Purpose of Fiction...Or Fictional Purpose...?

While my own opinion of my writing is I write very well (and, when it comes to things such as technical documentation, articles, and the like, the consensus has always seemed to agree with me), when it comes to the fiction I've written I confess to being entirely incapable of making a sound judgment as to its value or worth.

Of course, when discussing the 'value' or 'worth' of fiction, I know that's a broad enough area that each person could think of and probably has their own definition(s), and I'm not one to argue that, as I've little desire to get lost in the endless terrain of general semantics.

When I refer to fiction as having value, what I mean is how well it serves the purpose of entertaining. Period. Conveying lessons, espousing philosophies, etcetera etcetera -- sure, one can stick some of that into fiction, if so desired, though if it's not organic to the work itself, the reader will spit it out in annoyance much as a cat will a pill which is hidden so ‘dexterously (if ineffectively) in their favorite food’, which brings me back to my main point, that being the primary purpose of fiction is to entertain, with the pinnacle of achievement being to write something so enjoyable the reader cannot put it down, and which they find themselves blissfully immersed in, so much so, ideally, that they are likely to bother reading it more than once.

As a reader of some years, when I think of my favorite fiction books, regardless of genre, those are the qualities which define the truly great books from all the rest: the ones I can read and re-read, and never tire of despite knowing how they end; the ones I happen to glance at and, within minutes, am utterly swept back into; the kind I’d love to simply step into and never leave. 

Kindly note my visual memory is exceptionally acute, to the point where I can generally quote lines of text verbatim (or nearly so, though no, I do not have an ‘eidetic’ memory) directly from books I've read, even many years later; that, combined with my disdain for any story regardless of medium which I can figure out where it’s going/how it ends within the first few minutes of reading it, and that should illustrate what I mean when I say for me, to read a book I’ve already read before is one of the surest signs I enjoyed it above all others.

I remain unconvinced I've yet to write anything which meets the above standards, which is to say, I'll just have to keep trying.


~J