Being a Better Writer: The Value of Fiction · 8:10pm Sep 26th, 2017
First of all, I apologize for the lateness of this post. I had a shift at work Monday(I’m still playing catch-up on a small pile of debt incurred during my knee injury and trying to be able to make rent this month, so I’m working more shifts than normal) which, as expected, put this post behind the clock. Thankfully, looking at my daily views, it seems that many of you don’t mind—a large number of you have just been checking on Tuesday rather than on Monday, which is sad as far as my ability to get these posts up on Monday is concerned, but otherwise isn’t a bother.
So … today’s topic … This is one that I’ve wanted to do for quite a while. Years, actually. But I wasn’t positive if I wanted it to be a Being a Better Writer post or just a random post until recently. I can’t recall quite what the context of it was, but there was a forum post on a site I was browsing that made me immediately turn to my topic list and write down “Learning by Example – Value of Fiction.”
Now, for some, this post is going to seem somewhat … Well, perhaps obvious is the best way to put it. But the odd thing is, for some it won’t.
See, I once had a fellow student in one of my creative writing classes who could not understand why we were bothering to read stories that ‘hadn’t happened.’ They were incredibly incensed by it (for the record, none of us, including the professor, could determine what they had expected otherwise from a course in creative writing), constantly complained about the books we read, and even, if memory serves, flat-out refused to do the writing assignments because ‘it wasn’t real, therefore it was of no worth.’
The thing is, as I’ve gotten older, wiser, and seen more of the world, I’ve come to find that this student was not alone in sharing this opinion. There are a lot of people out there that do not see the value of reading anything that is a work of fiction and hold it to be of no merit. Why? The answer is, when boiled and distilled down, because a work of fiction isn’t something “real.” Therefore, not being “real,” it has no place in the real world.
Now, obviously I disagree. But, naturally, this disagreement doesn’t start or end with “Well, you’re wrong.” Crud, there’s a reason I put “real” in the last paragraph in quotes. Because fiction isn’t simply something that’s “not real.” In fact, simply thinking of it as such shows a lack of understanding of what fiction is.
Still waiting on somebody to make actual dragons a thing.
Good article!
Tangent: I don't think eyeglasses are going the way of the mammoth anytime soon. Even if their original function (i.e. vision-correction) becomes vestigial, I suspect many people will wear them for aesthetic reasons. How long would it take before people stopped wearing glasses to look smarter, I wonder, once people stopped needing to wear them to see better?
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Actually, if you recall, that's exactly what happened in Colony! No one needed glasses anymore, but people wore them as a status symbol instead.
In fact, I believe you were the one who made the comment "In the grim darkness of humanity's future ... the hipsters have won" at that very scene!
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Heh. I guess it's been awhile since I read it. Good memory, sir.
As an engineer, this post in many ways describes my life. The entire purpose of my job is to see beyond what exists and make that fiction a reality. Basically everything we have now was once just dreams and wishful thinking, and there are tons of things people now decry as "impossible" and "wishful thinking" that will exist soon (or in some cases, already do exist
). As you said, Jules Verne is the most famous example of this since he is so well known and wrote long enough ago for his "wild fantasies" to become reality, but he is far from alone.
Also, there are two points I think you may want to edit into your post because they are extremely relevant to tying your examples into the real world.
The first is the obvious parallel between The Martian and the Apollo 13 mission where those people did make amazing things happen in an emergency, so while the situation may be different and fictional, it is far from a hypothetical problem.
The second and more interesting is that the value of clean water in Fallout has some close parallels in some parts of the world where there isn't proper infrastructure. This is a very real concern in these areas, and building an understanding of it through a game could be hugely helpful for people trying to understand the problems those people face.