People often tell me that I need to get my nose out of a book and go explore the real world. I don’t quite understand that, because I think that I do experience the real world, through fiction. A work of fiction can tell as much about a society and culture as experiencing it, if you find the right book. Many aspects of a community can affect the way someone writes, be it either fiction or nonfiction. An author’s influence can be seen through their writing, and can say a lot about the society and culture that the author lives in. People can write about civil rights issues in their community, and about recent events that caused a great change in the way people think. They can write about both the darkest and the lightest parts of a society and it’s culture, and it all depends on what influenced the writer the most.

Though reality can show an influence on books, books can also show an influence on reality. Many books influence the way people think and approach problems in their real life, and can cause a boost in the economy from theme parks to parades based off of books. Many books, especially works of fiction, show a conflict which someone or something needs to conquer. These conflicts, whether real or fictional, can show readers how people with different perspectives may solve an individual problem, and influence how people manage problems in the real world, through basic problems to court cases. Books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin  which inspired many people to think about slavery and had a great influence on the civil war, show great influence on culture and civil rights movements in the real world.

Books show influence from both reality and fiction, though I believe that the greatest aspect of books in reality is how much books can tell about individual people and how they think.  A real, living person put those words on that page, poured their soul into a piece of literature that would say more about them than any conversation could. Reading a person’s favorite book can say so much about who that person is. Their hopes, dreams, and fears can be found in what they enjoy devoting hours to reading. I believe that fiction shows more about people than any conversation can. There is nothing that can show more about a person than what they devote their time to reading and learning. Fiction is the greatest form of reality that can exist.