To write creatively, factual knowledge is added to make ideas work. To make pure fact accessible, some fiction is called upon. Faction is the mixture. A writer exploring an imaginary space ship needs to have facts to hand to make the fiction believable and interesting. When a drama or docudrama is made, people may know what a certain person did at a given time, like a crime, say, but not what was said before or afterwards. The artist adds the invented words to make the known facts believable and interesting to an audience. Faction is not confined to science-fiction, it’s widespread in literature, drama and film. To take one illustration: people know the bare bones of what occurred when a young French girl received a vision to lead her soldiers against the … Read entire article »