Fiction versus Non-Fiction: They Don't Require the Same Skills

 

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    I am a very good technical writer (according to both sales and professional critics). I am trying to expand into the area of fiction — particularly novels. I find that the two have quite separate needs for skills. In fact, they require almost opposing skills (it is certainly possible for an author to be skilled in both sets).

Now, this newsletter is NOT meant to be a discussion of writing skills. There are many good (and great) books on that. Stephen King’s “On Writing” is one of the best in my opinion. Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the Art of Writing” is another very good one. There are others that specialize in a particular type of writing (screenplays, children’s books, mysteries, etc.) This newsletter does not substitute for any of those. It is an attempt to call out the skills needed for each type of writing.

What is the purpose of a book? In the area of non-fiction, it is to help you to learn about something — to impart knowledge from those who already have it to those who want to learn. In the area of fiction, it is to create a world. This world will have characters (humans, feline, aliens, …) and an environment (physical, emotional, spiritual, … space). And something will happen with those characters in that environment.

I would further divide the realm of non-fiction writing into the areas of technical and explorative non-fiction. In both areas, the writer wants to convey information. In the technical area, a desire for clarity and conciseness is needed. The writer takes a broad area of knowledge and passes it along to the reader in as few words as is needed to give the reader adequate, accurate, information. If you asked a reader to give a book report on the technical book, there would be a rephrasing of the topic of the book but a summary would be difficult as the content is already a summary of the information.

Explorative non-fiction takes a topic and tries to arouse the interest and enthusiasm of the reader. Once upon a time, that might have included made-up dialog and scenarios (especially for biographies). Now, such additions may relegate the book to the fiction shelves. Still, by proper imagery and description, a book about an event in the past can be inspiring (or heartbreaking) to the reader. In this case, a summary would be possible but you would lose the “atmosphere” of the presentation.

On the other branch, fiction takes an idea and expands, expands, expands. It creates new environments, characters, situations, interactions, and “Plots” (which are really “just” interactions between the other elements). A very brief idea can be expanded into a novel or even a series. And — for that infamous book report — it can be condensed back to that original seed of an idea.

Conciseness and clarity versus expansion and imagery. These are very different skill sets. There are also different ways to present fiction. It is possible that those areas of conflict are set up by a problem, or by nature (surviving an earthquake or a crash on Mars) and the book unfolds, piece by piece, as the protagonist solves the problems that she, he, or they, encounters. Many of the early science fiction books (by scientists, and authors, such as Lester Del Rey or Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke) are of this nature.

But, it is also possible for the protagonists to create their own problems. They do this by making errors of judgement, misunderstanding each other, not speaking when they should, or speaking without thought when they shouldn’t, and so forth. If you have ever watched a movie, or read a book, and said to yourself “why didn’t they just do X — then they never would have had all of these problems?” then you have answered your own question. They did “X” so that they would have the problems to solve. This type of book (or movie) is much more prevalent in the marketplace now. I suspect that it is because of shrinking attention spans. It is necessary to have more problems, within a shorter span of time, to solve in order to keep the interest of the reader.

I can write clearly and concisely. I can also present a succession of solutions to problems leading to a desired end. I am not nearly as good at creating the characters, imagery and general world as I would like to do (but I tell myself I am improving). I am horrible at getting the protagonists to do illogical and counterproductive things. This is probably because, as an “engineer”, I am used to working to find solutions and not in creating problems.

So, writing a book requires different types of skills. Contraction or expansion. Clarity or Imagery. Possible to be great at both but, similar to spectrums of intelligence or personality traits, people are likely to be better at one end or another. How do you approach descriptions? Do you expand or contract? Do you have a conclusion in half a dozen words or do you have a chapter’s worth of wallpaper, roses, and carpets giving a world in which to base your ending?

Polls and Surveys: Not often a many-splendored thing

     As mentioned in my 300th blog, this blog is transitioning to a substack newsletter format. If you would like to continue getting my blogs/newsletters, please click here and sign up for a free subscription (if you have money to spare, you are welcome to get a paid subscription). Thank you for reading these. I hope they are of interest, and will continue to be of interest.

     It seems that election season is usually the time for a plethora (so many that a person gets sick of them) of polls. Surveys happen all the time, for many reasons, but polls usually happen for elections. Why? Polls are aimed at the future. What do you want to happen in the future? Do you want a nuclear power station in your town? Do you want to vote for Candidate A or do you want to vote for Candidate B (occasionally the poll will be written such that a choice for “neither” is allowed)?

     A survey is more of a gathering of information about what is happening right now. Do you put on your left sock first or your right sock first (Japan loves surveys of this nature)? How do you feel about the economy? Do you think that your local new pattern of “100-year” storms every four years is caused by climate change? How many pets do you have at home?

     Like weather forecasts, it is often true that polls don’t get it right (surveys don’t also but that’s for a different subset of reasons). In fact, many times polls are used in the opposite manner. They are manipulated to create a desired output, recognizing that there is a “winner effect” where people have a tendency to change their minds in order to be part of the “winning” side.

     Even when a poll is not deliberately manipulated to give a desired output, there are problems.

1. The questions must be created such that there is no inherent bias or assumption

2. The polls must be filled out (or answered) by a representative group of people

3. The people answering must have full anonymity — otherwise they may not give their honest answers.

     It is more difficult than one might think to keep bias or assumptions out of questions. “How often do you beat your spouse?” is rather blatant (though I suspect it has occurred on more than one poll). “How bad do you think the economy is?” has the same inherent assumption (that the economy is bad) as the spousal question but may not be as obvious.

     Many polls are multiple choice. But desired responses do not often align completely with one of the choices. The potential answers often have their own bias and assumption. If none of the answers matches what is wanted as the reply then there is a choice — don’t answer or choose the “closest”. But if your desired answer is the opposite of all of the listed possible answers then no answer is all you can do — and the poll will not reflect your opinion.

     It is very hard to get a representative number of people. For elections, they not only need to represent the variety of people voting in appropriate percentages but they must also be people who are going to vote. Younger generations often do not use phones for audible conversations so a phoned poll will be out-of-balance with leaving out many younger people (hopefully active voters). Although becoming less a problem as the technology continues to be more established, older people may be left out of polls if the polls are done via online methods. So, do both. But then the “middle” group may be over-represented.

     Legal voters don’t necessarily all feel comfortable in thinking about more complex issues in languages other than their home language. But polls (and surveys) cannot be created in ALL potential languages and polls are more unlikely to be answered if there is any struggle to complete them.

     We have many different physical, economic, ethnographic, and other areas of the country. Each has their own history and perspective so all must be represented in the polls. Very difficult.

     Finally, anonymity. In many countries, honest answers can be dangerous if the answers can be attributed to specific people. But even in honest democracies, attributed answers may result in unpleasant results (such as being bombarded with pleas for election money) if the person can be connected with the response. The answer may not be private within the house (or other physical location) and there may be intimidation or pressure to answer in a way not truly desired.

     Surveys can have the same types of problems but, since they deal with current existing issues, can change without causing the “chicken and egg” situations.

     The bottom line is that polls can only be treated as potential approximations. Their results should not be used to guide a person’s actions or expectations. If the poll results reinforce your opinions then be pessimistic and if they are contrary to your opinions then try even harder.

Reality: Is made of perceptions

     There were five blind people who were led to an elephant. One person stood by the ear. Another stood by the trunk. One stood by the leg. Yet another was by the tail. The final one was next to the body of the elephant. What were their perceptions of the elephant?

     How would that change if the blind people moved around? What if one felt the tail and a leg, and another a leg and the body? They would have some overlap but would still perceive a different world for the elephant.

     Let’s let those people loose — let them move all around the elephant. They now should have the same amount to be able to feel. Do they have a complete picture? Well, we know they are blind so they will not know the color. They can only feel the surface, so they do not know what is beneath the surface. Even if they could feel beneath, they cannot necessarily understand what they are feeling or the interactions between the various things that they feel.

     What would happen if someone was deliberately trying to fool, or confuse, them? Perhaps they wrap one leg with scratchy sandpaper and another leg with silk. Would this change their perception of the elephant?

     Once upon time there was a mischievous god. They decided to create some discord. There were two rice fields separated by a ridge upon which people could walk without disturbing the plants. The god put on a big hat — blue on the left side and red on the right side. Walking along the ridge, people in the field on the right side saw a person in a red hat. People in the left rice field saw a person in a blue hat. Reaching the end of the ridge, the god turned around — making sure that his hat turned on his head as he moved. Now the hat had the red side on the left and blue on the right — but, since they were walking the opposite direction the same people in the fields saw the same color on the hat that was seen before.

     At the end of the day, the workers all sat down in the communal dining room and, not having a lot of different things to talk about, they talked about the person who walked along the ridge. One group was certain that they had seen them wearing a red hat. The other was certain that they had seen a blue hat. They argued more and more and starting fighting amongst themselves. And the god laughed to see what had been done.

     Each group was certain that they had seen all of the hat — so they were equally certain that they were correct in what they saw.

     Both the god and the persons who wrapped the elephant’s legs were deliberately changing what was presented to the people — causing them to perceive something that wasn’t part of the real object. This type of deception, or fabrication, can happen — and does happen based out of many reasons.

     Sometimes, like in the stories of this god, or the First Nation stories about Coyote, the reasons are not malicious. Sometimes, such distortion and fabrication are designed to promote a deliberately flawed reality for selfish or vindictive reasons. But, even without such deliberate distortion, our ability to perceive the entirety is limited.

     The ideal end goal for perception is to know everything (and recognize when information encountered is false). This is called omniscience — and no mortal (or AI) can possibly have it. Still, the greater the amount of accurate information that can be gathered, compared, and correlated allows a more complete notion of the reality of a subsystem or global entity.

     Given that omniscience is not possible for a human, there must be a reduction in the amount of information present. The first reduction is via access. If you cannot access information then you cannot process it. Search engines indicate that between one and four million books are published in English each year. I may read 200 books per year (my wife reads more). A very small percentage. At any given time, there is information (much of an entertainment nature) streaming, or being broadcast across hundreds, or thousands, of channels at a time. I can only actively watch one at a time. While there are choices as to what books I read and what channels I actively watch, I know in advance that there are many others that I will never access.

     Some people try to examine the maximum amount of information that they can -- and potentially reach a condition of information overload. This happens when so much information is accessed that there is no longer enough ability to access, compare, or evaluate the information. Trying to do the maximum is not helpful. Determining the optimum — the most that one can access usefully — is individual and often determined only after having done such.

     You have an optimum amount of information to work with. How was that information selected? First is access. Second is sensory gating — reducing the amount of information processed to prevent overload. The third is individual discrimination. This is where individual perception can start creating artificial realities. Such realities are externally inconsistent but may artificially create an internal consistency — a circular type of affirmation. It is done by choosing information based on what you want to be true. To a degree, this is the process of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias only allows additional information that reinforces existing beliefs or knowledge already integrated.

     We all have some degree of confirmation bias. Scientists often have confirmation bias where anything that does not agree with current theorems and hypotheses is tossed out. This is useful to prevent threshing (changing opinions or reactions back and forth quickly) but can also hinder the growth of science. Almost every new technology or discovery has to go through these hurdles — some quickly and some very slowly (with a lot of posthumous acknowledgements).

     Our reality is created from our perceptions. Our perceptions are based on a limited amount of information. A reality is closer to a universal reality (one that all agree upon) when information is broadly obtained and checked, correlated, and analyzed BEFORE being accepted or rejected.

     On a personal level, I try to read as many newsletters and articles from a global community. This helps to reduce national bias. I try to study history so I have some background to help me to understand the material. I listen to discussions created by people who both tend towards my perceptions as well as those that oppose my interpretations. And I still fail to have THE “correct” view of reality because of my limitations.

     But we can try — and that is all we can do. 

    As mentioned in my 300th blog, this blog is transitioning to a substack newsletter format. If you would like to continue getting my blogs/newsletters, please click here and sign up for a free subscription (if you have money to spare, you are welcome to get a paid subscription). Thank you for reading these. I hope they are of interest, and will continue to be of interest.