TECH: Are Fiction and Non-Fiction Different?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 18:35:01 JST

Gwanda D. Newcomma took a hesitant step into the room. She shivered, looked at her feet, then whispered, "I.. I write non-fiction, and wondered if you could tell me about fic..fiction?"

John T. Wordschmitt grinned, hand stuck out firmly, and arm reaching for her shoulder.

"Why, sure! Call me Jaunty, everyone does! Fiction is real different from non-fiction, but hang around and try it, you'll like it."

Gwanda took a step back. For a moment, she quivered between the quiet safe world outside and the inane mumbling behind John. Then a weak smile touched her lips as she touched the tips of her fingers to the hand still sticking out in front of her.

"Do you blast every newcomer with a bold hello?"

John laughed.

"Only the ones who ask hard questions, like what's fiction. Look, why don't you try a romance to start, they're sweet and pretty easy. Then we could do a collection together, if you want?"

He dragged her further into the fantasy, the twirling shining milieu of fiction, slowly separating her from the facts that held her tied to reality until she began to dance the stately pavane that twisted madness into profits. He wondered if she would hate him when she realized he was that most despised creature, an agent, a bloated parasite sucking 15% from those he infected with the artistic bug...

[stop, stop... what was the question?]

A while ago, a newcomer to the list mentioned that they had written non-fiction. Someone welcomed them with a comment to the effect that non-fiction and fiction are very different.

I didn't say anything at the time, but I have been pondering that assertion, and wondered whether the rest of you find it as questionable as I do.

Let me go back to (roughly) Shannon's model of communication - one person has some notion, perception, etc. They encode this in language (skipping lightly past the difficulties of that process) and transmit the result. Another person hears, reads, whatever the transmitted result. They, in turn, decode the message, reconstructing something which they think corresponds to some extent with the original notion or perception.

There are stylistic and other techniques in the encoding process which are more often found in fiction or non-fiction writing. However, in thinking about those techniques, I really couldn't pinpoint any which could not be used in either field.

There is, of course, a difference in the topic or content - non-fiction, by convention, is supposed to stick rather closer to facts, while fiction to greater or lesser extents involves deliberate use of non-factual material. But, and I think this may be the critical point, only the writer (and on occasion some witnesses to the events being described) knows for sure whether or not something is factual or purely imaginary.

We may suspect that there is no Moriarty lurking in the criminal sewers of the world, but especially if the writer does a good job, we may be quite suspicious that this person might be real (not merely willing suspension of disbelief, but strenuous misleading of belief...). We may not want to believe that the President could mislead and deceive in a Watergate, but the descriptions and tales are simply too convincingly real to ignore, and the correspondence with facts overwhelming.

Take a newspaper story - a stylized format, and conventions that sometimes try to keep it "objective". Yet when we read the piece about an accident at 4th and Vine, is there anything beyond those conventions that assures us that this is non-fiction? There is the common assumption that if someone besides the author were to check, there would be marks on the pavement, people in the hospital, police reports, etc. to match the description - but what difference does that make to the writing?

Or take a fantasy story - "clearly" fiction, and again with certain conventions for presentation. Suppose that we were to check, and find that the author had suspicious dealings with rather ill-defined critters in the garden at midnight when the moon is dark? Suppose, indeed, that the events and scenes were no more than simple fact. Would this destroy the writing?

I will admit that the style of presentation - scenes, point of view, etc. usually used for fiction and non-fiction are widely different. But I don't see that they must inherently be different, and in some cases it may be quite effective to borrow the style of the other sort.

One nice aspect to fiction is that when the ending isn't what we wanted or the character doesn't say something well, we (as writers) can and should change it. Non-fiction, at least as a mirror for the "real world," is ordinarily not supposed to alter what is "out there." Selection, arrangement, and so forth can allow the non-fiction writer quite a bit of latitude in molding that mass of facts into a piece, but the non-fiction writer isn't supposed to catch the criminal or force the ending unless that is what "really" happened.

Of course, this is no more than saying that non-fiction is supposed to deal with facts, while fiction deals in part or whole with an imagined reality which can vary from the facts (although it can also match them as closely as you want...).

BUT - does this question of correspondence with "reality" change the writing? I think in either case (writing about "real" events or "imaginary" events), the problems of clearly showing the scene, characterizing participants, bringing out a problem and solution (conflict), keeping the reader's interest, and so forth are identical.

Where, then, is the difference in non-fiction and fiction? Anyone feel up to explaining?

[oh - Gwanda and John T. had a brief, but meaningful, romance. She taught him that love, not money, makes facts wobble and words spin, and they wrote happily ever after ... and that's the truth!]

TECH: More Fiction than Fact

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 18:35:02 JST

Gwanda D. Newcomma seems to be enjoying her dalliance with John T., and has pretty much decided this war-torn little piece of turf is worth a longer look, but the question remains - how does she cobble together a fiction story?

Let's see - there's the notion that the fiction writer, even more than the non-fiction writer, is dealing in some sense with a general event, using words to mirror reality with a twist and a warp and a little brighter light than might have been there before...mimetic copying of the appearance of reality for entertainment, play, or some other reason (I'll skip the bugs doing it for protection from predation, as I don't think writing protects as much as it reveals...).

So perhaps the simplest way to start is to take a factual story, a true-life event, and add a few twists? E.g., instead of having the criminal get away with whatever they got away with, let the police be just a touch sharper, the D.A. a bit more persuasive, and so forth, and let justice wring the little chicken's neck?

Such thinly disguised variations on reality are certainly one approach to shifting from non-fiction to fiction writing, and are fairly common in the marketplace. One needs to be careful to change enough names and other identifying marks, or know quite well where the lines of libel and so forth are, but that's not too hard. Simply "abstract" from reality, taking what liberties one feels necessary with strictly factual events, re-creating the basic facts into a higher "truth"?

Gwanda's forehead wrinkles, her nose twists slightly, and the makeup on one cheek flakes badly as she twists her mouth with distaste.

"Lie? Not tell the truth about what happened?"

John T. pats her hand.

"Not lie, exactly, honey. Just a higher truth, not tied down to what happened, but feeding the desires and hopes of humanity. Now touch up your makeup, and let the fool dig himself in deeper, he's kind of amusing in his seriousness, ain't he?"

He digs out a breath mint and sucks on it.

Or, tying back to a thread that comes up irregularly, one could start with an old story and refurbish it - starting with the general event, then pinning it down with various bits and pieces of reality to build a new version. The nice part of this is that the writer has the skeleton already available, and all they have to do is convert it into their personal version - make the setting, characters, and so forth unique, perhaps throw in enough variation to hide the underlying moldy bones of the plot, but the general event is already one that is known and familiar to both readers and writer, an "Everyman" mythos where we are more interested in seeing how the writer keeps us interested and fills out the expectations than in having our expectations broken.

Gwanda winces, and pulls her dress around her legs.

"Parables? Does he mean fairy tales and stuff? Religious claptrap?"

John T. slides his hand along her thigh, then fingers idly the scarf she's wearing as a belt.

"Honey, he just means taking a pattern from somewhere and making it fit your own fine proportions and color sense. Like you've done with the black polkadot on yellow cloth here. Must be lots of women have that same pattern, but you're the only one I know that would wear a dress quite like this."

Of course, there also seems to be some power in mixing and matching - perhaps real people in a fictitious setting, or intertwined bits of a real event (conflict/situation/plot) with a fictional plot, and so forth. The parts of the story that tie to facts help reinforce the sense of belief for the reader, making the fictional parts easier to swallow. Perhaps a romance, set against one of the various wars or other pieces of unpleasant reality that we know too well.

Here's a "plotting" framework (from the Handbook for Mystery Writers, I think)...

1. What kind of story would I like to work on? What kind of experience, knowledge, etc. do I like to tell people about?
2. For this kind of story, what sort of person is good for a main character?
3. For this kind of story and type of character, what would be a good conflict or problem for him/her to face? What is s/he up against? What is s/he trying to achieve? What does s/he want so much?
4. What are the obstacles to him/her achieving their goal(s)? Who or what must be overcome?
5. Write one sentence describing the objective and the difficulties in the way.
6. Work out the middle - what kinds of peaks, valleys, detours, etc. are they going to encounter along the way?

A general event, I suppose, being slowly milled down towards being a specific event, but retaining the shape of that abstract ideal...

Sort of the reverse of the normal factual approach - instead of starting with a specific set of events "out there" and abstracting it into a more generic version, start with the general version and add facts to produce a specific set of events which may never have occurred in reality. Take "coming of age" - add individuals, setting, etc. - and tell the story of what happens, at least in the little "world" you've built in your head.

I'd suggest starting with at least two people, and probably three is better, and giving each of them goals, obstacles, and some reason for being together (the "crucible" - relationships, jobs, being trapped together, whatever forces these people to work out their salvation or damnation together instead of individually). But that's quibbling over the details of how to develop a specific event from a general notion, not really arguing with the general approach.

Gwanda lifts John T.'s hand off her waist and holds it.

"Do you think I should do it, John?"

He blinks, then looks up into her face.

"Well, only if you really want to, Gwanda. But if you do, I'll.. I'll help."

"Oh, John!"

She turns and runs to her terminal. He follows, limping slightly, tugging and pulling at his pants.

"Er.. what are you doing, Gwanda?"

"I'm going to write a story, of course. What did you think?"

He gets a handkerchief out of his pants and dabs at his forehead.

"Oh, that. Well, do you need to do it right now?"

"Right now, John. That's the best time to start, isn't it?"

WRITE!
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