Thinking about how these disciplines can inform each other

I read something recently that jolted my suspension of disbelief and dropped me right out of the story. Thinking about it after I send the book on its way, it occurred to me that there was a deep similarity between certain elements of fiction writing and those of scientific writing.

Basically in both of them it is important to present your evidence before your conclusions.

The Scientific Method

Maybe I should start with some background.

In a very simplistic form. When you make a new discovery in science you communicate it to the community by publishing a research paper in a scientific journal. These papers have a very specific format that is designed to tell other scientists everything they need to know about your research, in such a way that they can assess its accuracy and integrity. The basic structure includes an introduction, methods, results and then discussion.

Introduction

The purpose of the introduction is to answer the question – why did you undertake this research? You look at that is known of the subject and highlight where the gaps are in our understanding. Then (and this is the most important part) you present your research question.

The key part here is that the research question should be really specific – not what causes cancer, not even, does this specific thing cause cancer, but does this very specific thing show an increased risk of cancer. The question almost implies how it should be tested. It is also important to note that the question is phrased to have a yes or no answer. That is called a hypothesis. If it cant be phrased as a yes/no then you don’t have a clear question and will probably not have a strong research design.

Methods

This section deals entirely with explaining – in detail – how you tested your question. It must have sufficient detail that other scientists can go and replicate your entire study.

I know that sounds bizarre but people do this, where the results sounds unlikely or illogical. It’s a key part of maintaining academic rigour and has resulted in the discovery of all kinds of frauds.

Results

This is the meat of the paper – what were the outcomes of your research? Here you are expected to put the findings that support your hypothesis, but also the ones that don’t, and even the ones that make no sense. It’s supposed to be comprehensive, objective and detailed. When you run statistical analyses this is where big charts with ALL the numbers go.

Discussion

And this is the fun part, it’s where the creativity comes in.

Because the results is just results, no explanation. Here is where you start to interpret. You draw together all the strands of data that support your theory and you try to weave a logical story that is scaffolded on your facts. You offer explanations for the bad results and justify why they don’t disprove your theory. This is where you both show and explain why you were right in the first place.

Evidence Before Conclusions

Do you see where where science writing and fiction writing converge?
In science writing, you present the data in such a way that the reader has the opportunity to assess its validity, they are looking at it and thinking, yes that tracks with the hypothesis, and oh I know what could have caused those anomalies. And so on.

When writing fiction you need to follow the same structure. You need to give the evidence to the reader before drawing the conclusion. ‘Cos if you give them the conclusion first, the reaction will be disbelief.

Doing it the Wrong Way

Imagine a romance. You have a character who is prickly and antagonistic and malicious. He’s been nothing but an arsehole to the gentle giant character for several chapters. Finally the giant has reached the end of his tether, where even knowing the prickly character’s nastiness is rooted in trauma is no longer enough to justify his behaviour.

So now its time to melt the ice. We go to a scene where our characters go on a low key adventure, narrated in the prickly character’s POV. From his perspective we see him finally starting to relax and enjoy himself, to feel more like himself. Sweet.

In the next scene we switch to the giant’s POV, which starts with him musing on how the prickly character is quite sweet really. And my first thought was based on what? There follows a long internal monologue of the giant’s observations of the other character being not-an-arsehole. But the problem is my brain is still stuck at the conclusion and the unlikelihood of it. None of these retrospective justifications feel believable.

Do you see what the problem was here?

By providing the conclusion first the author broke my suspension of disbelief, I don’t believe the evidence, because I have already decided that the character has nothing to base that change of heart on. And like all people I don’t want to have to change my mind. The romance is never going to feel heartfelt because I’m always going to believe the giant has the perceptive skills of a rock.

Don’t put your conclusions first

How do we avoid this? Well, you need to consider your structure and POV choice. In this case it’s the giant’s observations that will lead to him having a change of heart, and it was his POV that was needed. It would have been emotionally much more rewarding for the reader if we could have seen the evidence in real time – without discussion/explanation. That would have given the reader the opportunity to assess what it meant for themselves and lead them down a path to the same conclusion. That is the power of immersive writing.

I think the question to ask in your writing, when working with multiple POVs, is who gains the most emotionally out of this scene? Who is most affected by this plot point?

Or, if we do need to stick to a retrospective storytelling device, then the conclusion and the change in attitude need to come at the end of the reflection, not the beginning.

Science vs Fiction Writing

The thing they never taught us when I was studying science was that good research is also a narrative journey. The principles of fiction help us do better science and the principles of science help us to write better stories.