I missed yesterday, but that’s okay. I’ve been on a pretty good streak otherwise, though I’m bummed the streak is broken. I’m trying to live a whole and happy life while not strictly adhering to schedules, which is difficult and seemingly antithetical. I like schedules enough, but I have a strange anxiety that my world is run by them, so I try to shed them whenever possible. Therefore, my productivity sometimes takes a dip because I’m not following strict scheduling.

But anyways, on Fridays, I’m going to normally write about fiction. Sometimes this will come in the form of a piece of flash fiction, and other times just a dialogue about my favorite storytelling genre.

Fiction, to me, is the apex of storytelling possibility. While I love many of the mediums that have come after it, nothing is as complex or diverse as stories and books of fiction. Theoretically, any story that is made up is fictional, but I am categorizing fiction as written or verbally dictated stories with fabricated characters and storylines. These stories are intended for readership or listening, and they differ from movies, tv shows, and internet programs that could also claim to be fiction.

Technically, I’m wrong, and the viewing mediums would fall under my earlier definition, but I have a careful reason for separation. Because reading has taken a back seat in our current cultural moment, I think most folks forget that a book is not a visual delight or experience, but a mental one. Things have skewed a bit in our cinematographic generations, but a book spans the spectrum of experience and input, not just including visual stimulus.

Real life is more than visual stimulus. A book can convey smell and the feeling or weight of objects. The taste of extravagant feast, or the absolute crushing feeling of heartbreak. Visual mediums stay almost entirely in the visual, with just enough sound to pass off as two-dimensional. In writing, there is a degree of mental immersion, of becoming a part of the narrative, while with films, we always have a screen of separation, creating a distinct feeling of watching from the outside in.

Now, this isn’t saying that writing is necessarily more entertaining than watching. Reading is more work than viewing in almost every way, and it is a solitary activity (with the exception of audio books, which can be enjoyed in pairs or groups). Watching things has the impossible advantage of the convenience factor — there are billions of pocket-sized devices in the world with more computational power than every rocket made before the year 2000 combined. We can watch things everywhere. And with other modern technologies, we don’t have to stretch our imagination for special effects. Screens are even just scientifically addictive. They look real, or surreal, or however else those visual storytellers want them to look. It isn’t a surprise to me that written storytelling isn’t as popular as its visual sibling.

What I will say is that reading is a more complete sketch of the author’s mind. When I read a book, to an extent, I have a direct line to the author’s thought-stream, even across tens or hundreds of years’ time difference. And those rounded story aspects are more readily included — the smells, the internal character dialogue, the nuance of description — replicating life and the human experience with greater accuracy. When experiencing a show or movie, we can only see the decisions the artists made, not their thought process throughout the piece.

That being said, I watch more TV than some, less than others. I like the medium, and I would even love to write for television at a professional level. But it doesn’t do the same thing as a piece of written fiction. There isn’t any sort of longform attention practice or agreement either.

I’m going to end this post now, but I do have a closing thought. We live in an interesting moment in history, especially considering entertainment. I don’t think movies or television are going anywhere anytime soon, but with the smash success of attention minimizing apps like Tik Tok, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, and others, will films and shows fade away like books? Eventually, will all content be force-fed in 15-30 second increments, including hyper-edited mini shows?

I don’t know, but as long as niche groups continue to enjoy each medium, we will be able to enjoy fiction in book form, movie, show, or Tik Tok form. Though, isn’t it funny how so many shows and movies are based on the books that first told the story? Hope this meets you well! May your weekend be fun, relaxing, and/or productive, and eat something delicious too!

~Kyle