Fictivity: The Principle of Creation

Fictivity has at its core the principle of creation.

Human beings, not just writers, create fictions all the time. But these ‘fictions’ (Old French from Latin fictio, from fingere ‘form, contrive’) are not perceived to be separate from that which their originators consider to be ‘true’. In other words, we all take what we perceive and mould it into some kind of comprehensible shape and form as we perceive it. We take this to be ‘reality’.

As young children, these forms and shapes are often dream-like and mythic; as we grow older we learn to conform them to various narratives. We develop narratives of self, of family or immediate people around us, of wider groups, and of the environment in which they operate. We all come to â