Although both fiction and essays use the same language, grammar, and punctuation, they are different in almost every other aspect. When writing fiction, it helps to approach the writing with an entirely different mindset because the end result has an entirely different objective.

Essays are designed to show a fact or opinion and any associated reasoning. Essays and other written reports are supposed to convey the information in a logical order so the reader can understand in as efficient process as possible. If you desire to communicate technology, science, math, financial information, philosophy, and so forth, then the standard process and format work well.

Fiction, though, has a much deeper meaning than essays. Fiction lets us explore thoughts, feelings, relationships, quandaries, conflicts, and outcomes. Fiction aims to effect a person’s soul.

When writing fiction, you start with a story, not with facts. You define characters, including their strengths and weaknesses, mistakes and successes, goals and desires. The first drafts are more complex. Your thoughts are like the glimmers in the distance over a desert, swirling and blurry and changing. Because the story is far more fluid than simply presenting facts, the process itself is far more fluid.

In the end, a person can become more knowledgeable and increase their skill by reading an essay. Essays are therefore written using as close to pure logic as possible. But people are moved in their soul by reading a great story. Fiction writing will require logic but also emotions and fears and expectations and so many other things. Approach fiction writing using all you are, pour everything within you into the writing, and you’ll find it’s not just more rewarding for your reader but also for you yourself.