Last Friday, I asked what it was that drives you to write. Now I have another question.
Why do you read fiction?
Fiction, after all, isn’t “true.” Most novelists would agree that fiction contains “truth” in some metaphorical sense, but we also know good and well that it isn’t really a factual recounting of events. (And if it is, and those events violate some real person’s privacy, then we can be sued for invasion of privacy, even if it’s exactly true.)
But I don’t think most of us read fiction in order to extract that “truth” from fiction. Most of us read because we like to, because it’s fun, because it’s escape.
Why do you read fiction? Leave a comment telling why. The coolest or funniest or quirkiest answer (in my sole judgment) by midnight Pacific time on Wednesday will get a free autographed copy of my novel DOUBLE VISION.
I am seriously addicted for fiction b/c I find most, if not all non-fiction to be BORING!
I read fiction because that’s the only way I can leave my house without opening the door, abandoning the children, being reported to Child and Family Services and being thrown into prison. Although, in prison I’d probably have more time to write . . .
(Just last week, for instance, I was in England in the 1940s and the children had no idea I’d gone anywhere at all.)
I read fiction because I like to, because it’s fun, because it’s escape.
Why does that sound like plagarism?
I read fiction because otherwise I wouldn’t have a chance to eat pizza on Mars.
I’m not sure exactly of all the reasons I read, but I was taught to read so I would learn to talk and now a good book is about the only way to get me to shut up!
Because I want to have a PEE! (That’s Powerful Emotional Experience) See…I have been listening! LOL
As a writer, I read fiction to see how other authors twist and shape words to make beautiful prose, and by learning from them, I can improve my own.
As a reader, I read fiction because I love to be grabbed by the throat and dragged down castle corridors, or perhaps spit out in an alternate universe where everything is backwards and nothing makes sense.
With fiction, I can immerse myself into someone else’s skin for awhile, and forget about my own life.
As a writer, I read fiction to see how other authors twist and shape words to make beautiful prose, and by learning from them, I can improve my own.
As a reader, I read fiction because I love to be grabbed by the throat and dragged down castle corridors, or perhaps spit out in an alternate universe where everything is backwards and nothing makes sense.
With fiction, I can immerse myself into someone else’s skin for awhile, and forget about my own life.
When I was a child, one of my favourite things to do at family gatherings was to sit and listen to the grown-ups tell stories of their lives. We have some wonderful storytellers in our family and their adventures, some of which could more truthfully categorized as tall tales, fascinated me.
So many times over the years, I’ve heard one relative turn to another and say, “Tell the story about…” And thus would begin the round of trading stories.
And when I open a book, I feel like I’m doing the same thing. I’m saying to the author, “Tell me a story.”
I read fiction for many reasons.
1. I get to experience things I might never have the chance to if not in my imagination.
2. I realize my life isn’t half bad compared to what writers put their poor characters through.
And
3. I can’t think of a better way to spend a rainy Northwest afternoon than with people who become so real I sometimes pray for them. They become a part of me and sometimes inspire me to grow just as they did.
I read fiction so I don’t have to watch television. Unless of course, there’s a hockey game on.
I read fiction for the story: for comfort when I’m exhuasted or anxious; for fun; for escape to places and timess not available to me. to delight in the lives of people struggling, laughing, grieving, and living lives to their fullest.
Before I can address the question why I read fiction, you must know that there’s a long story to why I am deeply involved with writing fiction; it has to do with health, but that is too long to tell here.
I absolutely do read fiction to extract the truth. In fact, I probably lean more heavily towards non-fiction than fiction. I loved Jan Wongs “Red China Blues”. You want funny–read it–and marvel at how Jan extracts humor out of the pernicious cultural revolution in China during the 70s. Yes–really–this book entertains while giving a first-hand experience of a Chinese-Canadian journalist traveling to find her roots, but what she discovers isn’t what she imagined.
So let me be honest, I wasn’t one who grew up with this consuming passion for books. Maybe it had something to do with “Gilligan’s Island,” “Bewitched,” and “The Beatles.” I definitely had a passion for them. And way up there on my list of passions, above tether and volley-ball, was God, and He kept me busy, questioning everything that was wrong in the world, and had me out at nights, staring up at the stars rather then inside the pages of books.
But I was passionate about certain books. I had this enormous love for Pippi Longstocking, but besides her, I really remember my Grandmother’s library of “Reader’s Digests” and they had a special power over me–which was a credit to them–because I was a tough sell even for movies and television, let alone fictional books. Why? Because my family had an uncanny goofiness and ability to entertain ourselves better than the television if you can believe it.
Besides that though, I wanted to be involved in the world in a practical way–exploring the “outside realm,”…playing guitar, learning tai-chi, cooking, planting, building, wandering on the shore of White Rock Beach with a cup of take-out coffee, or sitting in some gorgeous lounge in downtown Vancouver sipping on a Lowenbrau and listening to a pianist play Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
Now, zoom…Star Trek like into the future…I…like …to…read…fiction…be…cause…
It contains deep truths about the human condition.
Modern authors, like David Baldacci and Anne Rice, wander out of their comfort zones and explore new venues. Baldacci, who wrote “Wish You Well,” explains in the author’s note that the fictionalized situations which take place on the Virginia mountain farm are based on real hardships; his research was extensive, and also, he used sources who were close and dear to him–his grandmother and mother.
Then there are those authors who existed before “cool” and “right on” whose intricate sentences were long and could wind you around the block without realizing it; I’m thinking of Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” and how much I felt his spirit hovering around as I read it aloud to my children back in 1999…from September to December, many afternoons were spent with cookies and tea and Pip…and they never wanted me to put the book down.
But before that, as a grown-up, I fell in love with children’s books(I thank my kids for that)with books like the “Napping House” by Don and Audrey Wood, and “The Cozy Book” by Mary Anne Hoberman; the many Dr. Seuss books, and a myriad of others.
The library was part of my children’s life from the moment they could grasp a plastic-paged bubble book, and during these wonderful experiences of sharing, I lived a second childhood, vicariously, through my children, building forts and indoor islands which were built from nothing more than a dark blanket in the middle of a larger blue one which made the perfect ocean, keeping us happily trapped with our “supplies,” which of course, included books!
So, having said all of that, I still am a tough sell when it comes to fiction. It might be good, real good, but it just might not be enough to turn my stubborn crank.
But if I read it and love it, I think you can safely say you’ve made it as an author.
There’s truth in fiction, but sometimes it hides and when you find it–what a treasure!
Blessing,
Joleena Thomas
If we only had nonfiction to read, reading would be soo much less interesting! We would be restricted to reading only true stuff, and books written about things like Star Trek and what happened to the Ark of the Covenant wouldn’t exist.
Keep the fiction coming!!
I read bad fiction so I know all the ways I should never write. I read good fiction so I know all the ways I should write. And I read fiction in general because there are only so many technical manuals and textbooks you can go through before they start looking like a viable food source.
I read fiction to find out – it’s also why I write fiction. Yes, it’s an escape. Yes, it takes me to other lands and times. But I am always fixated by the question: *why* do people do the things they do? And fiction answers it for me.
I read fiction to socialise.
I love being with fictional people, coming to know them, analysing why they are the way they are and enjoying their development – and for the time I am sharing their story – being their friend.
Perhaps that is why I’m drawn to character rich romances, family sagas and village stories rather than more action focused novels. I don’t care if nothing “happens” – so long is there is great company!
Regarding Randy’s thoughts on why we read …. While I might not begin reading on an intentional quest for “truth”, if the characters or situations aren’t “true” to their fictional world or themselves – the book is lifeless and without power, and I find no pleasure or escape in it.
Because I want to have a PEE! (That’s “Elimination of Liquid Waste” colloquialism.) See…I haven’t been listening. But seriously, good fiction allows me to relax my pubococcygeus muscles. Without that, well…Depends.
Escapism. Pure and simple.
To quote from memory a great song:
‘If I could find a good book to live in
If I could find a good book to live in
If I could find me a real good book
I wouldn’t have to go out and look at
What they done to my song.’
Because good fiction keeps me from falling asleep and drowning in the tub.
Though my real life is wonderfully blessed, it can be, well, boring at times. Fiction takes me away from the Home and Garden, DIY, Home Shopper’s way my hubby has of relaxing, and into a world where I can watch and experience human interaction. Many times, I think I know where these people are headed, and I’m delighted when the author takes me down a different road. Besides, It validates the stories that are being told inside my own head. Other people really do think this way, too!
Jenny McC
I read fiction to escape my rather ordinary and frequently frustrating life. I read to travel to long ago and far away. I read to meet new people and share a fragment of their lives. I read to vicariously experience things I’m glad I DON’T have to experience in real life. I read to get inside the minds of the characters in the story. I read because I am drawn to the written word.
As I turn the page a cheer erupts from my lips and my fist punches through the air. The hero of my novel has triumphed, but while I read on, I am forced to watch helplessly from above as he moves into perilous danger . A disaster strikes like a smack in the face, leaving my heart to sink toward my toes. My eyes widen and my heart races as I am enveloped in the adventure. The characters and I journey through the pages, struggling, laughing, crying and rejoicing together. As I curl up and snuggle deeper into my blankets, digesting the plot and predicting the ending, I chance a glance at my alarm clock. ‘One o’clock! Whew, I’m gonna be tired in the morning.’
I LOVE a good novel, and when i get my hands on one, there is nothing (except maybe a hot meal and a potty break) that can tear me away from those pages.
I don’t know.
Partly it’s escapism. But also… I think it’s the shape of things. There’s something about how words look, when they’re on the page in front of you, that makes them magical for me. The shape of a sentence or paragraph. The words used, the ones left out, rearranged.
The flow of it.
It’s also, for me, a lot more interactive than something like a movie. With a movie you’re told and shown everything, but with a book, you have to do a lot of work yourself. Lot of imagination. Brain gets some exercise.
But mostly it’s the shape of the words on the page. I love them.
Because I live a sheltered boring life and if I didn’t read fiction I would implode.
Seriously, though, while I do lead a sheltered dull life, I also read it to my children to teach them about life, language, syntax, and ideas. I read classics to them to improve their vocabulary; I read them classics of old to teach them character. I read historical novels to them to teach them about where we have come from in a way that doesn’t bore them to death.
Sometimes, I read fiction to them just because it is a good story, and good stories are like warm fuzzy blankets on a cold winter’s night. It comforts the soul. Reading fiction feels soooo good. Reading fiction is good for your health!
I read fiction for the thought of “what if?” For the possibilities. For the brain stimulation. To work my imagination. To escape real life, which is full of taking care of an autistic daughter with uncontrollable seizres . . .
Aw, I really don’t have a witty reason. I simply love to read. Always have.
I read fiction because TV, for the most part, bores me.
I also read to step into another time, place, etc.
I also read because I can’t NOT read.
My love of fiction really happened because of my dad.
He used to tuck 3 of us kids in bed every night and would make up stories to get us to go to sleep.
When we were older, he would read to us. We read a lot of adventure stories (had to, to keep my brother’s attention), from authors like Bill Wallace, Louis L’Amour, and others. He made the stories real and encouraged us all to read on our own.
Thanks, dad!
Why wouldn’t I? It’s better than breathing. And nonfiction is so boring. But really, I love to escape reality into an exciting story that will totally engross me. Love it.
Great question. My first response was, “I don’t know.” But that isn’t very constructive. When I thought on it further I realized I read fiction to experience things I would never do in real life. You know the quote, “Dreams permit each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”? I think this applies to reading fiction. (For that matter, writing it, too.)
I love to read and write fiction because it feeds my visionary needs and an imaginative soul. Keeps my brain exercised!
Nothing is impossible with God.
I have three autistic children and two that are emotionally disturbed.
I read fiction (for the same reason that I write it) because if I didn’t either the men in the white coats would have to come and take me away.
(drat, hit submit accidentally. The end of that was intended to be…)
or I would have to take up something more productive like underwater basket weaving.
I read to explore all the places I can never go. So I can brag to friends – I escaped the Ring wraiths, survived another Voldemort attack, chased a serial killer or fought at the side of the gods to save the world – without them thinking me crazy and getting me commited.
As I turn the page a cheer erupts from my lips and my fist punches through the air. The hero of my novel has triumphed, but while I read on, I am forced to watch helplessly from above as he moves into perilous danger . A disaster strikes like a smack in the face, leaving my heart to sink toward my toes. My eyes widen and my heart races as I am enveloped in the adventure. The characters and I journey through the pages, struggling, laughing, crying and rejoicing together. As I curl up and snuggle deeper into my blankets, digesting the plot and predicting the ending, I chance a glance at my alarm clock. ‘One o’clock! Whew, I’m gonna be tired in the morning.’
That experience is why I read fiction.
I LOVE a good novel, and when i get my hands on one, there is nothing (except maybe a hot meal and a potty break) that can tear me away from those pages.
I want to be entertained with quality characters & a good story. A quality escape…and preferably I like books that are classic or at least substantial.
I’ve thrown a couple books in the trash as I am sometimes too irritated over a stupid or needlessly vulgur book to give the book away & allow someone else to waste their time.
My favorite fiction includes substantial guest appearances by real live heroes or villains. Portions of the Brock & Bodie Thoene series on the Jews in Hitler’s Europe include Winston Churchill, Clark Gable, etc. And while some books & scenes are better than others in this series, the “guest reality characters” usually stay within their given historical character.
And sometimes a great fiction writer fleshes out fictional characters who shake up real life society. I think of the fictional Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol–just read up on the real life Malthus of 1798 & his “scroogelike” comments on the poor & the “excess population”! Dickens turned “excess population” into Tiny Tim!
And a generation ago, we got a look at the “other concentration camps” the massive Russian gulags. Solzhenitsyn wrote a fiction hit “One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich” a fictional version of one gulag day. And then of course he wrote more fiction & nonfiction…to awaken the world (at least in the 1970’s) to the Communist version of slave labor.
The pen (laptop) can be mightier than the sword.
I can’t imagine how my life might be different if I did not read fiction. Since I was eight years old, I’ve loved reading fiction as much as I’ve inhaled OXYGEN! As a young adult, I read everything written by a particular author, often reading into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes, I read all night. Mornings always came as did the RETRIBUTION of poor sleep habits. At 20 years old, DOUBLE VISION all day seemed a petty price to pay for an all-night party. Things are very different today. Before kids, I tried to imagine how my life with my husband would be different when we had children. My imaginings weren’t even close. I didn’t know how easy I had it with two children until a year ago. Our oldest boy was almost three at the time, our daughter had just turned one when, last April, we had THE FIFTH, MAN (boy). After that I said “Three in three years. Surely the Lord has given me all I can handle.” At this point, you may have a PREMONITION of what I’m going to say next. Maybe I don’t even need to say it. I love reading fiction. I pray that my four children will find joy in reading fiction as I have. Fiction books are the affordable “vacation” I can always count on!
I read because I’m seriously addicted to it. And I don’t want to be cured.
I fell asleep, several times, reading a textbook about the establishment of Israel as a nation. So I tried Bodie Thoene’s and Francine Rivers books instead – Zion Chronicles and others. I’ve learned fascinating stuff about Israel. I’ll never read that textbook again, unless of course I need some sleep!
I read fiction because I can be taken anywhere — the past, the future, the end or the beginning. Life is so much more interesting if you use your gray matter, and what could be better than other universes and realities? Besides that, I get so wrapped up in a good book, I will cry or laugh out loud, and most of the time, my family writes it off…. if the book’s in my hand. Being stuck in an office building all day would certainly be drab if I didn’t have some fantastic places to visit after work in the twilight.
I read good fiction to quell the urge to do in real life what I can’t do without breaking a ton of commandments.
…to escape the surly bonds of earth.
(the air force won’t give me a jet)
I’ve always been a dreamer. A fiction is a seed from which I am allowed to grow a paralel world.
42!!
Pure Escapism. It’s all about the journey. To me books are like roller coasters. No matter how many times you ride, it never seems the same. Something different always sticks out in my mind. Reactions, actions and the people along for the ride.
I’ve had fibromyalgia and IBS since I was a child, and I’ve been a “bookworm” since then too. Reading fiction is my way of leaving behind the pain, not only physical, but the pain of all the things I’m unable to do. In real life, I can’t walk a mile. In a book I can be with people who are fighting a medieval battle, or exploring an alien society on Wess’ej.
I read fiction to experience things that are different from my own life.
I read for the happy endings. If I wanted that other stuff, I’d go watch reality.
I’m addicted. It’s my mothers fault. She gave me comic books, so I would learn to read. I haven’t been able to stop for over fifty years.
When I try, others give me books, book stores send me catalogs, the library calls me, my gandkids beg me to read, my husband drags me with him to search out new book stores, and conferences (the worst) lay out mounds of books that are too hard to resist. Before I know it, my arms are full of, Hysterical, Historical, Suspenseful, Adventurous, Mysterious novels.
I could tell you more, but it’s late, and I have to read before I sleep. I must find out what’s happened to Bob in, “A Fractured Mind.” Good night.
Gee, coming in so late I wonder if I should even respond. I found myself agreeing with so many and I don’t like to repeat things or plagiarize.
I did think back to my childhood and asked that little girl why she started reading fiction. Her answer: “Because I am weird. I have an active imagination, and fiction feeds that imagination. Reading the strange worlds and characters authors can come up with let me know I’m not alone in my weirdness.”
I read fiction because I can escape into another world in a matter of seconds. In a mystery story the bad guy gets justice and in a romance the hero and heroine get ‘happy ever after’. What could be better?
My approach to this is to read other responses after I write my own, because I don’t want to be influenced or intimidated. OK it’s really because I’m tired after a day of house hunting.
I read fiction rather indiscriminately because I am interested in the inner workings of other people’s minds, and I learn so much about my own when I read.
i like reading fiction because i know i can visualizes it the way i want…im the director…i create the setting the characters everything, the writer is just a person who triggers the thoughts that are already there…