Something has been happening to the concept of 'fiction,' both in critical discourse and elsewhere. For a long time, this concept operated under commonly understood restrictions. It was used to refer (1) to a certain genre of literature; (2) to a certain aspect of literature in general-- the element of plot, action, or fable, including such constituents as character, setting, scene, and so on; (3) to any narrative or story containing a large element of invention. But recently, the concept of 'fiction' has undergone an expansion. Though still used to refer to the action or plot of literary works, it has come to be applied to something more: to the ideas, themes, and beliefs that are embodied in the action or plot. It is 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. Going a step farther, critics now sometimes suggest, by kind of tautology, that literary meanings are fictions because all meanings are fictions, even those of nonliterary language, including the language of criticism. In these most extreme flights, this critical view asserts that 'life' and 'reality' are themselves fictions. When the author says that something has been happening to the concept of 'fiction', he means that the concept of 'fiction' ______.