My Love for Fiction By Katherine Lightwood

My Love for Fiction

By Katherine Lightwood

Have you ever been obsessed with a TV Show, have you ever completely lost yourself in a good book. Well!! if any of that sounds familiar it's probably because you've found yourself caring about fictional characters.

While we know that these stories are not real, we still invest our emotions in them as if they were. So why do we do this? Well!! it might be that our brains aren't quite as good as we'd like at telling the difference and between what's real and what's fiction.

As long as something appears to be an agent i.e we see it displaying a certain level of autonomy then we react towards it as if it were alive regardless of whether or not it actually is.
Now, for an early man, it likely didn't make any difference if something showed had agency. It was probably because it was actually alive.

However, these days it is possible for us to stimulate agency so even when we know that something isn't really alive, part of our brain still thinks that it is. And this has actually been shown experimentally when people witnessed affection directed towards human, robot and inanimate object. Their reactions towards robots and humans were actually very similar. But their reactions towards the inanimate object, not so much. Now, the same idea can be applied to fictional characters too.

It doesn't matter if we know our favorite TV  characters are being portrayed by actors but subconsciously we believe those characters are real people. What's more is that sometimes fictional characters may have an effect on how we act in the real world. It's actually shown that when you lose yourself in a story you can undergo what's called experience taking.

When you begin to feel the thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of characters as if they were your own. You are actually more likely to lose yourself in the story if it is written in the first person's perspective. Or if you share a strong group identity with the characters in question.

For example, when people lost themselves in the stories where characters were revealed later in the narrative to be of minor race and ethnicity. If character's of your stories share same issues as you and then take decisions in life like you would do then this become your favorite book.
I always loved books and especially getting lost in them. The imaginative world of a writer has always inspired to write.

So, that was my thought of the day. To see more posts like this make sure to visit our main page. And do not forget to visit our institute's page to know more about graphic design, 3D, animation courses and other awesome stuff. Till then good day to you.

Katherine Lightwood