Random thought

[unixronin]

What is the coefficient of fiction?

Comments

[fatcook.livejournal.com]

Paper

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

sqrt(-1)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Good answer :)

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

42

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

better yet, what's the coefficient of fan-fiction?
or slash-fiction?

[tomatoe333.livejournal.com]

Both of those are irrational numbers.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Depends on the matter, but it's proportional to the Normal force.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Do you have something rubbing you the wrong way? Is it static or kinetic?

[guppiecat]

It depends on the medium. So, are we talking science fiction, fantasy, historical, mystery, romance, erotica, etc?

Science fiction has a low coefficient, as things move more quickly within it.
Fantasy is somewhat higher, as evidenced by the occasional need to add impetus to the characters to get them to move.
Historical fiction occurred in the past, so the coefficient cannot be measured directly, and must be inferred.
The coefficient of mystery fiction is unknown.
Romantic fiction has a high coefficient, as it is somewhat sticky.
Erotica, by similar logic, has an even higher coefficient of fiction.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I started out about to reply that some of the classics must have an extremely high coefficient of fiction, since some of the "classic" authors can take three pages to describe someone drinking a cup of tea.

But then I thought, "No, that's looking at it all wrong."



Thinking more about it, I think a careful and accurate scientific paper would have a coefficient of fiction very close to zero. An accurate and unbiased historical account would also have a low coefficient of fiction, though not as low, because no historical account can ever be truly objective simply because no writer can ever know all the opposing viewpoints of the events in question.

Some fiction, such as historical fiction, current technothrillers written with an accurate technical background, and hard SF that really tries to get as much as possible of the science right, might have an intermediate coefficient of fiction — perhaps around 0.5, as they are all basically efforts to tell a fictional stories based upon truth. Surprisingly, many stock prospectuses may fall into this same range, albeit for different reasons; they are largely efforts to take objective truth that cannot be argued, and spin it into a promise of future riches that is largely fictional or speculative.

Higher up in the 0.7-0.9 range, we find fantasy novels and fairy tales, both of which make minimal concessions to any actual resemblance to reality. They're not intended to be believable in the first place. Most religious texts may also fall into this range.

At the very top of the chart, of course, asymptotically approaching 1.0, we find political campaign promises....

Afterthought

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

By coincidence, this model also gives much erotica a high coefficient of fiction — albeit for different reasons than yours ....


(oddly enough, right along with fishing stories.)

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

it varies depending on the surface structure of consciousness and the vector of information input.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Is information input only a vector? I'm not convinced it's that simple.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

no, but it has a vector. or several.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

It depends on how many dimensions in the vector. We don't need to be limited to three.

[bbwoof.livejournal.com]

Does the coefficient of fiction measure its verisimilitude, or its outlandishness?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Based on the discussion above, its outlandishness, I'd say. :)