What is Fiction? Going by the dictionary meaning, it is something that is invented or untrue, or something that describes imaginary events and people. Imagination is whatever someone thinks in one’s mind or something that one dreams of. On the other hand, Truth is nothing but the reality or factual representation of a thing or an event. On a superficial level, we may put these two terms as antonyms for each other. However, the bigger question is, how do we differentiate between what is truth and what is fiction?

According to our infinite number of holy books and scriptures, we believe that everything is unreal except for our soul and God. If we go by this rule, then all our life is nothing but fiction. We are just imaginary characters created in the dream of a supreme being. So what I understand from this is that for Him, we are fiction, while for us, our life is a truth.

Let us look at this from a different perspective. We can only dream of things that we have experienced either directly or vicariously. So basically, our dream will have only those characters which we think may be possible. A play school kid will not dream of landing up a job at a big tech firm. Only things he will dream of will be ice-cream, a fluffy toy etc. In his world, only those things are possible. However, what he will face the next day is truth. He may not have even thought about it. He will have to face it whether it is what he expected or not. So truth has nothing to do with what possibilities mean for a person.

Fiction is based on use of learning from past to draw a certain future. For instance, Jules Verne’s novel “From The Earth To The Moon” was proven possible in 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. However it is different matter altogether that whether Moon was similar to what was described in the novel. What Armstrong faced on that time was truth and not fiction.

Fiction may seem to be unrestrained, but is actually not. But truth is unpredictable and when it has already happened, it is blatantly factual.