How Does Fiction Differ from Non-Fiction Writing?

People from different walks of life can easily differentiate the word Fiction from Non-Fiction. In Layman’s terms, Fiction talks about untrue events while Non-Fiction is all about actual events.

What is Fiction?

To elaborate further on fiction, it refers to literature based on imaginary things. Fiction writers engage their audience to believe that the fictional narrative of a story or movie is occurring. Various book genres fall into this category: mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and many more.

All ideas in fiction writing result from the author’s imaginative mind. Elements of writing a fictional story tend to be more elaborate and descriptive. Some famous fictional books adapted into films are The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Gulliver’s Travel by Jonathan Swift.

What is Non-Fiction?

Non-Fiction refers to literature coming from real people, places, and stories. Non-fiction writers have limitations in writing non-fiction literature as they need to research more about the related facts of their topic to come up with an unopinionated statement. Various book genres branch out from this category, such as self-help, history, religion, etc.

The essential elements that a non-fiction story should have are the following: simplicity, straightforwardness, and clarity. Some famous non-fiction books are Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

Fictional writing makes use of the author’s creative mind. Fictional stories allow readers to take breaks from living in the present time. For some time, they may get lost in the world of fiction.

On the other hand, non-fictional writing is all about true-to-life stories. It dwells on actual events, characters, and places. Non-fictional stories aim to inform, teach, and explain to the readers some recent and historical events that have taken place in the land we are living in.