Something has been happening to the concept of "fiction",either in critical discourse and elsewhere. For a long time, __1__ this concept operated under common understood restrictions. __2__ It was used to refer to a certain genre of literature; a certain __3__ aspect of literature in general——the element of plot, action,or fable, including such constituents like character, setting, __4__ scene, and so on; and to any narrative or story contained __5__ a large element of invention. But recently, the concept of "fiction" has undergone an extension. Though still used to __6__ refer to the action or plot of literary work, it has come to __7__ be appllied to something more: to the ideas, themes, and beliefs that are being embodied in the action or plot. It is __8__ not only the events in literature that are regarded as fictive but the "message" or "world view" conveyed in the presentation of the events as well. And this is not the end of the matter.
Gone a step further, critics now sometimes suggest, by a kind __9__ of tautology, that literary meanings are fictions although all __10__ meanings are fictions, this critical view asserts that "life" and "reality" are themselves fictions.