Fiction

Illustrative image of science fiction. House elevated by air balloon on mountains.

Fiction refers to the simulation of reality carried out by works such as literary, cinematographic, cartoon, animated or other types of works, when they present an imaginary world to the recipient. These worlds have their own characters and rules of verisimilitude, with a variable degree of realism, either because they take some reference elements from reality, or because they contradict or transform it. He opposes non-fictional genres, such as essays or journalism, although some philosophical currents claim that everything is actually fiction, since there is no objectivity in interpretation or something external to the mind (radical idealism). In the audiovisual field, fiction is usually opposed to documentary and its derivative genres.

In psychology, differentiating fiction from reality is a capacity that the child has to gradually acquire. In psychopathology, a temporary or permanent distortion of this ability to adequately distinguish fiction from reality can be a symptom of various mental disorders (paranoia, psychosis, delusions,...) both individually and in groups (collective psychosis). The delimitation between reality and fiction is not only an objective question, but also depends on a social consensus: the one seen among others with sacred texts, which for some are a description of reality, for others only metaphors and legends.

Etymologically, the word comes from the Latin fictio or fictus ('ficted' or 'invented'), participle of the verb fingere which in Its origin meant "to model the bread dough" and in a figurative sense "that which has been modeled, invented, feigned".

Concept fiction

The concept of fiction varies depending on how it is used. Fiction may exist outside of art, such as in traditions (legendary characters that are passed down between generations linked to certain holidays or moral values) or in textbooks, where invented examples are given to explain concepts. It always requires, but a certain degree of discourse and for this reason it is strongly linked to the narrative.

Possible worlds and the fictional pact

From a semantic point of view, fiction presents a great dilemma: as readers or consumers of fiction, we can not only accept it (despite its obvious falsity), but also make judgments about the truth or falsity of fictional statements..

The theory of sentence meaning, pioneered by logician Richard Montague in the late 1970s, provides a useful approach to the process of interpretation. Validating the significance from the premises of a previously established "model" or Possible World, allows us to reason and treat assertions about worlds that, despite knowing that they will never be true, are experienced and validated as realities.

In the Possible World of fiction, a basic rule is established to access: the announcer (the sender) and the advertiser (the receiver) tacitly subscribe to a fictional pact by which the fictional consumer accepts the imaginary world that is presented to him. presents, knowing that what is being shown or hinted at is an imaginary story, but that does not mean that he thinks it is a lie. In Coleridge's terms, it is a suspension of disbelief: the consumer lets aside, momentarily, the tendency to verify, to verify, to adapt fiction to reality and to apply logical reasoning to what is offered.

A possible world happens real since it refers to a narrative world of cultural structure that, although it does not exist in fact, is true to the extent that it is formed by a set of individuals endowed with properties and events that are judged as possible and coherent. If the everyday real world is governed by the concept of evident truth, the possible world is governed by the concept of circumstantial truth: despite the fact that the statement can be qualified as literally false, it is accepted as true for the acceptance of the possible world. For example, even if it is false that rabbits talk, to the extent that we participate in the possible world of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, these facts do not surprise us, rather we accept them as metaphorical truths. The suspension of disbelief, although it involves being aware that Wonderland "is not true", does not mean that we think it is a lie.

In a possible world, the concepts of truth and lie must be understood unbound from universality. The truth, although it is presented to us unquestionably and beyond opinions and interests, within a possible world, is always a conventional and temporary construction, and is only valid in these circumstances. The truths of possible worlds are solid and unquestionable truths. On the contrary, the truths of the real world can always be questioned, as Eco says, "narrativity provides us with anchored worlds, which float less than real universes, although as an encomendero we think that things are the other way around".

Similar concepts

Fiction is often related to other concepts, such as fantasy. Even so, both termas are not synonymous. Works in the fantasy genre are classified as fictional, but not all works of fiction belong to the realm of fantasy, since many of them have a realistic setting. Fantastic works include supernatural elements, except that it does not appear in all fictional speeches.

Another false synonym would be to consider dummy as false. Truth corresponds to judgments about facts and does not apply in the imaginary world, just as it cannot apply to emotional expressions and other types of statements. Within the possible world of fiction there are its own rules of truth, understood as coherence as a whole. Thus, it could be true or false to affirm a characteristic of a character or the existence or not of an event in a work, without there having to be an existing referent. In fact, logic often analyzes statements referring to fictitious concepts, such as the "current King of France".

Fiction is related to imagination, since this mental faculty is what allows there to be fictional works. Imagination allows the author to create alternative worlds and decode them by the receiver. This capacity is related to the fact that the human being has a symbolic language, which allows referring to entities not present in the here and now and this projection (being able to communicate experiences that are not present) helps to create others without any real referent, or based on portions of various experiences.

History of the fictional concept

The concept of mimesis

The concept of fiction in the Western tradition is closely linked to the concept of mimesis, developed in classical Greece, in the works of Plato (who considered poetic works as imitations of real objects, which in turn were imitations). of pure ideas) and above all in Aristotle's Poetics, in which the concept of mimesis plays an essential role. For Aristotle, all literary works copy reality, according to the principle of verisimilitude; What differentiates literature from history is that the latter copies the things that have happened, and the other the things that could happen.

It is necessary to insist that Aristotle does not say that literature should be the imitation of the real world, but rather the imitation "of the actions of men". This difference is what allows the plausible unreal to have a place in literature. Paul Ricoeur has subdivided the Aristotelian concept of mimesis into three phases:

• Minimum 1: the text configuration process and the layout of the plot by the author.
• Minimum 2: the configuration of the text itself, which may or may not respond to the outside world.
• Minimum 3: the reconfiguration of the world of the text to be performed by the reader or viewer.

The relationship with catharsis

Aristotle's Poetics also introduces another concept closely related to the above: that of catharsis. Tragedy, by imitating the actions of good characters who fall into disgrace, achieves the emotional involvement of the viewer, who purifies himself internally through compassion and fear. This emotional reaction is based on the suspension of the judgment of reality with respect to the tragic action: someone very aware of the unreality of the work could not empathize with his characters.

Faced with this conception of literature as catharsis, some contemporary authors, especially Bertolt Brecht, have proposed the annulment of emotional involvement, through an «epic theater», one of whose characteristics is to accentuate the unreality of the representation, exaggerating the distance between fiction and reality. In this way, Brecht wanted to get viewers to make a critical and rational judgment of the action, instead of an emotional and irrational involvement.

Modern literature: the fictional pact

Main characteristics of works of fiction

Although there is no widely accepted theory of fiction, characteristic properties of works of fiction have been described. They largely coincide with the elements of the narrative, since it is the main genre of fictional works (although it is not exclusive).

The first characteristic is the existence of the so-called fictional world, that is, a context that requires continuity or a framework to set the plot. This world does not necessarily have to be fantastic, but is fictional in that it includes events that did not happen in reality, regardless of whether the setting fully mimics the outside world. In fact, the one that is narrated is considered to have to work as it would work in the real world if the contrary is not indicated, for example, if the word "table" it must be understood that it is a table similar to the existing tables as long as there is no description that distances it from them. Fictional elements can be mixed with other historical elements, such as real characters or events that did happen. This combination may have the function of increasing the credibility of the plot, setting the story in a fictitious world known to the recipients or with a parodic intention.

Secondly, some characters are needed to lead a plot, which is presented with a certain point of view. The point of view in written media coincides with the narrator, while in audiovisual media it combines the narrative voice with the camera or focus. The plot, which is the fictional story, presents events that include an action of change between two situations, accompanied or not by added elements such as descriptions, dialogues or reflections of the narrative voice.

A fiction is always a linguistic pact: it is considered that the language loses its referential function and it is assumed that the referents belong in the possible world. It is through language (or images, but always with linguistically codified and associated concepts) that fiction is transmitted, the story that conveys the alternative world. This linguistic convention can also affect the form, in general non-fiction works have a clearer language, less metaphorical or with a lower use of the poetic function of the language, while fictional works can present a greater abundance of rhetorical resources. (how they are used, but it depends more on the personal style of the author or the movement to which he belongs).

Finally, the conception that those involved in the distribution of fiction have about it is important. The same document can be historically received as real or fictitious, such as medieval bestiaries, which at the time were considered true witnesses of fauna and are now taken as imaginations of never-existing creatures or deformations of real animals. Even a supposedly objective discourse, such as that of historiography, may contain elements considered fictional by a receiver. The case of sacred texts also shows this ambiguity, since the same story is a revelation for one believer, and therefore true, and for another only a legend, and therefore not real. The fiction label, then, requires the complicity of the author and his audience.

Several signals can help activate the fictionality convention (understanding that there are no fictional speeches, but interpretations as fictional or not of certain speeches) in the receiver, such as a setting or a literary genre. Elements that momentarily break the illusion of fiction may also appear, such as the technique called breaking the fourth wall, where an author voluntarily makes the characters address the public or affirm that they are living in an unreal world. The verisimilitude errors unintentionally break the fictionality.

Narratological elements of fiction

Although "fiction" and "narrative" are not synonymous terms (since not all fiction is narrative, nor is all narration fictional), narration is the predominant mode of entering fictional worlds. Hence the existence of what is known as "pannarrativism", consisting of the (sometimes excessive) application of narrative analysis tools, traditionally developed in the field of literary criticism, to any of the forms in which the narrative can manifest itself. fiction: cinema, theater, television, comics, videogames...

Narratology or the study of narration, developed mainly by structuralist currents throughout the XX century, focuses on mainly in four of the constitutive elements of the narrative: the narrator, the characters, time and space.

The narrator

It is the entity, created by the author, that narrates the story. There are various categories to classify narrators, taking into account both their participation in the facts they narrate, the grammatical person they use and how extensive their knowledge is about the facts they are narrating.

It can be:

• Being omniscient in third person (he/she): when the narrator knows all the facts, he is not a character and does not judge the facts morally. It is a classic narrator found in many novels in centuries past.
• First person (I): when the narrator tells the facts he lived, he is the protagonist of the story. He has limited knowledge of situations.
• Second person (you): when the narrator tells the facts that happened to the reader who takes the role of protagonist.
• Third person (he/she): when the narrator tells the facts that happened to a character of the story. He is a character, a spectator of facts, therefore he does not know all details, unlike the omniscient Being, he can perform moral judgments.

The characters

The characters in a narrative have characteristics that define them and make them different from others, they can be animal characters, things, they have characteristics of people (they can talk, think, laugh, etc.).

The weather

In a narrative text, it indicates the moment in which each of the events happens, but it also indicates the duration of those events (at dawn, during the festival, etc.).

The space

It is the physical place where the events take place (beach, countryside, mountains, etc.) or the environment in which the lives of the characters take place (an atmosphere of joy, tranquility, etc.).

The fictional pact

The fictional pact stipulates an almost contractual agreement between the author and the recipient of the work through which the latter allows the assignment of the judgment of truth. In this way, the free disposition of the rules of the represented world, created by the author, takes place. The existence of the fictional pact suspends the question of whether or not the work is false and allows the cathartic identification and immersion of the receiver in the fictional plane.

It is important to note how necessary it is for the receiver to know that he is dealing with a fiction so that the fictional pact can be fulfilled. Otherwise, the fiction does not take place as such and the receiver feels deceived, attacked or confused. By way of example, the fictional pact is what allows us to focus on the plot of an animated film in which the characters are toys without getting up from our seats indignant at the lie that the director has wanted to sell us.

Functions of fiction

Historically, the question has arisen about the necessity of the function, why the human being tends to create worlds different from the real one and stories that have not happened. Fiction is a form of entertainment, it helps to pass the time and provides pleasure to know what happens to some characters, maintaining the suspense of the plot. If there are elements that cause laughter or emotions, the feeling of pleasant time increases. The second function was already made explicit by Aristotle's catharsis: by producing a momentary identification with the protagonists, the fictional consumer fictionally lives another reality that allows him to purge or exacerbate feelings that he can later apply to his real life. In this sense, certain authors have underlined the psychological function of fiction: it allows you to live experiences without risk that later transmit lessons applicable to your own existence, that is, fiction would act as a simulation that would help to understand real experiences and know how react.

Fiction would then be a universal cognitive need, people need to imagine other lives in order to understand the present, as in dreams. That is why all cultures have their forms of fiction. Television and the cinema have made fiction become massive, with audiovisual arguments that allow the evasion of the present but with a greater degree of realism, since one of the norms of fiction is that when the person enters, they suspend the judgments of common truth: momentarily believe the existence of that story to be able to feel the emotions that the author proposes or to have fun. It is a mental mechanism present in other spheres, such as the game.

Fiction also transmits models and norms, either because it presents an alternative to those accepted by the community, or because it recreates them, since all fiction takes place in a specific context. That is why fiction helps socialization, explaining what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, giving examples of situations where certain values have to be taken into account or contributing to language learning, which is one of the privileged vehicles of cultural transmission.

But although fiction exposes alternatives thanks to the Possible Worlds found in literary and artistic works, it must be clarified that fiction has been present since prehistory, determining the social structures of homo sapiens, and their success before the other species.

Laws, ethics, morals, good and evil, values or faith in a god, do not exist in the physical world. They are intangible concepts created by people, imagined. Without fiction, the functioning of the everyday world would not exist, because the premises on which it is based are not real.

Even so, they are the reason for human superiority. The summons allows the cooperation of groups of a maximum of one hundred and fifty individuals. Knowing and trusting a thousand people would be impossible, because any trusting relationship requires a great deal of time. On the other hand, if these thousand people come across common values and objectives, they will cooperate with each other even if they do not know each other. And this mass cooperation is responsible for the human domain, for the creation of international economic networks, etc.

Because the reality is that people not only need to imagine other lives in order to understand the present, but they need the imagination to create their present.

When consuming fiction, certain mental processes that are related to intelligence are activated. Thus, it is necessary to implement mechanisms of understanding (follow the thread of the story, understand the frame of reference if it is different from the current one), empathy (consider what each one would do in the place of the character, feel with the protagonists), Hypothesis approach (get ahead of what will happen, check these presuppositions) and maintain attention. The more complex a fiction is, the more cognitive elements it activates.

Fiction can be used for teaching purposes, since examples and narratives are easier to understand than expositions. The myth, the fable and the parable are part of this trend, just like the medieval exempla or the leading characters in children's textbooks. It can also be used for publicity and propaganda (advertisements, company or institution storytelling, etc.), because fictionalized content is closer to the receiver.

Approaches to the semantics of fiction

The theory of possible worlds

The theory of possible worlds, developed mainly by Lubomír Doležel^{[citation required]} and introduced in Spain by Tomás Albaladejo ^{[citation required]} makes a semantic approach to the fictional fact, that is, through its meaning and not its external form (as narratology mainly did). Based on approaches pointed out by authors such as Leibniz, the theory of possible worlds maintains that all fiction creates a world semantically different from the real world, created specifically by each fictional text and which can only be accessed precisely through said text. Thus, a work of fiction can alter or eliminate some of the prevailing physical laws in the real world (as happens in science fiction or fantastic novels), or else preserve them and build a world close to —if not identical to— the real one (as in the realist novel.According to this theory, the only "requirements" to create a possible world is that it can be conceived and that once conceived it maintains an internal congruence.

This semantic approach to fiction has the advantage of explaining, in addition, how it is possible to make judgments of truth or falsehood about fictional statements: those statements that comply with the rules of the possible world created by fiction (eg.: "Robots cannot harm humans" in Isaac Asimov's novels); those that infringe them are false (eg: «The hobbits have wings» in The Lord of the Rings). The type of truth that is handled in a semantics of possible worlds is of the coherent type, that is, that every statement will be true, within a possible world (in this case a book, but also a movie, or any exercise in that a world different from the factual one is conceived) when it maintains coherence with the rest of the affirmations that are made with respect to that world. Likewise, the semantics of possible worlds maintains a theory of identity, for Saul Kripke what allows us to identify any subject is its proper name, as a designator of all its space-time coordinates in all possible worlds, in this way we can identify, by way of example, Adolf Hitler even in a 'world' in which the Nazis managed to expand their domination to the entire planet.

Secondarily, the «possible worlds theory» is also useful to explain the arguments established in fanfictions, in which the authors of a certain fandom internalize the rules of that specific «possible world» and, keeping or modifying them as in turn, they create new fictions within the same possible world.

Fiction in other media

Today, the relationship between science fiction literature and cinema is very strong, which may be an indicator that these works are more adaptable than others. And such characteristics that this genre has are closely related to the characters; these do not evolve, they are only pieces that give entry to the most important thing: the plot. Which is why some experts don't believe science fiction is literature.

Another characteristic that makes this type of novel more transportable to the seventh art is its discursive level. In writers, there is no linguistic awareness, no reflection on language. In fiction, the originality of a subject is more outstanding than the stylistic question. These characteristics attributed to the fiction genre are what contribute to its transformation in its different forms.

Since the 21st century, seeing a fictional plot in the cinema allowed the common viewer to notice what was only known among researchers in the fifties; that the analysis of the fictitious plots allows us to notice a series of recurring points and that it creates a constant structure in all these narratives. This discovery is attributed to the Russian Vladimir Propp who distinguishes between 31 narrative functions in popular fairy tales and, from there, in any dummy arguments on which you want to develop a sequence. Although not all of them appear in every tale, their basic function often remains, and the order is almost always the same.

Genres of Fiction

By Extension

By theme

• Fantastic:
  • Fairytale,
  • Novel of cavalry,
  • Gothic terror,
  • Modern terror,
  • Heroic fantasy.
• Science fiction.
• Romantic novel.
• Detective novel, black novel, spy novel.
  • Item