Fiction

  
In the most general sense of the word, fiction is a vague and overly generalized term for any imaginative prose work.  Fictional works generally are about the imaginary adventures of created characters.  The term "fiction" is not generally applied to dramatic works or verse.

The primary genres of fiction which are traditionally considered "literature" are the:

  • novel - Novels are extended works of prose fiction.
  • short story - The short story is a brief work of prose fiction.  Somerset Maugham posited that the shortest short story is 1,600 words, while the longest that could still be called short stories would be no longer than 20,000 words.
  • novella - A work of fiction that is longer than a short story but not long enough to be considered a novel.


The line between fiction and non-fiction may not be as clearly discernable as one might think.  In fact, many works of "fiction" are actual events being passed off, thin1y disguised,  as fictional. 

 

 Novelist and essayist, Norman Mailer, coined the term faction to define works that exist in that blurry gray area between fiction and non.

 

 Among the first "novel-like" works known to historians are a number of XIIth Dynasty Middle Kingdom (1200 BC) Egyptian works such as The Predestined Prince and Sinhue.

 

 The short story form derived from myths, legends, fairy tales and fables.  The Bible is rife with short stories (Cain and Abel, the Prodigal son, and Job, for instance) and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1385- 1400) are short stories written in verse.