Practice question · Estimate
Of the background facts in a fictional world — gravity, mortality, weather, hunger — roughly what percentage does a typical novel state explicitly?
Estimate on a scale from 0% (all imported) (0) to 100% (all stated) (100).
Hints
- Think about how many of these a novel actually mentions.
- Almost everything is carried over silently from the actual world.
Show the answer
5 (answers within ±6 count)
Why
A very small percentage, perhaps five. Nearly the entire furniture of a fictional world arrives by minimal departure, unstated and unnoticed. A writer's real decisions are about which few facts to overwrite, and each one costs exposition that the carried-over background does not.
Practise Fictionality
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More questions on Fictionality
- Match each term from the theory of fiction to what it names.
- On Searle's account, what separates fiction from lying is the absence of an intention to deceive.
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- Most of the sentences in a realist novel are, taken individually, true statements about the world.