Does fiction have to represent reality?

[humblebee]

Hello! I would be grateful if you could help me to understand. To what extent fiction needs to represent reality?
Let's say I'm writing a story which takes place in the USA. And my goal is to represent the cultural reality of the USA. Then it matters. But what if I want to write a story about love and the place does not matter at all? Let's say I don't live in the USA, but I use "the USA" as a cultural 'sign', an invitation for the reader to imagine 'a country like the USA', where the story takes place. How does the reader respond to that? I have seen critiques based on 'factual mistakes'. But do factual mistakes matter? If they do, when? An obvious factual mistake like euros instead of dollars can be used to provoke an emotion. And even if the mistake was not on purpose, to what extent it alters a reading experience? Will people mostly see the author as incompetent?Does the text fail its supposed purpose of representing reality and therefore is of 'low quality"?
If you could point me to the direction where this question is discussed, I would appreciate it!

[Dreamwoven]

I don't know where such is discussed, but you might like to read Vilhelm Moberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhelm_Moberg) on Swedish immigrants to Minnesota in the early 1850s. It is a fictionalised description of what it is to be an immigrant to the USA.

Does this answer your question?

[YesNo]

I would think that obvious things such as dollars or euros should be accurate since a reader would be distracted from the story by that. You want to keep the reader focused on the story and entertained. Don't introduce something that would break the reader's trance.

[desiresjab]

Do you have a desire to be non realistic in fiction? What is it you wish to stretch? For a love story you do not need any indicators that tell where you are. You do not need dollars or stop signs. If beating your woman is an accepted practice where your story takes place, perceptive readers will figure out it is in a moslem country etc.

[YesNo]

One could also apply the "say don't tell" rule. Then one doesn't have to disclose too much about what is considered non-fiction.

[Lendo]

There's things that are usefull for the writer to be as realistic as possible, so the reader can relate to the story and connect with the general storyline. But criativity and imagination gave us some of the best books of all time. Fiction gave us the some of the best pieces of art of Literature history. So, both reality and fiction are important to the create a good work. More realistic or more fictional, there's all type of good books.

An example: the books of Primo Levi are strongly based on real facts, on the experience of people during the Second World War. And his books are some of the best that italian Literature produced in the XX century. On the other hand, you have books like "1984" from George Orwell or "A Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley that are more fictional than real, and they are two of the most memorable books of their time.

[Vota]

I like the idea of being true to the characters and world/settings they are in. This kind of thinking gives the writer a lot of latitude, but helps from breaking immersion for the reader.

[Danik 2016]

I think that good fiction has to convince its readers, whether it is realistic or not.

[Aylinn]

Obviously, it doesn’t have to. After all, if it had to, fantasy should not exist. All you need is to make your word internally coherent.

However, more importantly, if you want to write a romantic story then you should worry more about making your characters and relationships between them interesting then about realism of your world. If you fail at providing a well-written and interesting relationship, then no amount of realism in your world will save your romance from being a failure.

[desiresjab]

Reality is just experience that perpetuates. We would need to comprehend this experience in order to fully represent it. We think we may understand just a tiny part of reality according to our experience. We know just a sliver we hope others can relate to in our fiction, and even that little bit often confuses us. All our characters relate what we know or think we know about reality. There must be some common ground among our various realities, or no one would even read another's book, or indeed even their scribbles. Reality (from our point of view) is a shared experience no one has a full view of. What good is a science fiction book when everyone in it is enacting unlikely behavior at every turn? So even fantasy and science fiction works have to contain enough of the common base reality to enable us to relate, otherwise we will set them down. So yes, fiction must represent reality, even those brands most far removed from reality. I see little worth in trying to mimmick every detail of "outer" reality in a work of fiction. The inner reality of the characters is what drives a book. Because everyone can see only part of the reality others are participating in, there will be conflicts in a work of literature just as there are in daily life. These conflicts will drive the book.

[ennison]

There has to be enough reality for suspension of disbelief to take place.

[Wenalis Dunn]

Reality: according to the Oxford Lexicon:

"The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them."

Fiction: according to the Oxford Lexicon:

"Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.


My reality is:

It is a reality that real people write about imaginary real people who write fake non-fiction in non-fiction novels. And vice versa if its a lie.

It is a circular argument as long as even the smartest scientist on earth does not know what reality really is....in reality. Let alone what it is in fictional reality.

[Magnocrat]

Reality is just experience that perpetuates. We would need to comprehend this experience in order to fully represent it. We think we may understand just a tiny part of reality according to our experience. We know just a sliver we hope others can relate to in our fiction, and even that little bit often confuses us. All our characters relate what we know or think we know about reality. There must be some common ground among our various realities, or no one would even read another's book, or indeed even their scribbles. Reality (from our point of view) is a shared experience no one has a full view of. What good is a science fiction book when everyone in it is enacting unlikely behavior at every turn? So even fantasy and science fiction works have to contain enough of the common base reality to enable us to relate, otherwise we will set them down. So yes, fiction must represent reality, even those brands most far removed from reality. I see little worth in trying to mimmick every detail of "outer" reality in a work of fiction. The inner reality of the characters is what drives a book. Because everyone can see only part of the reality others are participating in, there will be conflicts in a work of literature just as there are in daily life. These conflicts will drive the book.

Excellent reply it contains all I would want to say and more.

[Wenalis Dunn]

Your question is of a trolling kind in my opinion. How can you possibly be asking us such a question?
It is like asking us whether or not salt tastes like salt or sugar. Do not be a dickhead, please.

[OrphanPip]

I don't think it's a stupid question. The degree to which verisimilitude matters, and in fact what constitutes a 'realistic' narrative, are not necessarily obvious. French neoclassicists thought that a play had to take place within a single location and in realistic time or it would strain credulity. However, most of us are so use to devices of time lapses and changes in locations in our plays and movies that these kinds of conceits seem absurd and silly. Magical realism, surrealism, fantasy and sci-fi put varying degrees of strain on reader credulity, but we come to these works with an understanding of their internal logic and we expect consistency of conventions if not realism in all things.

[Danik 2016]

I loved this answer, Pip. I don´t think I would be able to say it better and in less words.

[Jackson Richardson]

Your question is of a trolling kind in my opinion. How can you possibly be asking us such a question?
It is like asking us whether or not salt tastes like salt or sugar. Do not be a dickhead, please.

It is a very good question. I've just finished Auerbach's Mimesis with its review of realism in Western literature from Homer to Woolf.

Terry Eagleton has his doubts. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n20/terry-eagleton/pork-chops-and-pineapples