Fiction VS Non-Fiction | The Debate

Hey Guys! Here we are back with another banger! This time let’s talk about the long time debate – Fiction VS Non-Fiction. I have read both so I’ve always been a neutral party but today I am going to try and pick a side (as much as it hurts) and bust some myths on the way (hope that’s not copyrighted 😂).

Let’s start with clearing up what fiction and non-fiction mean. Fiction is a form of literature based on imaginary people and events. It may or may not be influenced by a real event. Most classics like ‘Pride & Prejudice‘, ‘Dracula‘ and ‘Moby Dick‘ are fiction.

Coming to Non-Fiction – They are factual stories about real events that happened to real people. Books like ‘Sapiens‘ and ‘A Brief History of Time‘ are examples of non-fiction.

You may have heard a lot of times that fiction books are read for fun while non-fictions are read to gain information. This is as fake as you are around your teachers (or am I the only one?). Fiction genres like sci-fi or even some thrillers (referring to Dan Brown’s books) give you a lot of knowledge not only about literature but also about interesting concepts like time travel or the history of the Church (it may not be true always but most of the time its pretty accurate). And I know some pretty fun non-fictions like – ‘We Have No Idea‘ and ‘What if?‘ which crack me up every time I read them.

Now let’s talk usefulness in real life. Not some “everybody-on-Earth-is-dead-so-create-a-fire” usefulness. I’m talking day-to-day interactions with people. Important skills like confidence, public speaking, open-minded thinking, all these require you to actually introspect and think, unfortunately humans are pretty bad at thinking. We have been raised with a special focus towards learning instead of thinking which makes it pretty difficult to inculcate all these values in yourself bringing in the need for external factors like self-help books. In cases like these non-fictions are essential and very useful. You may learn some of these skills by reading about them in fictional books and watching the characters use these skills but that would require you to think (again). The biggest mistake 80% of new readers do is just read the words in the book and take it all in instead of thinking about how you could instill those skills in your own life, where and how you could practice them and stuff like that. #SmartestAnimalOnThePlanetCantThink🤦‍♂️

We have always heard that experience is the most valuable asset anyone can have. But reading books doesn’t give us life experience, or does it? Speaking from my own experience, being an introverted kid who couldn’t even talk to his peers, tons of self-help books, fictional stories, superhero movies later, I turned into a person participating in MUNs and Debates, speaking in front of his whole class as a School Minister. Throughout this whole journey the most important thing to me was living a hero’s life through books. When I started reading those books I could be a pirate sailing in the ocean, the son of a god saving the world from old men using young teens (comment down below if you got this 😉). I could be whatever I wanted, anything I could dream of and more! This was the largest contributor in my transformation, seeing others do heroic acts helped me boost my confidence. The best books were the ones where the protagonist starts off as the underdog and by the end becomes an all-powerful being. I love such books even now because it reminds me of myself (not that I’m all-powerful…or am I 😈).

Basically, both non-fiction and fiction do each others intended jobs while doing their own. The best books of both genres are always the ones who provide both knowledge and fun. ‘Atomic Habits‘, ‘Ready Player One‘, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘, all of these are brilliant books that are engaging and also edifying (a fancy word for enlightening) which make them the perfect books for all types of people with different goals and mindsets. My point being – both these genres can’t be looked at with one person’s perspective. Even if it’s an insanely successful person saying which one is better. Both of these genres are different sides of a coin – literature. You can’t say if heads is better or tails right? Because both of them make up the coin. A coin won’t be a coin without either of them. What I’m trying to say is this whole debate is based on the myth that each genre has a specific task to do which is simply not true. Whether its autobiographies, fantasies, lit-rpgs, self-help, it doesn’t matter as long as you know what you seek through the book. A true reader can read autobiographies for entertainment and and sci-fi for knowledge.

That is it for this week guys, I hope you liked the post, found it interesting and most importantly – learned something from it! Now I need to find a good book to review next week because the book reviews have taken a step back due to these articles. Trust me, the next post will be about a not-so-popular book series which is severely underrated, I think I have something in my mind. You can subscribe to this blog by going to the bottom of this page to get notifications every time I post. Comment down below your thoughts. Till next week 👋

PS – Bear with me if the next post is a little late because the series I wanna review is a long one and I need some time to complete all nine of the 400 page books in a week (its possible because of summer break). Thanks for understanding ✌