Realism comes from the word "Real". Let's say the things you see in "everyday life". You don't need a proof to believe a bee stings or a dog barks. Realism is, in the broadest sense, simply fidelity to actuality in its representation in literature... In order to give it more precise definition, however, one needs to limit it to the movement which arose in the nineteenth century, at least partially in reaction against Romanticism, which was centered in the novel, and which was dominant in France, England, and America from roughly mid-century to the closing decade, when it was replaced by Naturalism. In this latter scene, realism defines a literary method, a philosophical and political attitude, and a particular kind of subject matter. Realist authors especially write about history, politics or biografies.

Employing the term "metafiction" to refer to modern works that are radically self-reflexive as well as to works that contain only a few lines of self-consciousness creates ambiguitity. In her review of Patricia Waugh's METAFICTION: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SELF-CONSCIOUS FICTION (1984), Ann Jefferson argues that "the trouble is that Waugh cannot have it both ways, and present metafiction both as an inherent characteristic of narrative fiction and as a response to the contemporary social and cultural vision" (574). Other theorists often employ the same double definition of metafiction, which makes it difficult to know whether his or her definition refers to contemporary metafiction or to all works containing self-reflexivity. John Barth contributes a short blanket definition of metafiction as being a "novel that imitates a novel rather than the real world" Metafiction attempts to blur the line between fiction and reality. In metafiction authors often break out of the narrative to address the nature of what they are doing in the novel.

Fabulation is the opposite of realism, the act of inventing or relating false or fantastic tales, any story related to human's imagination. This term "fabulation" was popularized by Robert Scholes and William Gass, Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme are some well known fabulators.

"Speculative fiction is not fantasy fiction, as it rules out the use of anything as material which violates established scientific fact, laws of nature, call it what you will, i.e., it must [be] possible to the universe as we know it. "- Robert A. Heinlein. Speculative fiction is a term, attributed to Robert Heinlein in 1941, that has come to be used to collectively describe works in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. But if we already have science fiction, fantasy, and horror, then why do we need to muddy the water with yet another genre description? Because speculative fiction addresses fiction that includes Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Fantastic Fiction. It also may include other genres, such as Mysteries, Alternate Histories, and Historical Fiction. Speculative fiction can be a collective term to describe works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror and also addresses works that are not science fiction, fantasy, or horror, yet don't rightly belong to the other genres.