Writing Fiction – Weaving a World of Dreams

Sunayan Bhattacharjee: Assistant Professor

Centre for Print & Cyber Journalism Skills

While the Cambridge Dictionary describes fiction as “the type of book or story that is written about imaginary characters and events and not based on real people and facts”, the Oxford Dictionary defines the term as “literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.” A fiction can be anything including novels, novellas, flash fictions, short stories, epics, screenplays, plays, streams of consciousness or even poems. Screenplays and plays will be discussed as part of two other distinct topics. The genesis of any fiction is always an idea. While the generation of such an idea is spontaneous, the development of fiction pieces from such ideas follows a standard pattern. At the end of the day, the idea is to narrate a story. While the story is extremely important, the presentation of the story is equally important. How one writes the story decides the eventual fate of the fiction piece.

Now, to start with, let us look at the two primary categories of fiction:

1. Genre Fiction: When a writer picks up a certain subject matter to tell a tell a story, the resultant becomes a piece of genre fiction. We can as well take the examples of genres such as mystery thrillers, science fictions and fantasy fictions. Genre fiction pieces are primarily driven by distinct plots. For genre fiction, storytelling is the primary intent. While one might vehemently disagree, genre fiction has a distinct democratic orientation. It is not written only for a certain section of the society. Literally, anyone and everyone and have a bite of the same. It might help if we were to describe genre fiction as popular fiction. Literary critics have the obvious inclination to call genre fiction as escapist literature. As we move ahead in the digital trajectory, genre fiction is increasingly acquiring a legitimate shape. Scholars opine that the concept of genre fiction evolved during the early part of the eighteenth century although some form of it existed even during the Greek and Roman periods.

1. Literary Fiction: When a writer emphasizes on the human and social conditions more than the plot, it becomes a piece of literary fiction. More often than not, literary fiction deals with social situations and political backdrops. Some critics controversially argue that literary fiction makes an attempt at analyzing the reality instead of finding out escape routes. It wouldn’t be a lie if we were to say that literary fiction has a strictly democratic orientation. It is generally not written for the masses. Dissemination of awareness and not entertainment is the primary objective of literary fiction. While the success of a genre fiction piece is determined through book sales, the success of a literary fiction piece is primarily ascertained by scholarly and critical acclaim. It is important here to understand that literary fiction doesn’t necessarily put the plot and the story to the backburner, as is the popular conception. However, an equal emphasis is also put on the communication of a central message. With the gradual changes in academic opinions, the thin line between genre fiction and literary fiction is becoming increasingly blurry.

To take the discussion forward, let us look the five primordial elements of fiction:

1. Characterization: Probably the most important element of fiction, characterization is the process of introducing and elucidating on the characters used in a given story. A character participates in the story and might be either an individual or an entity or just an identity. We can safely say that the characters in a story take it forward towards a logical conclusion. While concocting a piece of fiction, it is very important to emphasize on characterization or else the story fails to proceed anywhere.
2. Plot: The plot, also known as the storyline, is the sequence of events and actions happening in the story. It generally follows a three-act structure wherein there is a setup, a confrontation and a resolution. The setup establishes the story and introduces the characters. The confrontation creates problems in the fictional lives of the characters and builds up the story wherein there is an ingrained attempt at finding out a solution. The resolution either solves the problem or clearly underscores the insolubility of the problems thereby taking the story to its logical conclusion.
3. Setting: Generally speaking, setting essentially means the time and environment wherein the story is set. While the setting might at times be realistic, at other times it might be imaginary or fictitious. The decision purely depends on the creative tendencies of the concerned writer. A change in setting might entirely change the storyline. Also, a faulty setting might make a fictional piece lose its credibility. We can take the example of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Imagine what might have transpired had the setting of the story not been the fictional Middle-earth. 
4. Theme: The definition of theme is a little complex. In very simple terms, the theme of a story is the fundamental conjecture based on which the story is being told. It is the idea which dominates the entire work. In other words, theme is exactly what the writer wants to convey. Although a little restrictive, theme can also be defined as the moral of the story. However, not always does the theme coincide with the moral. There are enough instances when there is no moral at all while the theme is very much there.
5. Writing Style: An intrinsically subjective concept, writing style encompasses all the creative decisions that a writer makes while writing a piece of fiction. Some such decisions are conscious while the others are dictated by subconscious compulsions. Some of the choices that a writer makes include the point of view, the usage of languages, the tone of narration and similar other things. Every writer has a unique writing style that is essentially different from the rest. A careful reader can easily make out who the writer is by reading a given piece. Let us take a popular example to understand this phenomenon. If we take a close look at the pieces of fiction penned by Chetan Bhagat, we shall be able to decipher that he makes extensive use of colloquialism in order to make his writing palatable to the general masses. While it might not be acceptable to a lot of the literary critics, he has been tremendously successful in terms of commerce.

The contemporary age demands instant gratification. Consequently, the styles of fiction writing have substantially changed. With the advent of online writing, fiction pieces are being increasingly written in the form of blogs. Thus, writers always need to be on their toes or else they stand to lose their readers to potential customers. The retention of readers has become a challenge that the writers are having to grapple with every day. The only way out of this mess is the creation of engaging content that can draw people’s imagination and hence attention. While the online platform has significantly increased the amount of substandard fiction content, there are some websites and blogs that are changing the rules of the game in a big way. A clear picture is yet to erupt subject to an ongoing transition. However, things will clear up sooner than later.

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Assistant Professor – A journalism postgraduate from the prestigious Symbiosis Institute of Media Communication in Pune, Sunayan earlier worked with renowned organizations such as The Times of India and Reuters News. He is a UGC-NET qualified scholar and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in film studies from Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University. He is also the Associate Editor of The Cinemaholic.