What is "fiction"

Fiction \Fic"tion\, n. [F. fiction, L. fictio, fr. fingere, fictum to form, shape, invent, feign. See Feign.]

1. The act of feigning, inventing, or imagining; as, by a mere fiction of the mind.
   --Bp. Stillingfleet.

2. That which is feigned, invented, or imagined; especially, a feigned or invented story, whether oral or written. Hence: A story told in order to deceive; a fabrication; -- opposed to fact, or reality.

   The fiction of those golden apples kept by a dragon.
   --Sir W. Raleigh.

   When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it.
   --Macaulay.

3. Fictitious literature; comprehensively, all works of imagination; specifically, novels and romances.

   The office of fiction as a vehicle of instruction and moral elevation has been recognized by most if not all great educators.
   --Dict. of Education.

4. (Law) An assumption of a possible thing as a fact, irrespective of the question of its truth.
   --Wharton.

5. Any like assumption made for convenience, as for passing more rapidly over what is not disputed, and arriving at points really at issue.

   Syn: Fabrication; invention; fable; falsehood.

   Usage: Fiction, Fabrication. Fiction is opposed to what is real; fabrication to what is true. Fiction is designed commonly to amuse, and sometimes to instruct; a fabrication is always intended to mislead and deceive. In the novels of Sir Walter Scott we have fiction of the highest order. The poems of Ossian, so called, were chiefly fabrications by Macpherson.

early 15c., ficcioun, "that which is invented or imagined in the mind," from Old French ficcion "dissimulation, ruse; invention, fabrication" (13c.) and directly from Latin fictionem (nominative fictio) "a fashioning or feigning," noun of action from past participle stem of fingere "to shape, form, devise, feign," originally "to knead, form out of clay," from PIE *dheigh- "to build, form, knead" (source also of Old English dag "dough;" see dough).\n

\nMeaning "prose works (not dramatic) of the imagination" is from 1590s, at first often including plays and poems. Narrower sense of "the part of literature comprising novels and short stories based on imagined scenes or characters" is by early 19c. The legal sense (fiction of law) is from 1580s. A writer of fiction could be a fictionist (1827). The related Latin words included the literal notion "worked by hand," as well as the figurative senses of "invented in the mind; artificial, not natural": Latin fictilis "made of clay, earthen;" fictor "molder, sculptor" (also borrowed 17c. in English), but also of Ulysses as "master of deceit;" fictum "a deception, falsehood; fiction."

n. 1 Literary type using invented or imaginative writing, instead of real fact, usually written as prose. 2 (context uncountable English) Invention.

1. n. a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact

2. a deliberately false or improbable account [syn: fabrication, fable]

Fiction is Yuki Kajiura's first solo album, containing remixes of her previous anime work as well as original songs. The Japanese edition features three bonus songs.

• Prose fiction, "literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people" (New Oxford American Dictionary).
• Fiction, a story created by the imagination in any media, in addition to prose (films, plays, etc.).

Fiction may also refer to:

Fiction is a literary magazine founded in 1972 by Mark Jay Mirsky, Donald Barthelme, and Max Frisch. It is published by the City College of New York. This is not the same as the French science fiction magazine Fiction, published from 1953-1990.

In its early years, Fiction was published in tabloid format and featured experimental work by such writers as John Barth, Jerome Charyn, Italo Calvino, Ronald Sukenick, Steve Katz, Russell Banks, Samuel Beckett, and J.G. Ballard. It later took the form of a more traditional paperback literary magazine, publishing short works by Reinaldo Arenas, Isaac Babel, Donald Barthelme, Mei Chin, Julio Cortázar, Marguerite Duras, Natalia Ginzburg, Clarice Lispector, Robie Macauley, Robert Musil, Joyce Carol Oates, Manuel Puig, and John Yau.1.

Though the magazine ostensibly focuses on publishing fiction, as its name implies, it has recently also featured excerpts from Robert Musil's diaries and letters, as well as various writings with an autobiographical slant.

Fiction is the only album released by Christian artists Mukala.

Fiction, often stylized as fiction ( Chinese: 大/小說家) is Taiwanese Mandopop artist Yoga Lin's fourth Mandarin studio album. It was released on 22 June 2012 by HIM International Music. It was ranked no. 1 in Taipei Times's list of top five Mandarin albums of 2012. Yoga Lin co-produced most songs on the album, and participated in the writing of the lyrics and mixing of the songs.

"Fiction" is the first maxi-single by Japanese rock band coldrain.

Fiction, released in 1982 on Polydor Records, was The Comsat Angels' third album. The album has been reissued on CD three times: in 1995 by RPM Records, in 2006 by Renascent Records and in 2015 by Edsel Records, with different track listings (see below). The album peaked at No. 94 in the UK charts in September 1982.

Fiction was less gloomy than the Comsats' previous album, Sleep No More. Frontman Stephen Fellows said of the change: "I certainly didn't want to make another record as intense as Sleep No More — at least not immediately. Sleep No More was so dark that I felt it skewed things a bit — possibly even mentally for me. I just felt if we carried on in that direction it'd lead to madness or maybe even something worse".

Fellows was satisfied with many of the songs on Fiction, including "What Else!?", "Pictures" and "After the Rain", but felt that the album as a whole could have been better. "We were a bit short of tunes when we recorded it", he said. "We were touring quite a bit after Sleep No More and there wasn't as much time to write as I would have liked".

Fiction is the eighth studio album by the Swedish melodic death metal band, Dark Tranquillity.

The earliest release date for the album was set for North America on April 17, 2007.

This is the last new material to feature Michael Nicklasson as their bassist before leaving in August 2008 and the last release to be recorded at Studio Fredman.

This album marked a few returns of previous quirks the band had done in the past - the song "Inside the Particle Storm" marks the return of Sundin writing lyrics again since "Tongues" from The Mind's I, Mikael Stanne utilizes clean vocals in addition to his usual growled vocals on "Misery's Crown" since "In Sight" from Haven (Reissue) and a guest female vocalist on "The Mundane and the Magic" since "Undo Control" from Projector.

A limited edition of the album includes a bonus DVD with live songs, behind the scene footage, Character's "The New Build" promo video, and the "Focus Shift" video clip. In addition, the limited edition disc features an extended booklet layout, an alternative cover artwork, and includes also a free Dark Tranquillity patch.

An expanded edition was released in North America on May 27 and was scheduled for Worldwide release on June 23, 2008.

Fiction is the classification for any story created by the imagination and, therefore, not based strictly on history or fact. Fiction can be expressed in a variety of formats, including writings, live performances, films, television programs, video games, and role-playing games, though the term originally and most commonly refers to the major narrative forms of literature (see literary fiction), including the novel, novella, short story, and play. Fiction constitutes an act of creative invention, so that faithfulness to reality is not typically assumed; in other words, fiction is not expected to present only characters who are actual people or descriptions that are factually true. The context of fiction is generally open to interpretation, due to fiction's freedom from any necessary embedding in reality; however, some fictional works are claimed to be, or marketed as, historically or factually accurate, complicating the traditional distinction between fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is a classification or category, rather than a specific mode or genre, unless used in a narrower sense as a synonym for a particular literary fiction form.