Why you should start reading fiction

(≈3 min read)

Fiction offers a way for us to temporarily escape from this world.

When life feels like it’s getting on top of you, when all that menial work feels like it’s crushing you, rest assured you can always pick up that favourite book and feel all those concerns and worries drift away as you gradually lose yourself in another dimension.

As George R. R. Martin puts it:

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

To know that you have access in a matter of minutes to a piece of art that has taken likely years to conjure up, a piece of art that can quite literally teleport you to another world is quite a remarkable thing.

Every one of us on this planet sees the world in our own unique way and reading gives us potentially the best glimpse into what it might be like to experience reality from someone else’s eyes. It’s my belief that the more we educate ourselves on others perspectives, the better equipped we are in the real world where we’ll inevitably encounter a huge range of people and personalities across our lifespan.

When I talk about fiction and its usefulness the most common argument I hear in retaliation is as follows:

“But it’s not real!”

Why fiction is more real than reality

On the surface, taken at complete face value, the claim ‘fiction is fake’ is obviously true. There sadly is no Hogwarts.

But although the characters might have different names to the people in your daily life, things that happen in stories are designed to be representative of reality and in tune with real human emotion.

If anything, a well-written contemporary fiction novel is more real than reality itself. I know that sounds insane, but hear me out.

Fiction is, at its very core, reality stripped of its triviality. We don’t hear about the protagonist brushing their teeth in the morning or having that daily shower before bed. We are told only about the interesting bits, the ‘real’ bits.

Every scene in a book has been carefully selected, drafted likely tens of times for a specific message to be conveyed to you, the reader. In a good book, we are experiencing a kind of heightened sense of reality, where every action that occurs is in some way profound. If a scene exists, it exists for a reason.

You’re also taken along the emotional journey of the protagonist –good things in their life translate to you feeling good also and when they’re in pain, you’re in pain too. A well written novel will have you emotionally invested in these ‘fake’ characters.

But why is that, if the protagonist is not even real? Well you might ask yourself why you cry at specific films. What is it about these films, despite their falsity that connects you to the character or characters presented?

Oftentimes the answer is that the character embodies an aspect of human nature that we can all relate to. In other words, you can see a part of you in them. And so when they get hurt, that part of you gets hurt too.

So when the protagonist’s best friend is dying in a hospital, you are somewhat going through the internal motions of imagining what it might feel like if you were in that situation, if your best friend was dying in a hospital.

Fiction is not a fake reality that bears no resemblance to real life. It, when written well, can highlight both the wonder and the darkness of the human condition. Deep stuff.

The difference in usefulness between fiction and non-fiction

Although non-fiction books are great for honing in on a particular issue, poetry and fictional stories are often more powerful in conveying a message, especially when that message has an emotional string attached.

Let’s say for example an author is looking to explore the feeling of loneliness. Loneliness is clearly not a simple emotion to contend with, it’s a deep and complex feeling that’s often indescribable without resorting to some kind of metaphor or story-telling.

In fact when we talk about mental health problems like loneliness or anxiety or depression, it’s often very difficult to describe exactly how we feel without utilising metaphor. We feel like ‘something’ but that something is very difficult to precisely pinpoint.

There’s something much more powerful and relatable about giving an account in the form of a story or poem. Fiction provides a way of transcending the nature of our current lives and living momentarily in someone else’s; feeling what they’re feeling, experiencing what they’re experiencing. You’re able to see the world through this certain lens, get a glimpse into what’s it like to view the world in a way that you could never imagine.

To me, it’s powerful and also insanely useful to know, even just in small proportion, what other people around you might be contending with. Fiction clearly helps with this.

Why I don’t have a fiction reading list

Despite putting reading lists up for other categories, I decided that for fiction, this article alone would suffice. Sorry (not really). It’s just that for me, fiction is something both personal and subjective. My preference is based off nothing other than my specific interests which are likely very different from yours.

And so rather than recommending books that are suited to me, I’d instead encourage you to think about things you’re interested in and pick books in accordance with those interests.

Non-fiction is slightly different because it’s fairly objective. If there is a specific idea that ten books are trying to convey, I can give you my opinion on which I think does it best. But with the limitless possibilities fiction provides, it’s all on you to pick the books you think you’ll enjoy.

Plus, if I were to devise a list, I’d also struggle to determine which books to include.

As Neil Gaiman puts it:

“Picking five favourite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.”

So in conclusion, don’t disregard fiction. Although non-fiction is useful, fiction has a way of exploring deep ideas and emotion that non-fiction could never replicate.