As against fictional, the novel is a realistic form. It represents the segment of life, in more or less approximate terms,which has been seen and experienced by actual men and women of a particular period.

Is reading a novel like travelling to a different world? The towns and villages, hold out as real places with their particular colouring and feeling. Yes,the emphasis is on actuality.

On the other hand, fiction denotes an immaterial object, a ‘creation’ of mind of a person gifted with an unusually inventive with powerful imagination. The denotes that the account presented in a work bears no relation to the reality of life as we know it- it is imaginative and more, it is fictional.