Several years ago an American author Robert A Heinlein introduced an interesting concept in some of his fiction novels. The concept was that fiction became real or alive as soon as enough readers beleived in it.
In the book "The Number of The Beast" the first device for such traveling was invented and off through whatever our heroes went. 8)
Among the places they visit
I wrote a short story a couple of years ago and put it on FF.net. I think it was probably incomprehensable to most of those who stumbled across it.
But then I would not be surprised, most stories with a philosophical bent would be.

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The concept was that fiction became real or alive as soon as enough readers beleived in it.

That is pretty interesting - how did he work it? Was it that fiction actually became reality when people believed in it, characters were forced into existence and plots happened in real life? That could be fairly sinister...

Or is it just that fiction lives through those who read? Without a reader fiction is just words, but our interpretation makes things alive.

Or is it something completely different and I've missed the point?

I'm not sure I completely understand either, but I have to say this. Fiction is real. Fantasy is real. It exists in our minds and while we may not be able to touch it or see it, it's still there, living, breathing. An author basically creates entire worlds through writing, gives life to characters. While it may only be written down on paper, hidden in those pages are things beyond our wildest dreams and through this, we discover parts of ourselves we didn't know existed.
Something not real couldn't do that.
There are millions of possibilities and worlds that already exist, so just think how many more are out there waiting to be set free.
~Rosie

I think imagination is just another form of reality. Our imaginations and ideas define our actions, and therefore our existence.

I know I, personally, live in two realities.

~Nome

*nods* Nome you're right there... I live in two places... Earth and a place I like to call 'Planet Bronwyn'... I'd like to read that book... Must go looking for it... Sounds intresting

Sounds interesting, even if I don't understand it!

This sounds a bit like my philosophy class.

My philosophy Prof likes to use Harry Potter as an example of "fictitious ideas" and how he's "real" but not "real".

I take offense to this.

HP and many other fictional characters are *very* real to me - and many others who read them (who loves Anne of Green Gables - I swear, I'm her, sometimes.)

Fiction and imagination are so much a part of human culture, human life, that they often define people, eras, movements, and so much more.

Yeah, fiction is real. Because someone thought of it in the first place. And because I will always believe that somewhere, somehow, there *are* unicorns.

Becky, waxing whimsical

I was just reading this and Julephenia's bit:

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Fiction and imagination are so much a part of human culture, human life, that they often define people, eras, movements, and so much more.

reminded me of what one of my friends once said:

'I am a piece of fiction!'

Now that's how to win an argument It was his brilliant (yet comical in a year 9 class) of making a good point, people's lives can be fictitious to someone else.

Not everyone will have lived in the same place all their lives, just as not everyone will have lived in too many places all their lives. Fiction is a term we can use to define a life we may never experience, but one that someone else already has.

Yoda

'I don't believe in magic, but that doesn't mean things can't be magical.'
~dar

What is real? If real is something you can see, touch, or taste, then reality is nothing more than electrical signals sent to your brain.

...or something to that effect. get a true Matrix-watcher in here.

But I agree, to some extent. you could almost define reality as something that can affect something else, but writing affects people, and is therefore reality. What it might describe may not be a historical event, but it is reality.

Heinlein's book "The Number of the Beast" is where he really pushes this idea. He had quite a prolific output prior to that. In NOTB, his protagonists are fleeing the bad guys by using a craft that can travel between dimensions, for lack of a better term. (Sorry if I'm using the wrong term here - I'm working from memory, and it's been a while!)

At any rate, as the craft lands in various places, the "good guys" start to recognize the people/beings they encounter as the incarnations of literary characters. Some are from Heinlein's other stories, so you only recognize those if you've read his other works. Others are from classic literature, particularly the "golden age" SF juveniles that Heinlein loved, like the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith.

Heinlein's something of an acquired taste, but if you like him, you love him. But he's very opinionated, and a strange mix of conservative and liberal. I'd recommend starting with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (if you like SF) or "Glory Road" (if your taste runs more to fantasy).

I just have to put a few cents in here. RAH's theory was that every story ever written was out there somewhere, but that if you went looking for them, you would end up in the stories you liked to read, IE, most of us would end up in HP type stories, or other fantasies.

At one point he postulated that there was a certain number of universes, lying side by side like pages in a book. That number of course, was the number of the beast; 6 to the 6th power to the 6th power... Which is one of those silly numbers, that humans really can't comphend.

RAH's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is possibly the finest book I've ever read. (I so want to be a Lunatic Woman.

Edited because I'm the type of idiot that forgets to close tags.