Crime Fiction: Facts vs. Fiction - Research Paper Example

Crime Fiction: Facts vs. Fiction and Section # of Crime Fiction: Facts vs. Fiction Stories or events which are imagined and created by the author are known as fiction whereas facts are those events which have taken place in real life with real people. Fiction stories have imaginary characters and the story itself has no existence in reality. The events made up in a story book or movies are all made to entertain the reader by the author. From childhood, children are introduced to fiction stories to improve imaginations of children and to improve their reading and understanding power. Children who read more books when they are young tend to be more creative than the ones who do not spend their time reading books. If they grasp the habit of reading, from a young age they will continue to read till adulthood. Facts are information which inform the reader about events or keep them up to date about what happened with whom in reality. Facts are only for elders to understand and according to their understanding they explain those things to children to guide them against accidents and unpleasant incidents. Some people prefer facts over fiction as they do not like to waste their time in reading things which have not happened. They live in reality and rely only on facts. These people do not want to read what they want to happen but instead they prefer to read what is actually happening around them so that they can benefit from those facts rather than setting up an imaginative world full of lies. There are many differences between crime fiction and real life crimes which have been discussed later in the essay. Development of Crime fiction on American Literature There has been a tremendous rise in the number of authors writing crime fiction. The reason may be that the minds of people have come out of romance and have started to deal with thrillers which keep them busy throughout the novel as they have the desire to solve the mystery before they reach the end of the book. Authors without proper plots give in quickly, making it easier for the reader to guess what would be coming next while authors with well thought plots keep the reader absorbed from the first word till the end. Crime fiction has been accepted widely and appreciated by readers instead of reading books on real life crime articles or books as they prefer to read made up things which have no link to reality than heart breaking stories which leave a disturbing impact on them. Differences between crime fiction and real life crimes Fictions are fantasies which the author creates and produces for the readers. Fiction stories or movies do not have any resemblance to any of the real life characters unless stated so. Fictional criminals are always found to be smarter than actual criminals. They never leave behind evidences for the police as that would raise suspicion towards the real criminal whereas in real life crimes the criminals often leave behind evidence as they don’t have much time for committing the crime like the fictional criminal. The motive behind committing crimes for the fictional criminals to commit a crime is mostly love, money or jealousy while real life crimes can be due to several reasons. Most of the real life criminals are random criminals. They do not have a specific way of committing crimes, they do not choose specific victims but any person who comes their way neither do they have a specific way of committing crimes they just do what they feel is right at the time of the scene. Some have reasons to commit crime such as revenge, poor health status, due to financial issues. A normal person can also be provoked to take the path of crime due to the challenging situations he faces in his life. Real life criminals do not have much time to hide every evidence and erase their fingerprints or have the patience of taking away everything with them which they used at the crime scene while the fictional criminals have writers behind them who have plenty of time to plan their way of committing a crime therefore they are harder to catch. This is why the readers are eager to finish the whole book or movie immediately to find out who the criminal was. They start to use their own imagination as to who could be the criminal and how he could have planned the whole crime. This is why fictional stories, especially the ones having mystery are so popular among readers. Fictional crimes are solved by suspecting many suspects out of which all turn to be innocent and in the end the criminal is the one who is the least to be suspected. He is a person who follows the law properly and is a favorite of the investigators which is why he always gets away with his crimes. Fictional crimes are written by authors to entertain their audience by the mysteries and mind blogging stories they present them with. Due to this reason, these fictional crimes are a bit exaggerated so that the scenes do not resemble to the scenes which could happen in real life so that the readers do not get scared. If the readers feel threatened from fiction crimes then they would leave a bad impact on their minds. For example, if a fiction writer writes a story which closely resembles real crime story, the reader would know that this is possible to occur in real life and he could be one of the victims like the one in the story. The other disadvantage of making fiction stories resembling to real life stories would be that the readers would lose their interest in the story during the early chapters as everyone knows what real life is like. Everyone lives a real life every day. The readers want to enter a fantasy world when they start reading a fiction book or watch a fiction movie. They disappear in the era of fiction world till the story lasts which is why fiction stories and movies are made less realistic with strong characters to support the theme of the story. Real life crimes are full of reality; they have characters that are affected by these crimes. The criminals are real and so are the investigations. No one wants to be involved in real life crimes. Real life crimes are dangerous and they spread stress in the society. No one enjoys listening about real life crimes as it scares them and threatens their security. Real life crimes take most of the attention on news channels when crimes occur because it is important for people to be informed of the situation of the society. Crime fictions on the other hand are widely sold in books and DVD shops as the people enjoy using their mind to solve mysteries. Another difference between crime fiction and real life crime is that real life crimes are always solved by police investigators and their co workers while crime fictions are solved with the help of close associates of the victim even if they have to go against the law. In crime fiction, detectives work on one case only and use their entire energy solving that one mystery whereas in real life detectives have to perform multi tasks at the same time. Other differences between crime fiction and real life crime are that in crime fiction till the end the wrong suspect is suspected and after announcing him his punishment by the judge and convincing the readers that he is the criminal, than the real criminal comes in scene. In real life crimes, the investigators cannot give that time to the criminal to be out in the society which would be very dangerous. They have to make the right decision at the right time in order to catch the right criminal. In crime fiction the criminal is shown to be aware of the law, he is extremely intelligent and does not portray any signs of committing the crime, instead other people are shown to be nervous and scared to divert the attention of the readers towards them. In real life crimes, the investigators are also real and they have experience of differentiating between different behaviors of people, although, they will investigate everyone present on the crime scene. In crime fiction written by authors with thorough plots, the motive behind the crime scene makes sense, leaving the readers impressed and praise the author for planning out everything in an organized manner while the motives which are revealed from real life crimes leave the people disgusted and disturbed. Advantages of Fiction Fiction brings with it a lot of benefits. Firstly it builds up creativity in young children. For example the story “Cinderella”. It is a fiction story about a girl who has a step mother and two step sisters. After reading this story children often tremble from the thought of having a step mother. Their mind is set on the fact that step mothers are evil but on the other end every childhood story has a happily ever after end which satisfies them that whatever happens in life, the end will always be good. They grow up with this concept and after facing the difficulties of real life they realize that those stories had no meaning but they always cherish the time they spent reading those books. By reading crime fiction written by authors who have stories with plots such as James Patterson, Dan Brown and John Grisham are interesting to read and the reader is absorbed in the mystery created by these authors. One advantage of crime fiction would be that people would be more alert in their real life and would learn how to get out of difficult situations. Their power of judging people would be better; they would know the difference between sympathy and trapping. This way crime can be reduced by raising awareness of ways how criminals can play their game. People who have a weak heart, and cannot accept bad news can read fiction as they know that what they are reading is nowhere close to reality. This way they would not be deprived of reading mysteries which they desire to do. Instead of wasting time on useless things, one can read fiction and have a good time, improve imagination, stay away from harmful and unhealthy activities. Disadvantages of Fiction Fiction is not harmful as it is in the hands of the buyer whether he wants to give fiction a try or wants to stick to the realities of life. However, fiction can be at time misleading and diverts the mind of the reader from right to wrong. For example the book “Da Vinci Code” (Brown 2002) was one of the bestselling novels but it had a negative effect as it went too far to mislead the reader. Fiction should not hide the fact that it is fiction otherwise it would lead to a confused reaction from the reader. It is the author’s responsibility not to mislead the reader as people have a strong believe on what they read. In the “The Rule of Four” (Caldwell 2004), a thriller, ended with an apology for altering some facts which needed to be altered for the benefit of the plot and fiction. The facts which were altered were stated in the end. This is a good way of prevent misleading of the readers from the facts by informing them about the truth. Another example is of the story of “Cinderella”. Every child who reads this story mentally starts to dislike the terms step mother, step sister, step father and step brother. Even though it is not true that all these people are evil in real life. Some maybe and may not be. Once the mind of a child is set on something he would always believe on that. One very important disadvantage of crime fiction is that it provides the real life criminals who are educated but get a psychological satisfaction in committing crimes, ways of committing crime in unique ways. Therefore, fiction has the power to provoke crime. Conclusion Facts are very important to keep a person up to date with the happenings of the world. People listen and react to these facts seriously because they know they are not made up and no matter how bitter a fact is, one has to accept it. On the other hand when a person reads fiction he feels guilt free and relaxed as he knows that the material he is reading is all made up. Authors can create worlds in their mind and through writing their thoughts on pages of a book they can bring life to their thoughts. As their writing is not real, and they are allowed to touch any topic they like, for example space travelling, romance, time travel, mysteries, etc, people feel excited to enter the world of fantasy created in their work. They tend to forget the real life behind as soon as they start reading imagining every character to be alive and imagining the story to be running in front of their eyes. Too much of facts in fiction can make fiction miserable as the people would not have anything new to experience. However, learning about facts should not be totally abandoned as one has to know the realities of life as they are living in a real one and not the one created by an author. The authors should be careful with what they produce as some fiction can influence real criminal action. References “Chasing Doctor No: Art Crime Fact and Fiction”, from http://www.artcrime.info/pdf/ArtCrime-Fact&Fiction-1.pdf Maxine, “Horror in crime fiction”. (February19th 2010), from http://petrona.typepad.com/petrona/2010/02/horror-in-crime-fiction.html Zunshine, L. (2006) “Why We Read Fiction” Theory of mind and the novel. The Ohio State University press, Columbus. “True Crime Tuesday: The Randomness of it all”. (February 22, 2011), from http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2011/02/true-crime-tuesday-randomness-of-it-all.html Altrocchi, H, P. (May 19, 2009) “Nothing truer than truth: Fact verses Fiction in the Shakespeare Authorship Debate”. Read More