When I first pondered an answer to the question "what is the difference between fiction and history?" I focused mainly on the standards for a history compared to the standards for fiction. History is often thought of as fact-based while fiction thought of as "made-up." However, my closing thought was that fiction can also have as many truths as a history might, in which case they would not be so different. In light of having read Doctorow's Ragtime, I agree even more with my previous sentiment.
I am not saying that fiction and history are one and the same, but I am agreeing with Doctorow and White that they are closely intertwined. A fiction does not claim to be constructed entirely by events that "actually happened." The reader is not put under any illusions that there is a fact somewhere to back up what the author is saying. In Doctorow's essay "False Documents," there is a closing interview in which he says "I don't take a vow to be responsible. I'm under the illusion that all of my inventions are quite true. For instance, in Ragtime, I'm satisfied that everything I made up about Morgan and Ford is true, whether it happened or not." This is an incredibly bold statement that Doctorow makes. At first glance it might even seem outrageous. Yet he touches on the idea that something can have truth whether or not it "happened."
It is part of human nature for our understanding of the world to be based upon our metanarratives. No one's reality is going to be formed by the exact same metanarratives, but there are some broader concepts and narrations that affect the perceptions of many. History certainly plays a large role in these metanarratives, but I would argue that fiction plays an equally substantial part. Who is to say what "really happened" when every story is multifaceted? Is giving a partial truth the same as a lie? Doctorow's novel is considered to be fiction but is based both on historical and fictional events. In a sense, it could be argued that everything is fiction. The way we understand the world is no different than how Doctorow writes Ragtime; built upon history and fiction.
Finally, the idea that our metanarratives are formed by both fiction and history brings up the idea that history itself is built upon fiction. Humans make history. Humans record history. Humans understand history based upon our metanarratives. Since our metanarratives come from a combination of history and fiction, history as we see it is also a kind of fiction.
With regard to metanarratives: to call these belief systems or worldviews "fictions" is not to say anything one way or the other about their "truth." It's simply to acknowledge that these narratives underlie and give meaning to any other stories we tell "within them." We inherit all kinds of metanarratives, and history is one (or many) of them--we don't choose our view of history because we've satisfied ourselves of its correctness or accuracy, but because other stories we hear fit into the larger picture/narrative. To call such a narrative "fictional" refers more to its structural logic and its function than its truth-claims.
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