I had a friend once who used to say that he liked reading non-fiction because he preferred to learn when he read. Suggesting, of course, that fiction’s purpose is pure entertainment. While my usual, snarky response about preferring, "not to be bored when I read," is still relevant, my response about him actually being wrong about that statement is more pertinent to the discussion at hand. Because although fiction exists in a level of suspended belief, one can learn so many valuable things from it.
At its core, fiction’s purpose is to capture the essence of the human condition. In doing this, the reader gains insight into how people solve problems and navigate life. Whether the setting or character exists in the realm of reality is irrelevant because most stories capture common themes that supersede reality. Because in every world, every creature can encounter love, friendship, heartache, and pain.
This commonality allows the reader to relate to the characters and the story regardless if it’s a vampire, alien, dystopian society, or just a regular old human being. The reader is able to find a place for themselves inside a fictional world. What’s fascinating is that this imaginary insertion can actually be incredibly helpful and therapeutic albeit very meta.
By inserting themselves into the character’s shoes and watching how the character handles problems, they are able to reflect on the current and future problems in their lives as well. Obviously, fiction is idealized, so a character’s solutions may not be possible within the real world, but by giving the reader a way to act out a solution before the problem has even occurred, the reader’s response to a problem is likely to be more thought out and as such, more likely to be healthy. Fiction allows for a metacognitive foray into problem solving. Reading fiction isn’t mindless. In fact, if you’re doing it right, it can be extremely exhausting.
In the same vein, reading helps us to process. These characters go through the very problems we do, and there are times where characters’ problems are so similar to ours, we are convinced the author must be following us around. By seeing a character engaged in the same struggle (or one eerily similar to ours), we have a kinship with this character. We feel seen. Because even if it’s not a real person, someone else in some world out there has experienced what we’ve experienced, and many times, they’ve gotten the happy ending we didn’t. We can get closure from their closure.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, reading fiction allows us into worlds we wish and long to inhabit. We read realistic romantic fiction because to some degree, it’s unobtainable in our everyday life. We read fantasy and long to be a part of those worlds because to some degree, these worlds feel safer than the one we are in. Regardless of the reasons, we can vicariously live through these main characters and experience the magic in our heads that we so long to experience in real life.
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