Jewish Chronicle: Fiction - Fact 101

by Thucydides 

Dear readers, it has come to our attention that our loyal readers at the illustrious Jewish Chronicle, have some difficulty understanding the difference between fictional stories and factual stories. For their benefit, and for the benefit of anyone else reading this who suffers from a similar problem, please see below for a quick lesson.

A Zionist media outlet that is in a chronic state of confusing fact and fiction...

A person who tells a story is called a ‘narrator’. Often, when a person creates a story they will also create a narrator to tell the story. I know it’s confusing but don’t worry- we can get through this believe me. The person who creates the story is called the author; Roald Dahl is an author, J.K. Rowling is an author... they write the book. They are real people.

Now, in order to write a story the author, remember this is the real person, must create, from their imagination, a narrator. Here is an example.

I swam down, deeper and deeper into the sea. The sunlight began to dwindle and the water against my scales became colder. I began to swish my tail faster and faster, chasing my fish friend...

Now, the author here is me. I’m not a fish. I’m a real person. But, now this is the important part, the narrator- the I in the story who is swimming deeper into the sea- is not real. That fish is a figment of my imagination. So the author is real, but the story and the narrator- the teller of the tale, are imaginary.

Now, though the narrator might say or do something in the imaginary story, that does not necessarily mean that the author does it or agrees with the narrator. By creating the narrator as a fish, I do not propagate, support, undermine or attack fish. The narrator is a fish- I am not. Perhaps another example to drill home this point;

I crept up behind him, the blood boiling in my veins. Standing just 6 feet infront of me was the man who killed my father. I pulled the knife out of my coat pocket and leapt at him. I felt the knife pierce his flesh, I felt his warm blood trickle onto my hand.

Again, the I in this story is not me, I (me, the author) did not kill anyone. The narrator, a creation of my imagination, did the deed- well that is I imagined him doing the deed because of course imaginary people cannot really do anything. The author here, me, is not propagating stabbings, he is merely constructing (like you do with Lego) a story in his head and creating a character to tell it.

So, to conclude our lesson for today; fiction is not real. When an author creates a fictional story, with a fictional narrator, doing fictional things, that doesn’t mean that the author does/supports those things/statements.