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Works of fiction are alleged to differ from works of nonfiction in instructing their audience to imagine their content. Indeed, works of fiction have been defined in terms of this feature: they are works that mandate us to imagine their content. This paper examines this definition of works of fiction, focusing on the nature of the activity that ensues in response to reading or watching fiction. Investigating how imaginings function in other contexts, I show, first, that they presuppose a cognitive infrastructure encompassing at least one additional kind of mental state, whose role is to determine, to some degree, truth in an imaginary world. I then discuss the implications for the definition of fiction, showing that the definition should be refined to accommodate the structure that imagining presupposes: a work counts as fiction just in case it mandates us, not only to imagine, but to engage in a more complex mental activity, an activity that in addition to imagining, involves positing a backdrop for our imaginings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes as its starting point the memoirs of a French sergeant who took part in Napoleon's Moscow campaign. After discussion of a number of war narratives from World Wars I and II, it brings out two features. The first is that the vast majority of these do not belong to the genre of fiction. The memoir form has been seen as more appropriate. The second feature is that the mode of narration used, both in fiction and non-fiction, has been that of literary realism, hence the title 'The Mimetic Imperative'. The paper goes on to discuss aspects of realism, such as attacks on it as being no more than 'reportage', the denigrating of the 'Reality Effect', and the 'Chaotic Fallacy', of assuming that the chaotic aspects of modern war can be replicated in a written text with war as its subject-matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]