Supported by Fiction

    The emotional experience by reading a story about people, who feel that they have a voice within an hostile environment makes you, the reader, want to read more about that. What motives do the characters have to propel them to action? Is it love, hate, revenge, or the desire to promote the general welfare? Asking a question such as this gets you to think about how the characters' behavior in a given fictional medium (novel, movie, comic, or your own life) paints a picture of how that environment works. In another way, given that you have taken the time to read or watch a book or show, you will then have some understanding of the dynamics of that fictional environment.

    Let's take our general understanding of what fiction is, and then discuss how to focus on the characters, rather than the social-cultural features of a given work. I will not be focusing on those features such as the state of the wool trade during the time of Shakespeare because his characters did not make a living by trading wool in the cities of his day. They had their professions, which shows their station in their fictional environment. So at the time of Shakespeare's life, I have set the Globe ablaze to make room for his cast of characters, which is how I intend to approach understanding fiction.

   Let's also take the metaphor of 'painting a picture' because it might give us insight into fiction, which is different from the real life, since that has already been 'painted' for us, while fiction is in a constant state of painting by its painters (writers). It needs support because of its changing nature based upon the constant state of flux of the people's interests, which change from season to season. And I think that a feature like 'character' is more persistent than art style, for example. So the writer (painter) shapes their characters through the current interest levels of his (bias!) audience, who enjoying seeing themselves on the page. The fictional writer tailors his characters to his audience's interests and perspectives.