment.
- Stress reduction: Immersing yourself in a fictional world can lower cortisol levels more effectively than listening to music or going for a walk.
Common Misconceptions About the Fictional Label
A lot of people think "fiction" is synonymous with "prose."
Not true.
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The Odyssey is a poem, but it’s absolutely fiction. Hamilton is a musical, but it uses fictionalized dialogue and structure to tell a historical story.
Another big mistake? Thinking fiction is "easier" than non-fiction. Writing a compelling fictional narrative requires a mastery of pacing, subtext, and psychology. You aren't just reporting what happened; you are God, creating a universe from scratch and making sure the physics of that universe don't collapse.
The Future of Fiction in a Digital Age
We’re seeing the boundaries blur. Video games like The Last of Us or Cyberpunk 2077 offer narrative depth that rivals classic literature. These are "interactive fiction." You aren't just observing the protagonist; you are making the choices that define the protagonist.
Even in social media, we see "ARG" (Alternate Reality Games) where creators tell fictional stories through "real" Twitter or TikTok accounts. It makes the question of what is meant by fiction even harder to answer because the medium is constantly shifting.
But the core remains. Whether it’s a campfire story or a 40-hour RPG, fiction is how we make sense of a chaotic world. It gives us a beginning, a middle, and an end—something real life rarely provides.
Actionable Ways to Engage with Fiction
If you want to move beyond just being a passive consumer and really understand the mechanics of the craft, try these steps:
- Read against your type. If you only read thrillers, pick up a piece of magical realism like Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. See how the "rules" of reality shift.
- Analyze the "Inciting Incident." In the next movie you watch or book you read, find the exact moment the character’s life changes. That’s the spark that turns a premise into a story.
- Identify the "Unreliable Narrator." Read a book like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Lolita. Realize that just because a character is telling you the story doesn't mean they are telling you the truth.
- Practice "Active Reading." Instead of just absorbing the plot, look at the word choice. How does the author create an atmosphere without explicitly stating "it was creepy"?
- Write a "What If" prompt. Take a mundane event from your day—missing the bus, for instance—and add one fictional element. What if the bus was actually a time machine? What if the bus driver was your long-lost father? This is the root of all fictional invention.
Fiction isn't an escape from reality; it’s a detour that eventually leads you right back to the truth, usually with a better map than you had before. It’s the most sophisticated tool we have for exploring what it means to be human. Use it.