How reading fiction can change your life!
The benefits of reading fiction.
-Geetika Saini
“Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why do you read?
People often ask me that, in fact, it might be the most repeated question. They’d bring it up the moment I tell them that I enjoy reading or anything remotely related to books. The funny part? A majority of the people who pose this question to me are, for lack of a better term, non-readers. Some of them find it incredulous because why would anyone, out of all things, want to read in one’s spare time; it’s like studying for leisure, they’d say. These are the same people who’d quickly brand me to be an impractical fantasist-day dreamer as soon as they become aware of my particular fondness for fiction. I don’t blame them, though, since it is seemingly impossible to read or write a piece of fiction without a bit of dreaming.
But how is that frivolous? Isn’t that how one’s creativity gets cultivated?
Where non-fiction books effectively convey the information and facts about real-life situations, reading fiction has its own rewards. I am an ardent fan of fiction books and I can never stress their potency enough. Nevertheless, I’ll try my best to explain how they can change you for good:
• Fiction nurtures creativity
Reading fosters critical thinking and when you read a fictional work, you imagine certain scenarios relating to the characters present in the story by fuelling your imagination to visualize the events. This develops creativity and ingenuity because no two people, reading the same text, picture the exact same things in their schemas. Fiction opens your mind to new ideas and possibilities as it takes you into a different world from your own.
• Development of higher cognitive skills
Metacognition is the process of thinking about one’s thinking, and story reading can help encourage metacognition because when you read fiction, you actively monitor your comprehension of the text and the episodes by relating the characters to yourself, which in turn helps improve reading. A story does not state facts; it leaves certain gaps that must be filled with imagination and this helps the learners to interpret and draw inferences to understand the unfolding predicaments.
• An effective way to understand emotions
One of the major reasons that people love fiction is because they find relatable situations in those stories. A writer frequently draws upon real-life experiences to model his characters; hence, when the readers come across a character who is going through a similar situation that once transpired with them, they form an emotional connection with it and it, further, helps them to get in touch with their own feelings while developing empathy towards others.
• Travel without moving an inch
Reading fiction takes you places; it is like travelling to all those far away regions without having to move. When you read a book based in Kashmir, you can feel the vast beauty of the lovely tulips and the tranquil shade of the exotic chinar trees without actually visiting the place. Similarly, experiencing the primeval pyramids of Egypt through the protagonist’s lens does not seem improbable either.
• Fosters vicarious learning
Fiction is a fantastic medium to gain vicarious experiences. Where non-fiction books impart philosophical knowledge and the wisdom of being through facts, fiction propagates the same in the form of tales. Storytelling technique is considered to be one of the best methods of teaching new concepts to students; similarly, teaching life lessons to adults through fiction makes learning more palatable for them.
• Helps relieve stress and imparts pleasure
Last but certainly not least, fiction is the perfect repose for an anxious mind. More than anything, stories are for pleasure and enjoyment; they help you relax and rejuvenate. Read when the real world feels too harsh and escape into the comfort of their deep embrace.
Besides the above-mentioned advantages, there are innumerable other benefits attributed to reading fiction like improved writing skills and creative writing, increased attention span, better memory, extension in vocabulary, etc. Fiction also helps you gain perspective over nebulous concepts and accept the diversity in life.
I hope these points would help drive home the bounties of reading fiction by changing the notion that labels it as a sheer waste of time. Needless to say, non-fiction books are indispensable for making real-world connections; however, this does not undermine the significance of reading good fiction. The myopic concept of denouncing all fictional works is preposterous.
After all, we must not forget that reading is supposed to be therapeutic, and it doesn’t matter what you read as long as it broadens your horizons.
