From: shaun@octel.com (Ralph Neutrino)
Subject: Re: Reserach in Fiction
Organization: Octel Communications Inc., Milpitas Ca.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 00:46:18 GMT

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.  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 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.  

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.

Shaun. 
-- 
shaun@octel.com  ||  G is for Jesus

"We will buy Iron Camels from GoMotion
   Unlimited in Santa Clara California."