"You know what I recently wondered about?" I asked.

"Tell me," my reader said. "But I guess it's about the difference between fiction and non-fiction. I mean, it's right in the title of this post."

I put my fingers on the keyboard, typing my response. "Bingo. What do you think it is?"

I waited earnestly, staring at my keyboard, anticipating a response. It was a cold Friday evening of me sitting in my Internet café when I should be doing college work. In one tab, I had my Solitaire game. In the other, I had my tab with the instant messenger app from which we communicated.

I scratched my chin and, after half a minute of  waiting, my reader finally reacted. "Well, fiction isn't real, I guess."

"That's it?"

"Not quite. I guess fiction also has plot and characters while non-fiction doesn't."

"So, is our conversation a piece of fiction?"

That had my reader stumped. Once again, I had to wait. But, this time, the waiting felt good. I felt like I had won this, like I had stumped this discussion partner. It was just like those debates I always had in my head where I could control the flow of the conversation and make myself seem smart.

"I-I don't understand," my reader finally said.

"We are characters. Our conversation is the plot. Is this fiction or non-fiction?"

[-]

I'll stop here. The conversation above is obviously fictional, as that reader doesn't exist. However, it doesn't feel like fiction.

A lot of people say that fiction is an escape from reality and shouldn't be about real-world issues. Their idea is that fiction is entertaining while non-fiction conveys a thesis. This book as a whole is non-fiction. It doesn't have a thesis as a whole, but the chapters as such do.

However, the exchange I wrote above wasn't particularly entertaining. I solely wrote it to convey a thesis. Was this bad writing? Maybe, but I still did this because I found it more evocative than just starting this post.

Fiction and non-fiction are both about communication. One reason people started telling stories was to teach each other lessons. I wrote that exchange above to convey the lessons that the borders between fiction and non-fiction are not so clear.

But why use fiction when you can just tell people your message? Because fiction makes people's imagination run wild and people like that. It uses metaphor and parallelism to communicate with the reader. While most people think only specific types of fiction have messages, I would argue that every successful story does.

What is the message of the average romance story? There is someone out there who loves you and you are prettier than you think. (The "you" is the reader and most romance protagonists - especially on Wattpad - are VERY obvious self-inserts for the author and the reader. If you understand this, you'll also understand why romance novels all feel the same; they're all just about making the reader warm and fuzzy, originality is a low priority.)

What is the message of your average power fantasy? You are awesome and you can beat up any enemy you want to.

Sci-fi/fantasy? The world (particularly the Medieval Age, the future, our legends and myth, and space) is an awesome place and I'll show you why.

Horror/mystery/thriller? Something dangerous will happen and you need to get away and/or prevent it.

To further make my point, say you want to scare people. You can tell them a horror, mystery, or thriller story, sure. But you can also tell them about a real-world murder case.

Similarly, if you want to show people how awesome human progress and science are, you can do so through a science fiction story, but you could also make a documentary about what we'll likely achieve in the future.

Even something like power fantasy has its equivalents in non-fiction. Many power fantasy stories have protagonists who start out as average losers before they get granted superpowers and kick everyone's butts. Many, many, many advertisements also work that way. A common commercial will go like, "Hey, you, I know your life is terrible, but if you do this, it'll be much cooler. Now, buy my product!". Texts that are supposed to make you feel better can also feel like power fantasy stories.

But are all stories just one-way communication from the author to the reader? I wouldn't say so. Some stories have a more interactive element. Mysteries, for instance, ask the reader to pay attention to the clues as the book unfolds. Likewise, stories with complicated themes ask the reader to think critically and draw a conclusion by themselves. In this case, the story will be more of two-way communication.

You might be wondering why so many people don't think about that "communication" aspect when writing their stories? I mean, you can just mindlessly copy common tropes in your genre and reach success.

Because imagination isn't the only difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Fiction is, by nature, more abstract than non-fiction. Thus, to make its message clear, it has to follow a more rigid structure. That's why stories have a main character, a main antagonist, a beginning, an end, and so on.

However, even that isn't too different from writing non-fiction.

When you were taught how to write essays at school, they hopefully told you that you need a hook, an introduction, a main part with your arguments, and a conclusion that wraps everything up. That's not too dissimilar to story structure, actually.

In this chapter, in particular, the conversation between my two fictional characters was supposed to be the hook. My introduction was when I introduced the topic and my main part is me going into more detail.

However, non-fiction doesn't have to be that rigid in structure. Sometimes, it's just better to start with your conclusion (like in scientific papers). Also, making your non-fiction feel like a story can feel manipulative and fake. The real world is random, there are no big climaxes where the bad guys lose and the good guys win.

Stories have to feel like stories, however, as that makes them gripping. Fiction requires more of the readers' imagination than non-fiction does and without making it fun, that imagination won't be there.

That's also why fiction almost always needs characters as, without them, there is no window into the story's fictional world. Now, granted, there are fables where there aren't named characters or anything, just animals or objects (e.g. "the fox", "the teapot", etc.). But even then, those objects or animals will talk and act very much like humans. We tend to anthropomorphize; it makes the world more engaging to us.

Much like how non-fiction can have a pseudo-plot, you can have characters in it. For instance, if you write an essay about poverty in Africa, you could include details about the biography of a starving child in it. Just be aware that this is very likely going to feel manipulative.

But why does all of this matter?

I think the reason it matters is to understand where the myth of "talent" comes from. Many people believe story-telling doesn't really follow rules and the only way it can be learned is by either being talented or reading lots of books.

This isn't true. As I said above, story-telling comes with a structure that can be learned.

However, it is at the end of the day a form of communication. So, I believe those with good social skills have an easier time becoming good authors. Those who are really good at impressing people will probably have an easier time subconsciously picking up the "rules" they need to follow to achieve their results. They only need to read a few books in their genre and find out what the audience wants to see. I don't have any data on this, but I can see a connection between my struggles with writing and my general struggles in the soft skill area.

Don't get me wrong, there are "writing rules" that an amateur author can learn that will probably help. It's just, I like to see them more as suggestions than as "rules".

This is ultimately the whole philosophy behind this book.

It's why I call it "Thoughts on Writing" rather than "How to Write". There are "rules" for writing in the same way as there are "rules" for dating. They exist, but you need a lot of your own judgment before knowing when to follow them and when not.

Another reason why this matters is that people keep discussing if fiction should be "political" with heavy messages or if people should just write fiction for fun.

Again, if you see fiction as a form of communication, the answer to this is self-evident. There are stories that are literally just political essays that happen to have a plot and characters (looking at you, Atlas Shrugged and 1984), much like there are stories that are little more than audience gratification with plot and characters (AKA power fantasy).

Much like there isn't a "right" answer to what communication should be like, there isn't one to what fiction should be either, but it pays to know what one wants to accomplish.

Well, I guess that's the narrative climax of this little essay.

Time for the epilogue.