I love a good biography or business book as much as the next person, but there is something about a captivating fiction novel that has my imagination running wild. Within only a few pages, the best fiction writers achieve the challenging feat of pulling us out of our own consuming worlds and into the one they’ve created for us. Some may see reading fiction as a distraction, given it serves as a means of escape, pulling us into an alternate reality. Yet, our craziest ideas and most innovative conceptualizations are often derived from the introduction of new stimuli, as we allow our minds to enter into worlds that are far different from our own.
Beyond serving as the vessel that allows us to go one level down, to temporarily free our minds of our daily distractions and responsibilities, here are three reasons that fiction novels can help to stimulate our creativity and make us more innovative and spontaneous individuals:
1. Most of the best fiction writers do a significant amount of research before building the ‘world’ that their characters exist within. The main reason that I love Danielle Steel’s writing is that I gain a certain fictionalized exposure to industries that I previously knew little about. Through gaining an understanding of how characters both survive and interact in these different micro-worlds, we increase our ability to interact with people in different industries and lifestyles in the real world.
2. From cocktail parties, to small talk at conferences, to movie premieres and lifestyle events, we frequently find ourselves in situations that are out of our comfort zones; thus we are forced to stretch our imaginations to ‘improv’ our way through the scenario at hand. Through reading a series of diversified fiction novels, it expands our imaginative bank of ideas, dialogue, and scenarios to help us to think on our feet and not only survive, but rather thrive in all types of situations. Given it is nearly impossible to gain real-world exposure to the entirety of possible scenarios that we could potentially find ourselves in, reading fiction is a good way to prime our imaginations to think and act quickly based on things we’ve witnessed in literature.
3. While many of us can only dream of spending Monday in Tuscany and Tuesday in Spain, the constraints of our everyday lives often limit us from pursuing our wildest dreams. As one day spills over into the next, we often get so caught up in our realities, that we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to dream bigger or stretch our minds further than we have to; thus we are holding ourselves back from being our most creative selves. As much as I would love to constantly expose myself to new stimuli in the real world, it often becomes challenging to step outside of the walls that we constrain ourselves within. Reading fiction is a great way to introduce ourselves to new stimuli – to live vicariously through the characters that we read about - fishing in Greece one moment and riding on an elephant in Thailand the next.
Though there are various benefits to reading non-fiction literature in order to become informed individuals and active contributors to the world that we live in, people often overlook the benefits of fiction-based literature in activating the parts of our minds that stimulate creativity and innovation. So rather than sitting on the train blankly staring out the window, pick up a fiction book and immerse yourself in a world that is far different than your own.