"I don't read books because fiction is stupid"

Of course, that's why they can't get into it. To them, because it's made up it's invalid, and so to them it's not worth reading. I'd say it's just because they haven't found the right book to connect with, but that's just me I don't know anyone who actively thinks "Hey, you read fiction. What a waste of time." Maybe you've encountered that, and I'd say someone saying something like that is pretty silly. It's hard for me to imagine that... but I was living with English majors in college and all my friends love to read everything. Outside of student teaching, I've been in a very pro-reading bubble, haha.

As someone who is always day dreaming with my head in the clouds I admire people who are strongly grounded in reality. It sounds like a rare and difficult trait to have.

If someone said this to me it would be the same as if someone told me "I dont drink or smoke pot because relaxing your brain temporarily is useless". It's an experience they dont wish to partake in and I wont hold that against them

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Originally Posted by Jinx

I 'think less' of non-readers, but it's more just that I have a hard time relating and being friends with someone who doesn't read. It's really only because I read SO MUCH and it's such a big part of my life that if I can't discuss books with someone, it's difficult.

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I actually feel this way about a lot of the forum. I feel like the books I read are wildly different from the books you and most of the other bookworms in The Lounge read. I don't mind though! :)

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Originally Posted by The White Wizard of Fynn

Now, I'm not taking issue with the fact that someone limits themselves to one genre, I just find the argumentation of "it's made up therefore invalid" quite offensive. Like, on a personal level.

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I understand where you're coming from, I guess it still doesn't bother me though.

Now if someone started saying this about my favorite video games, on the other hand... :irked:

That would be the moment Pike evolves into Skynet.

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Originally Posted by Quin

That would be the moment Pike evolves into Skynet.

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:onoes:

*looks at Pike's sig*

... Remind me not to talk about FFX with her.

I came out of a thrift store yesterday with six fiction novels. All science and magic. I figured I need more material to draw from to help flesh out my own stories, since currently "awesome point A" is connected to "epic point B" by "tedious line 1."

I don't read much fiction for very different reasons, largely because I don't want it to affect my style too much. I'd rather find my own voice than try to emulate another writer but also, I find that when I find a new show or concept that it sometimes creeps into my own writing subconsciously, and I have issues being accused of plagiarism when I really didn't mean too. So I used to limit what I read with fiction. Nowadays I've kind of gone 180 on that front cause I realize that my own writing has suffered because I don't familiarize myself enough with how other authors write and thus I second guess myself too often about what is "acceptable".

Until people actually visit the depths of the ocean, swim into the sun, warp out into deep space, send their minds into the congested infoverse of the internet, or experience physical contact with God, I'd say pretty much anything that can be written about has been written about, the end result being that the snare of plagiarism is pretty difficult to elude. There are only seven types of story, only twelve character archetypes, seven versions of the Hero... what can be done and avoided being done has been... they're called tropes and there are multiple websites devoted to them. There will always be those who cry plagiarism but just a handful of those would be legitimate claims. The only alternative would be for all record of any story ever to be deleted and have every human have amnesia.

I never heard the statement and would probably ask what they watch on TV. If the answer is anything that qualities as fiction I'd politely note the flaw in their thinking. I just think it'd be silly to denounce all fiction as stupid if you're still technically exposing yourself to fiction in a different medium. It's like when people who watch reality TV complain to me that wrestling's fake.