Nearly everyone consumes fiction in some way, shape, or form, be it through reading a book or watching a movie. Works of fiction are essentially elaborate lies – made up stories – that are told to an audience that knows they are lies, though they’re meant to appreciate the writing anyway. Unlike most nonfiction works, which are meant to inform and educate in a straightforward and understandable fashion, fiction is considered a form of entertainment. Fiction consists of a story and characters created by the author(s) and though fiction does often draw from reality in different ways, it is not real. This has led some to argue that fiction is less valuable to society, considering it a waste of time to delve into or become invested in happenings that only exist within the imagination. This is untrue however, and the impact and effects of fiction on people who consume it is certainly noteworthy. Such written works are powerful and they are a large aspect of what helps to shape society.
Fiction as a Style of Writing
Fiction refers to made up stories, ideas and characters created by people for the purpose of entertaining others. Nonfiction, on the other hand, is strictly factual: real events, real people. Fiction has a specific format that makes it effective in swaying people; it is in telling a story in a roundabout yet enticing way that garners interest and captures people’s attention. A lot of nonfiction, on the other hand, does not do this. News articles, for example, get straight to the point of providing a reader with information. While there is certainly a place for such writing and the intention of this project is not to argue the ineffectiveness of such, information provided in such a way is ultimately less likely to stick with someone or leave a long-lasting effect on them. However, it is important to note that nonfiction can sometimes be written out in a “fiction format” – as in, it can be given to people as a complicated narrative rather than a simplistic and straightforward retelling of an event. This project aims to argue to effectiveness of such to highlight the importance of storytelling as a format in conveying information and influencing others.
The Project
My senior project aims to show that the fiction format can affect people on a level that is more than just simple entertainment and provoke a reaction that is more prominent than a work of nonfiction (i.e., a news article) by providing separate pools of people with different works of writing. Two articles were rewritten as short stories. The articles and their rewrites were then distributed separately to different pools of people to see the difference in how those with the genuine article were affected as compared to those with the short story. Questions were provided and addressed things mentioned within the article/story to learn how people felt about the characters and the events that took place within the narrative, etc. There are two sets of questions; readers of the first article and its rewrite answered one set of questions and the readers of the second article and rewrite answered the second set.
The collection of responses was then analyzed to show the trend of effects that the story written out in a fiction type of format had on people’s opinions, emotions, etc. One question within each set was also focused on determining how well the readers understood the main idea of what they read to see if the primary focus is somewhat lost when translating an article into something styled more like fiction. However, other questions emphasized how much readers felt a connection with the character(s) and what they go through within the story, which is meant to prove the effectiveness of a fictional style in causing people to “care more” about what they’d read. People forming stronger opinions on events and characters within a story shows that they have thought about it deeply enough to truly consider it, proving the effectiveness of a fictional format in writing.
This website is for Lani Hurlock's senior project University of Hawaiʻi — West Oʻahu, Class of 2020