Why do so many readers lack the ability to separate fact from fiction?

Several years ago - no, many years ago (time flies) - I took a course at Cambridge (Cambridge in the Fens, not Cambridge Massachusetts) during which the lead instructor, a successful short story writer, spoke for an hour or so on the value of 'fictional facts' - facts that were entirely made up by the author, but which 99 percent of readers took to be factual. I confess to being a bit of a fan of fictional facts. They can be very useful.

SamScribble said:

Several years ago - no, many years ago (time flies) - I took a course at Cambridge (Cambridge in the Fens, not Cambridge Massachusetts) during which the lead instructor, a successful short story writer, spoke for an hour or so on the value of 'fictional facts' - facts that were entirely made up by the author, but which 99 percent of readers took to be factual. I confess to being a bit of a fan of fictional facts. They can be very useful.

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Yes, Sam, Cambridge, Mass is north east of Boston's Fens. There, Northeastern is closest to the Fens, and to Fenway.

We suspend disbelief when we read fiction; it's easy to forget to reactivate it. And, as Don Juan first said, truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to be plausible, no matter how outlandish, in the world view of the reader, and so appears to be believable, and it's an easy net step to seeing it as true. But, as Holmes was fond of pointing out, after you eliminate the impossible, what remains, no matter how implausible, must be true. Then again, Holmes is a fictional character. As was Don Juan. Oh dear! Who am I to believe?

My reality fetish has kept me from too many fictional facts. I usually set phony people in real placees. For The Botanists I set real people, with well-documented professional lives but little written of them personally, into a real landscape, All I had to invent were their every fucking thought, word, and action -- the fictional facts.
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My rant on a weakness of the Anglish language:

Many computer languages embody "data typing" to specify if a field contains numbers (and what kind) or text or binary code or whatever. Anglish lacks data typing to separate alleged 'fact' from 'fiction'. When we say "this IS something", that IS doesn't tell us if the 'this' is actual or fictive.

('Is' and 'are' and 'was' and 'were' and 'am' and "will be", same thing.)

Thus we can say, "Sherlock Holmes WAS a male British 19th-century detective" and "Alan Pinkerton WAS a male British 19th-century detective". Some polysynthetic languages would use different forms of WAS to flag the first subject as fact and the second as fiction. Anglish lacks that, depends on context for clarity. Ha.

An Eskimo language has phonemes for IS (I saw it), IS (X told me), IS (I did it myself), IS (it's made up), and so on.

Our readers can't tell fact from fiction because our language is defective. Anglish wants us to lie to ourselves and others. It comes with the plumbing.

Yorkiechai said:

the idea of fiction and fact (which are not, I would suggest, a dichotomy) try reading the fiction/auto-biography of American author Tim O'Brien entitled "The Things They Carried". He writes, among other things, that "story truth is often truer than happening truth".

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An excellent example of literature that demonstrates the idea that artists use lies to tell the truth. Not to go all Kierkegaard about objective and subjective truth, just that like you say, it's not a dichotomous two-sided coin.
I tend to think most people resent being told a "fact" if it disagrees with their version of reality. Studies have suggested it's easier to convince people to change habits or opinions through psychological incentivisation (often in the form of social acceptance- classic advertising technique) rather than logical reasoning.

Alice_Rosaleen said:

I haven't, but I looked it up and saw it had a character named Beowulf and an actor named Antonio Banderas so I'm sold Thanks!
I read the essay in a collection called Conformity And Conflict, which I thought demonstrates that many so-called truths, morally or otherwise, are cultural interpretations, often made to reinforce social order.

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You really should look into it. Cool stuff.

As for Antonio Banderas, it's the finest acting I've ever seen him do.

If there's a book out there, it's on my list.

Alice_Rosaleen said:

An excellent example of literature that demonstrates the idea that artists use lies to tell the truth. Not to go all Kierkegaard about objective and subjective truth, just that like you say, it's not a dichotomous two-sided coin.
I tend to think most people resent being told a "fact" if it disagrees with their version of reality. Studies have suggested it's easier to convince people to change habits or opinions through psychological incentivisation (often in the form of social acceptance- classic advertising technique) rather than logical reasoning.

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Ah!

I'm a southerner. Samuel Clemens heavily influences my writing style and mindset. As well as Stephen King and John Grisham.

ThatsTheGuy said:

I'm a southerner. Samuel Clemens heavily influences my writing style and mindset. As well as Stephen King and John Grisham.

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Me too. Love Clemens. Recently researched his friendship with Tesla and brief involvement in a legal dispute between him and Edison. I'm a fan of Eudora Welty and Ralph Ellison too.

If you couch your fiction in a set of facts and the fictional adds are believable, there are readers who will believe them. I'm not interested in fooling them; I want them to see the facts from a fresh perspective and I like to "what if?" toy with events.

I just finished writing a story set at an actual lighthouse, giving a fictional crime back story that I have reflected in a nonexistent newspaper article that claims the crime was the inspiration for a recovered lost short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived nearby the lighthouse in 1927-29. Made-up elements are mixed with verifiable facts, and I'll bet someone will ask me where they can read the Fitzgerald short story.

What really amuses me is when I've mixed fiction with fact in a story and comments from someone shows they believed the fiction but not the facts.

Hypoxia, granted that English is a few tenses short of a full tennis court, so to speak, I'm not sure that that is the problem. There are other factors which perhaps should be considered.

One is the dumbing-down of our educational system. One can get a secondary school certificate in many jurisdictions with at most one math, no second language, no history, no geography, no science. That's aside from minor stuff like grammar, rhetoric, logic and so forth. They are - just possibly - the most 'feel-good' group in history, but few have ever really had to exercise their minds. When it comes to an actual fact-or-fiction decision, they're at a disadvantage.

Another possibility - is this a new phenomenon? Check-out aisle pulp newspapers (and I use that term cautiously) have been around for generations. They exist because they are profitable, because people buy them. That implies that those people actually believe that Elivis' clone lives on Mars. Going back in history, so much was taken as given by very intelligent people. McCarthyism succeeded, at the most basic level, because people believed the twisted horsepucky the Senator from Wisconsin was spewing. Antisemitism flourishes because people are gullible and fearful - it's hardly new.

Still another. Perhaps we have no more mental incompetents, the ones in this case incapable of discerning fact from fiction. Perhaps people reading A Tale of Two Cities way back when actually thought Mme Defarge actually existed? Maybe there were Lysistrata fan clubs in the days of Aristophanes? (Eew, hope not. The Greeks were supposed to be logical...) Perhaps this is nothing more than our perception of mass foolishness brought about by the Net's convenience, its ability to give every knuckle-dragger out there an instant, low-cost and generally anonymous way to cut into every discussion?

FWIW

TarnishedPenny said:

...
Still another. Perhaps we have no more mental incompetents, the ones in this case incapable of discerning fact from fiction. Perhaps people reading A Tale of Two Cities way back when actually thought Mme Defarge actually existed? ...
FWIW

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Madame Defarge might be Dickens' invention. She was based on a tricoteuse.

Les Tricoteuses existed and were a powerful force during the French Revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricoteuse

The myths around them are probably more than the reality but are based on fact. Madame Defarge is Dickens' personification of one of them.

Better examples on edit

No argument, just an example. Horatio Hornblower, anyone?

Or how about these two?

How many people visit 221B Baker Street in London each year?

Or Green Gables in Prince Edward Island? (Japanese couples by the dozen fly to the latter each year just to get married, BTW.)

ThatsTheGuy said:

I'm a southerner. Samuel Clemens heavily influences my writing style and mindset. .

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I'm not a southerner; I'm a westerner with Yankee sympathies, but the south has produced a lot of great writers. Love Twain, of course. I don't try to emulate his style -- I think that would create embarrassing results. But his sensibility affects my writing. I've always enjoyed Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

The south is burdened by history in a way that the west is not. I think that sense of burden might be stimulating to someone with a literary sensibility. I don't know that from personal experience because that's not my heritage but it seems reasonable to me.

TarnishedPenny said:

No argument, just an example. Horatio Hornblower, anyone?

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Largely based on the real activities of Admiral Cochrane but C S Forester wisely sent Hornblower elsewhere during the War of 1812. It was the other Admiral Cochrane who landed the troops to burn the White House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_Dundonald

I chose to use characters based in a fictional suburb.. I described very little about the area, as in my viewpoint it didn't impact the story. Today I read a comment that roasted me over that, because I focused on a character having no real skills or ambition and not being able to find anything outside of a service job, the reader lambasted me over the demographics and local employment conditions, noting that I didn't give them enough info on the demographics.. etc. blah.

Not sure how much to pander to this type of negativity. Should I re-write giving such non-essential details? It's not going to change the characters lack of skill and motivation, lol. Whether he's in Silicone Valley or the armpit of Alabama, he's still going to lack enough ambition and skill to get a good job... right?

TarnishedPenny said:

No argument, just an example. Horatio Hornblower, anyone?

Or how about these two?

How many people visit 221B Baker Street in London each year?

Or Green Gables in Prince Edward Island? (Japanese couples by the dozen fly to the latter each year just to get married, BTW.)

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Arthur Ransome and Swallows and Amazons. My poor suffering parents had to endure three days in the Lake District while taking me to every identifiable Swallows and Amazons location. It was a dream come true for me and yes, fiction, but it was wonderful.... so I don't criticize. I love that blend of reality and fiction

I like real settings and events because I know them. I'm not as obsessive as the novelist whose book set in Bisbee AZ located every shop in town. That dates quickly because transitions.

But many times, the place is a player in the story. Some stuff can occur only in San Francisco or Bisbee or Antigua Guatemala or Portland OR's Sellwood district, nowhere else. Then I build lies atop those realities. Yeah, we make up stuff, same as at FauxNewz. But we usually don't pretend it's real.

oggbashan said:

Largely based on the real activities of Admiral Cochrane but C S Forester wisely sent Hornblower elsewhere during the War of 1812. It was the other Admiral Cochrane who landed the troops to burn the White House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_Dundonald

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It's a bad day when I cannot learn something. Thanks for that.

TarnishedPenny said:

It's a bad day when I cannot learn something. Thanks for that.

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One of the many reasons I like Georgette Heyer's regency romances. There's so much fascinating historical detail in her novels. I learn something every time I reread one.

My problem isn't whether or it's fiction or non-fiction. My problem is believable fiction. For instance so many Literotica writers are obsessed with DDD tits. DDD boobs do not exist. Too many others have ridiculous body descriptions. If you write make it believable.

CrazyGeezer said:

My problem isn't whether or it's fiction or non-fiction. My problem is believable fiction. For instance so many Literotica writers are obsessed with DDD tits. DDD boobs do not exist. Too many others have ridiculous body descriptions. If you write make it believable.

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Huge boobs actually do exist, bothersome for sure, but real if uncommon and maybe artificial. Some readers demand stats on breast and penis size. The rest of us find that absurd but fuck, Rule 34 (everything can be sexually fetishized). My reality fetish leads me elsewhere but there's that niche...

ChloeTzang said:

One of the many reasons I like Georgette Heyer's regency romances. There's so much fascinating historical detail in her novels. I learn something every time I reread one.

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Heyer's An Infamous Army used to be recommended reading at Sandhurst (the UK's equivalent of West Point) for officer cadets. It was used as an introduction to studies of the Battle of Waterloo. They also used The Spanish Bride to give the flavour of the Peninsular War. The real 'Spanish Bride' Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon became Lady Smith:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juana_Mar%C3%ADa_de_los_Dolores_de_L**C3%B3n_Smith

The mother of one of my school friends was nicknamed 'Lady Smith' because like Juana Maria she was rescued by marrying a British husband. My friend's father had been a junior Civil Engineer working in Spain at the time of the 1930s Civil War. He had met 'Lady Smith' when building a new road across part of her family's ancestral lands. The noble family were on the wrong side locally and some were killed by General Franco's supporters. The remaining members of the family were on a death list. She fled to the construction site seeking refuge with her British friend. She couldn't leave Spain because her name had been listed for arrest at any port.

But he married her at a British Consulate. As Mrs (British surname) with a British passport she wasn't on any list. Husband and new wife left on a British ship.

After the Civil War, she was able to resume her full Spanish titles as the only surviving member of the family - but not her estates which had been confiscated by the government. Her only son became a Spanish nobleman too, inheriting more titles after his mother's death.

I remember 'Lady Smith', my friend's mother, as a wonderful woman of considerable intellect and savoir faire. Visiting their house as school friends was always a delight. The food was exotic, the conversation interesting, and we all understood why my friend's father had grabbed the chance of marrying her instantly. We were sometimes jealous, of our friend for having such an unusual mother but also of his father. The father, decades after marrying 'Lady Smith', still behaved as if he couldn't understand his luck in finding and marrying such a wife. Their love for each other was obvious.

Ogg's Lady Smith gave her name to Ladysmith in South Africa (siege of, etc. in the Boer War) and the lifting of the siege spurred at least one renaming in another country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith,_KwaZulu-Natal

The more unlikely a plot the more likely it is to be based on a real life event.

MattblackUK said:

The more unlikely a plot the more likely it is to be based on a real life event.

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Because fiction must make sense whilst reality is not so constrained. A movie star swoops in with his private helicopter to rescue people? Right. Next!

Hypoxia said:

Huge boobs actually do exist, bothersome for sure, but real if uncommon and maybe artificial. Some readers demand stats on breast and penis size. The rest of us find that absurd but fuck, Rule 34 (everything can be sexually fetishized). My reality fetish leads me elsewhere but there's that niche...

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Of course huge boobs exist.... just not on the size 4 women the author's usually imagining.

Whereas giant penises can, and do, pop up in the oddest of places rather frequently (you'll have to trust me on this one).

JasonClearwater said:

Of course huge boobs exist.... just not on the size 4 women the author's usually imagining.

Whereas giant penises can, and do, pop up in the oddest of places rather frequently (you'll have to trust me on this one).

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I still can't shake this image from my mind. Was standing in a party store waiting for some other people I was with. They were in line to buy something.

A woman came in to buy a balloon. She was probably a size 0. Little bitty thing with huge and obviously fake boobs. She had on a low cut knit shirt and you could see the whole tops of her too round boobs. Just not the nipples.

She seemed extremely impressed with her boobs. Kept smiling and looking at them and shaking them, making them sort of bounce up and down. It was almost as though the boobs were not even a part of her. So very weird.

Another image I can't shake goes back many years to an older lady who was always in this club that I used to go to. She would dance and move her body all around but her large boobs never moved. I was never sure if that was because they were fake or she was wearing a super iron clad bra or something. Other than her boobs, she was a fairly normal size. Not fat. Not thin.