Definition of "fiction" []

• An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented. (noun)
• The act of inventing such a creation or pretense. (noun)
• A lie. (noun)
• A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact. (noun)
• The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Humans are also preoccupied by fantasy & fiction of all types, even especially? knowing that it is *fiction*, we do not have to hypothesize a platonic realm to explain that..."
• "BUT, where it gets distracting for me — and IMO bad for commercial fiction — is where the *commercial* aspect outweighs the *fiction* aspect."
• "The story is fiction or fact -- if _fiction_, why has it not been nailed to the wall?"