The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek. But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same).
Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him.
Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line in her email:
"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings." --Anne Patchett, American Author
Not to dismiss Ms. Patchett's view, but I think this is a "fiction is good for you" argument. Fiction teaches you moral judgment, fiction makes you more empathetic, thus a more caring human being, etc., so take your fiction vitamin and read what we tell you to read because it's good for you.
If this were true, English professors would be the most empathetic persons on the planet. I don't thing that would be a universal sentiment.
Setting aside the overblown benefits of empathy*, fiction may or may not make you more empathetic. Certainly it does open one's mind, depending on what one reads (another bad argument: all fiction is the same fiction; all fiction has the same effects) and does allow us, if well written (another issue) to see how others think, feel, love, live, process, decide, and die. That is a reason to read it, not a promise that it will change your moral sense, social justice activity, or interpersonal relationships. Or, that it will make you a good writer.
These things are possibilities, but not iron-clad promises. If so, I would have won a Pulitzer by now.
The first reason to read fiction is that you enjoy it, that it is good writing, that it is an engaging story, that it is about human experience. There will be other effects, but that is not the first reason. It is a fundamental human art form. I read a lot about fiction as well as more fiction than most, on top of writing it. I find some writing about fiction just too abstract, which is humorous. The writers use multisyllabic words and literary criticism terms. Good fiction is the opposite of abstract and abstraction. It is only good to the extent it is particular, concrete, specific, time- and place-bound, human, sensory: to use the old word, verisimilitude. From that we might move on to the universals and perhaps the abstractions.
I have more ideas on this: see https://partsofspeakingpublishing.blogspot.com/2024/12/why-to-read-fiction-idea-27.html
*Read David Brooks on this; he says it better than I; I just know that empathy itself does not result in compassionate action toward the other. There is a difference between feeling the feelings of others, expressing that well, and doing something about it. A HUGE DIFFERENCE. Health care professionals are taught to "have empathy" but that means they are taught to show it in a certain way, professionally: to use certain nonverbal behaviors and words.
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