Fiction

FICTION

Fiction is the form of any work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not real, but rather, imaginary and theoretical—that is, invented by the author. Although the term fiction refers in particular to novels and short stories, it may also refer to the theatre, including opera and ballet, film, television, poetry and song. Fiction contrasts with non-fiction, which deals exclusively with factual (or, at least, assumed factual) events, descriptions, observations, etc.

Features

Realistic fiction

Realistic fiction, although untrue, could actually happen. Some events, people, and places may even be real. It may be possible that, in the future, imagined events could physically happen. For example, Jules Verne's novel From The Earth To The Moon was proven possible in 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. Science fiction often predicts technologies that later become a reality.

Historical fiction is also a sub-genre that takes fictional characters and puts them into real world events. For example, Diana Gabaldon's characters in "The Outlander" series involves time travel and love in Scotland but also contains historical events such as the Battle of Culloden.

Non-realistic fiction

Non-realistic fiction is that in which the story's events could not happen in real life, which involve an alternate form of history of mankind other than that recorded, or need impossible technology. A good deal of fiction books are like this, including works by Lewis Carroll (Alice In Wonderland), J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter), and J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings).

However, even fantastic literature is bidimensional: it is situated between the poles of realism and the marvelous or mythic. Geographical details, character descriptions etc. create a rhetoric of realism, which "invites the reader to ignore the text's artifice, to suspend one's disbelief, exercise poetic faith and thereby indulge in the narrative's imaginative world". The bidimensionality appears within the story as astonishment or frightening. According to G. W. Young and G. Wolfe, fictional realities outside the text are evoked, and the reader's previous conceptions of reality are exposed as incomplete. Hence, "by fiction is one able to gain even fuller constructs of what constitutes reality". On the other hand, the infinite fictional possibilities signal the impossibility of fully knowing reality. There is no criterion to measure constructs of reality – in the last resort they are "entirely fictional".

Semi-fiction

Semi-fiction is fiction implementing a great deal of non-fiction, for example: a fictional depiction "based on a true story", or a fictionalized account, or a reconstructed biography.

Often, even when the author claims the story is true, there may be significant additions and subtractions from the true story to make it more suitable for storytelling.

Elements:

-Plot: Plot is what the character(s) did, said, and thought.

-Exposition: is the portion of a narrative that introduces important background information to the reader (like events occurring before the main plot or a character's backstory) but is not part of the plot's action itself.

-Foreshadowing: is a technique used by authors to provide clues so the reader can predict what might occur later in the story.

-Rising action: in the narrative of a work of fiction,

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