Some time ago I had an interview with a writer who said he never read fiction. He didn’t like fiction. He wanted to read true stories and obviously thought fiction a waste of time. I have no idea why he was interviewing me since he felt that way. I do write fiction, after all.
Anyway, he asked me why anyone would want to read fiction. What is the purpose of reading made up stuff? I gave him a few reasons I read fiction. One reason is entertainment. I have to wonder if he never watched movies or television shows with the made up stuff. Perhaps he only watched the history channel or reality shows. But most of us do like a little entertainment in our day and reading is a great way to to find that entertainment while maybe learning some things along the story road. I think reading is fun and being caught up in a story is great. Even Sumo in the picture up top seems happy to stick his nose in a book. Nice of him to pick one of mine. 
But there can be more to fiction than an entertaining story. I told my truth only reader that sometimes fiction can be truer than non-fiction in the way it touches the reader. You can be the characters in a fiction book in a way that you can’t in a book about a real people. Those people have already lived their stories, and you’re just along for the ride in the back seat watching the real events unfold. While that can be good, a fictional story is different. You can jump right inside that character and live the story along with him or her. You’re not just riding along, observing. You’re driving.
Here are a couple of quotes I found in John Bartlett’s Quotations that give a viewpoint on fiction that I can go along with. The first is by William Makepeace Thackeray from The English Humorists (1853).
“Fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all true.”
The second is Ernest Hemingway quoted in Hemingway: The Writer as Artist by Carlos Baker.
“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”
And so that’s what I aspire to do – write a book that lets my readers own it in their hearts.
I decided to talk about the pleasures of reading tonight since Sunday I’ve invited an avid reader and book reviewer over to talk about why she likes reading and helping authors get the word out about their books. I think you’ll like meeting Susan.
So what’s your answer? Why do you like to read fiction? Or do you?