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As a child, you’ve likely encountered an incident where you were scolded for daydreaming. While doing a task, you may often find yourself drifting into a world beyond reality… and boom! You’re cautioned to focus and drift back to what’s at hand. It can make you think as though imagination and daydreaming are wrong. Or, perhaps, it’s only because you were distracted from what you were doing.
After all, there is a beautiful world outside reality, and most people acknowledge this. It’s why literature continues flourishing, and movies are a staple in most households.
There are countless benefits of reading fiction and consuming a world outside the physical. For kids, this helps with their creative development. The exposure to good imaginative content will likewise foster the same capacity within them, sharpening their artistry. But what does this offer to young adults?
Are there benefits of reading fiction as readers grow older, or is it time to focus on adult books?
The Benefits of Reading Fiction for Adults
Compared to biographies, self-help books, or even religious materials, fiction as a literary genre is often looked down upon. There can be a lot of reasons for this, but perhaps the most significant contributor is that it simply isn’t deemed “smart.”
People enjoy watching fantasy and fiction, and maybe because of this, they believe it’s best for the genre to remain on screen rather than on paper.
Why read an often slow and grueling-paced story when you can watch its polished and shortened version? What typically takes weeks or days in novels can be summed up to an hour or so in movies, so perhaps, it’s only logical that adults, the audience to benefit most from this, opt for the latter.
However, most still don’t, and the reason is also simple: Reading takes them on a completely different journey. This isn’t to say that reading is superior to watching but, without question, there are benefits of reading fiction that can’t be found in the movies.
It Offers Autonomous Interpretation
One of the primary benefits of reading fiction is that it cultivates readers’ imagination more, especially when compared to watching movies. With the audience facing no imagery but printed letters, reading leaves them with more room to be as creative as they need to interpret the story how they wish it to be. Unlike movies that already put concrete faces to characters and structures to the setting, reading novels allows readers to beautiful the story how they like.
Sure, authors prefer to be as detailed about their world-building as possible. But they still also leave room big enough to challenge their readers’ imagination. The fundamental beauty and benefits of reading fiction is that not everything is spoonfed when it comes to interpretation.
Say, the book has dragons. This is a certainty to the story, something that will be unchanged in film or pages. But how these dragons look will all depend upon the readers’ preferences.
More Details, More Fun
While watching reduces the whole journey to a couple of hours, this doesn’t always improve things. Saving time may make the story concise, but this can also reduce the fascination the story offers.
In stories, the beauty is in the tiniest details, and the happy-ever-after usually doesn’t happen overnight. The first spark of romance is observed in the slightest change of behavior after an enduring build-up. The most triumphant event is best celebrated after the longest battles. For happiness to be more satisfying, people must hold onto a sliver of hope and question whether this will come. And more often than not, this sense of desperation is often overlooked when novels become movies.
Indeed, among the benefits of reading fiction, its emotional relief is why fiction or fantasy continues to be popular. It allows people to escape reality and the satisfaction that their routines may never give them. Hence, it’s only reasonable that, regardless of age, some readers opt for that gradual yet pressing satisfaction that reading fiction provides compared to the fleeting emotion found in movies.
Why Opt for Fantasy?
Fantasy is imaginative literature. While this is like every other fictional genre, fantasy differs from the others due to the elements in its stories.
Fantasy authors take on a responsibility to create a world unlike any other. They create characters bending reality and scenes challenging everything men know of. In essence, this is where all the benefits of reading fiction revolve around: its creative and imaginative nature.
Whether it’s a fictional tale that doesn’t veer away from a realistic portrayal of the world or a fantasy story, the genre widens people’s worlds, expanding their perspective from the mundanity they’re all accustomed to. If it’s escaping reality—the ultimate reason why most consume fiction—fantasy is the genre to read.
This is perfectly captured in the book we’ll feature in today’s article.
In a magical outdoor adventure book by Chris Cochrane titled Castle Forks, readers are taken along the characters’ riveting journey that challenges the bounds of reality. What started as a typical exploration in the wooded mountains becomes a heroic expedition, as the book’s father and son duo are invited to an invisible castle, where they’re forced to face an ancient enemy that desires to destroy humanity.
The story’s perfect balance of mundanity and fantasy instills within readers, young and old, the thought: “Supposed this would happen in my reality, what should I do?” The spontaneous shift between reality and fiction makes every reader believe in the possible magic that lies beyond actuality.
Castle Forks is a young-adult fantasy fiction that thrusts people into an unimaginable world that prompts them to daydream and wonder. It’s filled with vivid imagery woven through the author’s expert storytelling and captivating descriptions. Everything about the book, from its plot to how the author conveys it, is ideally crafted to a T.
It’s a compelling and thrilling adventure that doesn’t fall short on sentimental plot points and a moving character arc—the fundamental elements that make successful fictional stories.
If this has caught your interest, check out the magic that’s in Castle Forks. You can grab a copy of the book or visit the author’s website to learn more.
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