From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: Reserach in Fiction
Originator: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:48:45 GMT
Organization: Dobonia


In article <1992Jul27.004618.14531@octel.com>, shaun@octel.com (Ralph Neutrino) writes:
|In article <BrqzL9.7pp@unx.sas.com> sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
|>So, of course, a story in which someone said "See you in 90 gigametres"
|>would be a good story if the author had done enough research to know
|>that this was a legitimate expression, but a bad story if he hadn't.
|>Or perhaps what we're learning here is that it isn't the scientific
|>facts that make for a good story, it's the writing.
|
|This has been said enough times to finally become annoying.  It is difficult 
|for lazy inaccuracies to make a story better.  It is easy for them to make 
|it worse.  Unless you are clear that you intend to be inaccurate or break 
|physical laws by introducing such elements as FTL drives, magic, or telepathy, 
|you run the risk of breaking the reader's willing suspension of disbelief.  If 
|you don't care much about what you write, or your readers, then by all means, 
|just finish up and start the next piece.  However, if you want your work to be 
|more substantial, to be something that part of your audience might want to 
|re-read several times (such as are the Bible, poems, and various prose 
|classics) because there is more than one reading's worth of discoveries to 
|make, then you should go to special pains to make sure your work is accurate 
|within the boundaries you have set for it.  

Why is it necessary to your argument to make the assumption that I,
and the others who argue that extensive research is not necessary to
good writing, are lazy, shiftless good-for-nothings who will introduce
obscenely annoying inconsistencies and bogus scientific assumptions
into everything we produce?  Let's look at the Bible:  lots of good hard
scientific research went into writing that, eh?  Shakespeare's sonnets?
The Ramayana?  The Iliad, the Aeneid, the Republic?  In more modern
times, what about The Catcher in the Rye, The Sound and the Fury,
The Alexandria Quartet, A Confederacy of Dunces, or A Prayer for Owen 
Meany?

Isn't it remotely possible that a writer who is both skilled and
talented in presenting the complex interplay of human emotions could
produce a work that had more than one reading's worth of discoveries
without ANY scientific facts whatsoever?  Can you say the same of the
reverse, a story composed entirely of accurate scientific facts without
any writerly craft whatsoever?  Such timeless works as The Periodic
Table, the Merck Index, and Ionic Equilibrium as Applied to Quantitative
Analysis leap to mind--could any such work be called fiction, or even
writing, rather than compilation?

|This is what writer's workshops and
|editors are for.  It is sometimes difficult to obtain good criticism, but no
|one should expect writing really good or great material to be easy or fast.  

I have both heard (from participants) and read (for example, in Harper's
magazine) the criticism of writer's workshops that they tend to produce 
literary co-dependents:  participants emerge writing like the workshop
writes, not like individuals with different and individual messages
to communicate.  And I believe that one can expect writing really good
or even great material to take exactly as long as it takes and be
exactly as hard as it is for each individual: that is, you get no 'A's
for effort.  To some it comes fast and easy.  Not me, by the way.  My
best work comes out very slowly, but without strenuous effort.
Perhaps with greater sweat I could write faster, but I doubt it.

This does not, however, bear on the research question.  I find research
even easier to do than writing.  I spent four years of college
researching some extremely esoteric topics of Greek and Roman
inscriptions, semantic analysis, and so on, without feeling that I was 
unduly stressing myself.  That didn't make the research bad, either.

|I really enjoy the work of Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, and Orson Scott Card.
|I have re-read many of their works, sometimes several times, and they bear up
|well under close scrutiny--not just because the characters, plotting, and 
|descriptions are done well, but because discontinuities, anachronisms, or
|inaccuracies are very rare or are presented up front as story elements.  

I like Niven and Card pretty well, but early on grew disgusted with 
Heinlein's cardboard characters and poorly-crafted dialogue.  Even so, I 
don't think you can put these writers in a class with Faulkner, Salinger,
and Durrell.  I find it hard to believe that they would class themselves
with Faulkner, Salinger, and Durrell.

|Producing good writing is both art and craft.  One cannot be simply a good 
|storyteller or a have a good head for facts and details; one needs to be both,
|(or have literary-minded friends that are.  :)  )  Personally, I have a lot
|of material that is almost finished.  It needs a tweak here, a new phrase or
|word here, or another critique or two by someone with a background in a field
|with which I am not familiar enough.  Pieces come out slowly, but when they do,
|I feel they are finished.  Sometimes I'll be working on another piece, or 
|reading a book when just the right word or phrase springs to mind for another 
|piece; similarly I might find out a fact or theory I need while I am working on
|something completely different.  For instance, I was working on a short-short 
|story about cross-cultural cooperation that was simply not working.  No matter 
|what I tried, it was sentimental or too verbose or laboriously obvious.  I 
|shelved it.  About two weeks later, I was singing in my chorus class when it 
|suddenly occurred to me that I could use a 4-part chorus as a vehicle for what 
|I was trying to communicate.  I immediately lost my place in the song, but when
|I got home, I rewrote the whole story (it didn't take long, an advantage to the
|short-short format,) and left it when I got stuck again.  I had to wait several 
|more weeks for an experience with counterpoint and an article on digital sound
|before I got over the next hump, and now I'm waiting on a problem with a few
|points of phrasing.  It's almost done, I can feel it; when it is finished
|(now that I'm thinking about it, maybe tonight! :) ) I know that it will be the
|piece I want, not something dashed off and incomplete, full of inaccuracies
|and poor syntactical choices.  If I hadn't waiting for the knowledge on 
|harmony and sampling to crop up, I feel the work would have been less than 
|worthy of having my name on it.  I've shown it to several people, including
|some long-time singers, and one pointed out what I thought was a small error
|that my friend assured me was serious.  It was easy to fix, though, and I was
|glad to do it, because I care about my work.
|
|In short, saying "It isn't the scientific facts that make for a good story, 
|it's the writing," is wrong.  Accurate scientific facts are part of the writing
|that make up a good story.  How much do you care about your writing? If there 
|are economic considerations that make it necessary to skimp on the research or 
|rewrite process, I may understand, but dismissing accuracy as unimportant is as
|bad as dismissing poor dialogue, out-of-character actions, plot holes, or even 
|poor spelling, grammar, and diction in the final product.  I certainly prefer
|to read good fiction to poor fiction or mediocre fiction.

You give a good example of melding technical fact with real
story-telling.  Certainly good stories come out of specialized
knowledge, and specialized knowledge is sometimes the result of research.
(Often it is the result of experience.)  But I put it to you that your
story arose from specialized knowledge--you didn't set out to write
a story about four-part harmony, digital sampling, and so on--you
learned about those things, and they inspired aspects of your story.
If your story was a piss-poor effort before getting the facts right,
getting the facts right wasn't going to save it.  If your story was a
paragon of stroy-telling before getting the facts right, certainly
getting the facts right will increase the size of your appreciative
audience by some number of folks who would have realized you were wrong 
and lost interest.

I reiterate my original (and more calmly-arrived-at) formulation:
"research is primarily useful for making the writer comfortable enough 
with what he is saying that he can concentrate on doing good writing."
Of course, there is much art to realizing when you should be 
uncomfortable.  And I resent the implication that is is cheapness,
laziness, lack of care, or simple dismissal of accuracy that lead me to 
this conclusion.  Writing, and reading widely, have led me to it.  I 
certainly haven't attributed base motives to you or the others who tout 
research as an absolute necessity--why does this accusation of laziness
keep coming back at me from that side?
-- 
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |
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