Fic

I so much enjoyed last month, and getting to talk about different clichéd and non-clichéd characters, that I thought I would go one step further and answer some more of my own questions—this time, in a short study of genre.

And we haven’t talked genre in a bit, so I thought it was time.

This month, I’d like to discuss genres in general. I want to show you what we can learn from them, and how we can teach through them. Every week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, we’ll discuss two different genres, and every Friday I have something special planned for you.

For today, on this lovely Monday, let’s take a look at…

Fiction

I have two questions that I’d like to discuss alongside every genre, two questions that I believe will tell us almost everything we want to know about that genre in particular.

First, why do we enjoy it?

This genre is one of the easiest for which I’ll answer this question. See, fiction is something that nearly everyone enjoys, whether they realize it or not. We dream in fiction, most of the time. We watch fiction on television, we read it in books, we even play it in games. We’re nearly surrounded by it these days, and most of us drink it all up.

But why? Well, I think that’s a pretty easy answer too.

People like to escape from the world. They like to fantasize, to consider what life would be like if lived another way. We long to know what’s going on in other people’s lives, and some of us even long to live as others. We desire action and adventure, and for some of us, the only way we can get it is through fiction. Let’s face it, having a nine-to-five isn’t always the most thrilling experience.

Second, what do we gain from it?

This one can be a little trickier, but it’s also the one that teaches us the most, as writers. This is the one that can tell us which genre we should be writing, if we know what we want people to gain from our writing.

For fiction, I believe there’s a lot to be gained. We gain an escape, an alternate reality, which is exactly what some of us need at the end of the day. Fiction helps us to get out of the everyday and experience life in a new form, in a new city, through the eyes of another person. Whether we’re reading it or watching it, it’s what many of us want. We want an escape. Too many of us watch the news and hear awful things about the real world, and at the end of the day we just want to think about something else, anything else. 

Even if that world isn't any better than the one we're in right now. At least we know the fictional one isn't real. 

That’s what fiction is, for us.

It’s a life, outside the real world.

[love]

{RD}