Not all students feel comfortable writing fiction, but many find it to be one of the most pleasurable of their writing activities during first semester and one from which they learn a great deal. In a course such as First-Year Seminar, the purpose of including fiction writing assignments is not to teach students how to write publishable short stories or poetry, although this may occasionally be the outcome. Fiction writing assignments in this kind of course function more appropriately to help students learn about a particular topic, issue, or concern. By creating a narrative or other fictional form which explores a topic from many different perspectives in dramatic or emotive shape, the student can interact with a subject in a powerful and effective knowledge-generating process. But there are other forms that fiction can take.
Fiction writing can accomplish many of the same goals as does non-fiction writing.
It can help a student understand why something has happened as it did or why individuals have acted as they have. It can enable a student to delineate in concrete real-life forms the potential outcome of existing actions, beliefs, and attitudes. It can help a student synthesize information. It can help a student learn about the arguments relevant to a particular issue. And it can dramatically demonstrate to a student the need to read more about a topic, to research in order to create a more believable fiction.