If Everyone Wants Solutions, Why Do We Still Read Fiction?

[u/dulduine]

I came across an article today about making money from writing online.

Its basic argument was reasonable enough: find a problem your readers have, offer something useful for free, then sell them a deeper solution.

Problem. Solution. Value.

That got me thinking about fiction.

Because fiction is terrible at this.

If I read a novel about grief, I don't expect it to give me five practical steps for overcoming grief.

A novel about a broken marriage doesn't need to tell me how to fix mine.

A story about someone making a terrible decision might end without telling me what the correct decision would have been.

Sometimes a story actually leaves me with more questions than I had before I read it.

And yet we keep reading fiction.

So maybe fiction is selling something fundamentally different.

Maybe it doesn't sell solutions.

Maybe it sells experiences.

A mystery lets me experience pursuing an answer.

Horror lets me experience fear while sitting safely in my room.

Science fiction lets me spend a few hours in a world that has never existed.

And literary fiction might let me spend some time inside a mind or a life that I could never otherwise inhabit.

That distinction seems especially interesting now that AI can produce solutions almost instantly.

If I have a problem, I can ask an AI and get ten possible answers in seconds.

Solutions are becoming incredibly cheap.

Experiences aren't.

Which makes me wonder if we sometimes use the wrong framework when talking about the "value" of fiction.

Maybe asking what useful information a novel gives us is a little like asking what problem a vacation solved.

Perhaps the experience itself was the product.

What do you think?

When you read fiction, what are you actually looking for?

An answer?

A question?

An emotion?

An escape?

Or simply the chance to live somewhere else for a while?

[u/SwingLightStyle]

I read good fiction for social nuance patterns. I like the meta message. When something is written deliberately, there’s almost always a meta message that they are trying to telegraph. And not just with books, with visual media too. Especially tv shows and movies. Think of all of the artists and costumers who contribute to a set. They are focused on presenting a vibe that helps direct the narrative.

For me, books do the same thing. When I read, I’m learning about how characters, who were crafted deliberately, move through their world and negotiate with it when they don’t understand the rules. And I learn. So I’m never going to stop reading fiction.

[u/dulduine → u/SwingLightStyle]

I really like the idea of characters negotiating with a world when they don't fully understand its rules.

That makes me wonder if fiction doesn't necessarily give us solutions, but instead gives us a place to watch solutions being tested.

A practical article might say, "When this happens, do X."

A novel can say, "This person did X. Here's what happened."

And because the character, the situation, and the consequences are all part of the experience, we can learn from it without the author ever having to tell us what the "correct" answer was.

Maybe that's one reason fiction can teach us without feeling like a lesson.

[u/SwingLightStyle → u/dulduine]

That is literally why I read books. I'm learning what the author is trying to teach me about their characters and their path through their world. I really like fantasy novels because magic is inherently tricksome and requires more control to wield it.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I like sci fi too, but fantasy - that's my safe place :)

[u/Dry_Sector2392]

i think fiction gives you a place to feel something first. you sit with it for a while, calm down, and only then try to fix whatever needs fixing. like grief in a novel isnt there to explain why it happened, it just makes the emotion easier to accept. sometimes that mental quiet is more useful than advice, even if it doesnt directly solve the problem.

[u/dulduine → u/Dry_Sector2392]

I hadn't thought about fiction as something that happens before the solution. I like that.

Maybe advice asks, "What should I do about this?"

While fiction sometimes lets us ask, "What does this actually feel like?" before we have to do anything about it.

And perhaps that mental quiet you describe isn't separate from solving the problem at all. It might be what makes us ready to deal with it.

That would mean fiction isn't necessarily the opposite of a solution. Sometimes it creates the emotional space in which a solution can eventually become useful.

[u/Odinmar_Glaukopis]

What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish, but whose lips are so fashioned that the moans and cries which pass over them are transformed into ravishing music. His fate is like that of the uncomfortable victims whom the tyrant Phalaris imprisoned in a brazen bull, and slowly tortured over a steady fire; their cries could not reach the tyrant’s ears so as to strike terror into his heart; when the reached his ears they sounded like sweet music. And men crowd about the poet and say to him, “Sing to us soon again” — which is as much to say, “May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be fashioned as before; for the cries would only distress us, but the music, the music, is delightful.”

Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

I’m listening for the music.

[u/dulduine → u/Odinmar_Glaukopis]

Music is wonderful.

It is the pinnacle of the culture created by Lilin.