Are Possible Worlds Fiction or Non Fiction

 I wrote a paper a couple of decades ago on different kinds of truth. I wrote the paper because most people see truth as statements about the material world that actually correspond to the real world. Philosophically, there are numerous theories of truth. The ones I am most familiar with are correspondence, coherence and pragmatic although there are others. You can Google Theories of Truth if you want to know more as I am not going to digress into that. I will say, for those interested, that I lean most heavily toward the pragmatic theory of truth.

Nonetheless, in the paper I just mentioned, I took a different direction on the ontology of truth. I pointed out that there are many kinds of truth including but not limited to: scientific truth, literary truth, and journalistic truth each of which has its own criteria for determining veracity. For example scientific method provides a means for establishing scientific truth. In order for a story to be true it must resonate with an individual's subjective experience of being human. So, this is the basis for literary truth. Journalistic truth has to do with checking sources and triangulating them. And so on. I also introduced another category of truth which I named (somewhat perversely) imaginary truth.  I will come back to that later in this post. But, I need lay out some background first.

 As I mentioned, most people see truth as statements about the material world that actually correspond to the real world. For example if I claim that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade, that is a true statement. If I say that water freezes at 100 degrees centigrade, then that is a false statement. Most people think of this example as the gold standard for truth. So, let's pick apart the gold standard before moving on to the silver and bronze standards.

Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade given several conditions. The water must be free of impurities. The device for measuring the temperature must be accurate. And, it must be boiled at sea level at a specific barometric pressure of 1 atmosphere. If you add impurities, have an inaccurate measuring device, or are conducting the test on Pike's Peak, the statement that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade is no longer true. So, this is not an absolute truth, it is a contingent truth. That is, it depends on the situation. Before leaving this example, let me point out that anyone who is stupid enough to jump into a vat of boiling water believing that it may not be 100 degrees centigrade will quickly go from idiot to boiled idiot. Often went we say that something is true, we really mean that it is true enough for our purposes.

My point here is that determining what is true and what is not true is a little trickier than one might imagine even in simplest of cases. Now let's look at some less simple cases. The example above is a truth from the physical sciences. They have rules for verifying truth. For example, you need to know why its true. In the case of the water, the heat excites the molecules until they get so excited that they escape from the water in the form of steam. Statement must also be falsifiable. You cannot say that water "likes" the heat as there is no way to prove or, more importantly, to disprove a statement like that. Finally, independent parties must be able verify the claim. I should be able to boil water with a thermometer and verify that it does boil at 100 degrees Celsius. So, this is the gold standard for truth.

 Social sciences are a little different. The phenomenon under study does not have a physical presence. Instead concepts are created and studied. This complicates matters because you are not testing things; you are testing concepts you have constructed. While social sciences  does attempt to draw validation from physical sciences such as fallibility and repeatability, the most important questions are: are the concepts designed correctly and are they useful in helping us understand social phenomena? So this is the silver standard for truth.

Moving to other areas where truth maters (the bronze standard) we can ask - what is truth in journalism; what is historical truth; or what is literary truth? Each of these has criteria for truth that is largely defined by the profession and I already touched on literary and journalistic truth. But, we can push this a little and ask what is engineering truth; what is aesthetic truth; or what is moral truth? I am not going to attempt to answer these because my goal here is only to assert that there are different kinds of truth and each has its own criteria for determining the truth status of an assertion made in that area.

This brings us back to the kind of truth which I call imaginary truth. An imaginary truth is a truth about a possible future. While a scientific truth is an assertion about the the material world and a literary truth is a truth about the human experience, an imaginary truth is an assertion about the future or an alternative world. The criteria for establishing an imaginary truth is that the assertion must be possible or believable and it must provide some insight into the target of the assertion. 

Literary stories are held to the standard of literary truth while stories written to explore Possible Worlds are held to the standard of imaginary truth. The goal of these stories is not to explore aspects of the human condition as is the case for fiction. The goal is to explore possible consequences of current conditions projected into the future. And the source of the stories is not what has happened as is the case for non fiction. Rather the source is the imagination of the writer projecting possibilities into the future. So, it is neither fiction nor non fiction. It is a different kind of story that requires a new name, perhaps Imaginary Non Fiction. Yes, I like that. And it is a little perverse as well.

Deconstructing Fiction and Non Fiction

In my previous post, I asked the question whether you should write fiction or non fiction. In this post, I am going to go a little deeper into that question and show how the answer is a little more complicated because understanding the differences between fiction and non fiction is a little more complicated.

A dichotomy, according to an online dictionary, is "a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different." I wanted to start with a commonly understood definition before picking it apart. We use dichotomies to organize and simplify our knowledge about the world. Common ones include: day vs. night, good vs. evil, black vs. white, hot vs. cold and so on. Dichotomies are handy and, at the extremes, very clear. For example, if the sky is black with twinkling stars, we are pretty sure it is night. If, on the other hand, the sun is overhead radiating warmth, we are pretty sure it is day. But, when did night turn into day and vice versa? The fact is that many, if not most, dichotomies are actually continua with exemplars at the extremes. We often make up names for points along the continua. For example, sunset, twilight and dusk are used to identify transition points between day and night. On the continuum from black to white we have dark grey and light grey along with any number of boutique colors such as off white, ivory, platinum, ash grey, battleship grey, and charcoal.

It is also worth pointing out that the definition says, "two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different". It does not say that they necessarily are entirely different. It only says that they are represented as being entirely different. That is to say that when we organize our knowledge, we choose organizational schemes to represent thing that have some utility.

Fiction and non fiction is a similar dichotomy. One would think that if something is fiction, it should be pretty clear and anything that is not fiction must be non fiction. But, things are never that clear. For example, we have historical fiction which is based on fact but enhanced with narrative interpretation and some literary license. And we have creative non fiction which is facts which have been enhanced to make them more interesting and/or more understandable. 

Wikipedia defines creative non fiction as follows, "Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as academic or technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact but is not written to entertain based on prose style. Many writers view creative nonfiction as overlapping with the essay." This is certainly a workable definition. But, if a scholarly scientific article uses a story or a narrative argument to explain something, does that move it from non fiction to creative non fiction? And if the move to creative non fiction is acceptable, just how creative are authors of scientific journals allowed to be before the article moves from being creative non fiction to just plain fiction. One of the problems we faced during the heat of the COVID pandemic was that scientific articles, news reports, blogs, and podcasts were appearing everywhere on the spectrum from non fiction to fiction. Some glaring examples occur when the virus is anthropomorphized. For example, if someone says that the virus prefers to infect the lungs, this humanizes it by suggesting that it has preferences. It doesn't. Talking about it as though it has preferences just makes it easier to understand.

The new journalism, defined in the 1970's by Tom Wolfe, employs creative non fiction techniques in journalism. If you wanted to understand New York in the 1980's you could read The New York Times (clearly non fiction) or Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities (clearly fiction). Which would give you a better understanding of the city? My opinion is that Bonfire of the Vanities gives the reader a much better understanding. So, which is more true, which more effectively conveys the reality of the situation, the newspaper accounts or the fictional book?

Another great example of this can be found in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle which was a fictional book that revealed the horrible conditions found in meat packing plants. It had such an impact that food safety laws were changed. Were these laws changed based upon information that was fictional? Similarly, Abraham Lincoln said that Harriette Beecher Stowe's  novel Uncle Tom's Cabin had caused the Civil War. Was the Civil war fought over a fictional account of a fictional character?

In fact, we can take a step back and ask - why do we have categories like fiction and non fiction at all? The answer is that it simplifies things for both readers and writers; and for everyone in publishing such as agents, publishers and booksellers. When a reader goes to the fiction area in a book store, they expect a story that has been made up. When they go to the non fiction area in a book store, they expect something that is largely based on fact. Is the fiction story based on reality at all? Almost certainly. A writer who spent his or her entire life locked up in a closet would not be able to write a fictional story that anyone would want to read. And a non fiction story without any literary or narrative embellishments would be dry as dust.

We refine these categories further in genres such as romance, mystery, horror and so on. This is also done to simplify things for readers and writers. Is it possible to write a book that is romance, mystery and horror? Absolutely? But, you risk confusing the reader, the writer and everybody in between. To be fair I should mention that there are some confusing genres such as historical fiction. Is it pure fiction or is it based on things that really happened? Well, it depends on the book, but few if any are pure fiction as few if any are completely based on things that really happened.

So, why shouldn't a writer stick strictly to the accepted categories and not confuse anyone? There are two reasons: 1) sometimes you can't say what you want to say without bleeding from one category to another; and 2) while popular fiction is highly respectful of categories, quality fiction is driven more by theme and message than category.

Before I wrap this piece up, I should get off my high horse for a moment. Categories are not altogether a bad thing. When I buy a Big Mac, or some Dunkin Donuts I do so because I know what to expect and the producers of these products deliver that reliably. There are several authors whose books I enjoy for the same reason. They may not be the haute cuisine of the literary world. But, they are enjoyable and entertaining. They keep people reading. And there is a lot to be said for that as well.

Should I Write Fiction or Non Fiction

 There are writers who focus primarily on fiction while other focus primarily on non fiction. How do you know which is right for you? I write both fiction and non fiction and although non fiction has dominated my past, I believe that fiction will dominate my future. 

Being an academic, you tend to focus on non fiction. I have published around four dozen scholarly papers, a couple of hundred book reviews, and the non fiction books I have written since retiring. However, I am slowly transitioning from non fiction to fiction. Eventually, I would like to see myself, primarily, as a writer of fiction.

This is a quirk of mine which I should explain. I spent the first two decades of my career writing software. (Writing software and writing prose, fiction or non fiction, have a lot more in common that one might expect. In all three cases, you are writing to achieve an end of some kind.) I got bored with software and moving into academia provided a much needed change with equally as much needed new challenges. It was almost like a change of identity. When I told academic colleagues that I used to be a practitioner, they were often quite surprised, if not stunned. I liked my new identity and the changes that came with it.

Then, as I approached retirement from academia, I wanted a similar change. I wanted to tell people that I used to be an academic and enjoy their surprised looks attesting to my identity change. To those people who have done the same thing for their entire career or, even, their entire lives I say "Hats off to you!" But, I could never do that. I get bored too easily.  

Non fiction requires research and an ability or organize your material in a coherent fashion. If you already know something, that will make it easier. For example, I had thought long and hard about the Meaning of Life before I decided to write a book about it. Similarly with Predicting the Future. The book I am currently working on - Writing Stories to Explore Possible Worlds - began as the germ of an idea when I was interested in Computer Ethics decades ago. It blossomed further when I decided to teach a class in Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology. I developed a lot of notes for that class and still there was a lot to be done. If you enjoy researching, organizing your thoughts, pondering elusive concepts and then explaining it all in reasonably simple terms, then non fiction may be for you.

I am on my fourth non fiction book, Writing Stories to Explore Possible Worlds, the foundation of which was developed when I taught the writing class which I just mentioned . I enjoy writing non fiction because like to learn new things. I like to organize my thoughts. And I like to explain things in (hopefully) simple terms. I have one more non fiction book in the current batch. However, this batch is based on ideas that I investigated while I was an academic. I have three or four more ideas on the shelf which will require a lot of research as I am starting them from scratch. We'll see how much I enjoy non fiction when I have to do a lot of research and then organize my thoughts facing a (self imposed) deadline.

I also like writing fiction. Back in the 1990's, when I was learning to write fiction, I wrote 3 1/2 detective stories. The first one (Identity) is available on Kindle and the second one (Spider) will be out soon (if all goes well). (Am I getting a little carried away with these parenthetical remarks? Probably. But I like making them.) Writing fiction is a very different experience, for me, than writing non fiction. You basically get to make everything up, although there are some boundaries on this. For example, your characters must be believable and your plot must make sense as a narrative argument revealing an important aspect of the human experience. Still, you have a lot of freedom. 

For me, the experience of writing fiction is a sublime experience. Personally, I like writing better than I like reading. I also feel like I learned a lot more writing fiction. For example, you cannot make your characters do anything they don't want to do. They will argue with you. The novels I wrote but did not publish back in the 1990's were written using what people call the pantser approach. That is, I wrote them by the seat of my pants. I would even say it was an extreme pantser approach. For, at least, the first one or two, I wrote a short chapter each week and sent it out to an email list. It is a high wire act. But, Dickens did it, and the writers of the many streaming series we have on TV today do it as well. My pantsing was not a high wire act like these, but I understand, to some extent what these writers must have gone through.

Recently, I decided to up my writing game from pantser to plotter and maybe even to designer. How this impacts the writing experience is hard to tell. It makes it sound like a lot more work. But, I suspect that, once you get used to it, plotting, or even designing, will work out best in the long run. I should explain what I mean by designing, but that would be a huge digression. So, for now I will say that it is more teleological than plotting in that it defines goals for the story. The plot, characters and setting are then created to satisfy those goals. I will explain that in more detail in a future post.

So, after all that, I think I can say that I am equally as comfortable with fiction and non fiction although I need to improve my skills in writing fiction in order to be at the same level. But therein lies, what I believe to be, the major issue most writers face when going back and forth between fiction and non fiction. They are likely to be better at one or the other. This could be due to more talent in one area or just more practice.

First let me point out the similarities. Both fiction and nonfiction require that you know something in order write. Both require that you organize your thoughts to make them coherent. Both require better than adequate writing skills. Both require that your writing has a feel of verisimilitude. Both allow the reader to learn something they did not know or reinforce something that they did know. 

Now, some differences. Non fiction is based on facts about the world. Fiction is based on the experience of being human. Non fiction must be more precise while (limited) ambiguity makes fiction richer.

Why do writers often feel that they are either a fiction writer or a non fiction writer? I think that one starts out, for what ever reason, writing one or the other. They get better at it with practice. When they consider switching, they already have knowledge and experience of the current style and hope to hop into the new style with the confidence, ease and knowledge they have already acquired from the first. Let's say they started out with fiction and decided to give non fiction a try. It may turn out that non fiction is really their strong suit. But, the edge experience gave them in fiction leads them to believe that they will never achieve that level of confidence and ease in non fiction. Any time you go from something you know to something you don't know there will be a learning curve. And the same problem occurs whether one is going from fiction to non fiction or vice versa.

But, the real problem with switching from fiction to non fiction or vice versa is that we think of fiction and non fiction as two independent (mutually exclusive for the most part) categories rather than poles on a continuum. Pure fiction would be something to which a reader could not relate as it would have no basis in the human experience. Pure non fiction would be dry as dust seemingly irrelevant to readers who are not, themselves, dry as dust and irrelevant. The question is not whether to write fiction or non fiction.The question is - where on the continuum is the writer most comfortable? And, if the writer wishes to try something a little different, the questions become - which direction on the continuum do you move and how far?

 If you are not convinced of this continuum idea, hang on. In the next post we will deconstruct fiction and non fiction providing further evidence that this dichotomy like so many others, (hot and cold, light and dark), are just linguistic conveniences which can be employed when they are convenient and dispensed with when they are not.

I Read, I Think, I Write

My trade name LegoCogitoScribo, (or LCS for short), is badly corrupted Latin for I Read, I Think, I Write. I probably don't have the tenses correct, but the roots are recognizable. I mentioned, in last month's post, that I really liked the concept of I Read, I Think, I Write and promised that I would explain why in this month's post. To be perfectly honest, having a trade name just makes things complicated and I would be better off just using my real name exclusively. Yet, I really like the idea behind I Read, I Think, I Write.

Let me go back to the late 1980's and early 1990's when I wrote my dissertation. I promise, this will be brief. When you write a dissertation, you must find sources for all the claims that you make. Dissertations are not the place for your own ideas unless they are conclusions at the very end. By the time I finished my dissertation, I felt like I couldn't even have a casual conversation without citing references for any claims I had made. Being a creative person with a robust imagination and a gift for making cognitive leaps, I found this stultifying. Over the next three decades and dozens of scholarly papers, I was very frustrated by editors and reviewers who completely lacked imagination and the ability to make reasonable cognitive leaps. I could go on and on about the importance of imagination and the ability to see more than what is right in front of you, especially in a time rapid technological change, but I will spare you that rant.

Lest I sound like a raving lunatic, of which we have far too many these days, I think it is important to have evidence in support of any claims that you make. Having said that, the word "evidence" is interpreted in a wide variety of ways many of which are counter productive while some of the productive interpretations are dismissed. What constitutes "evidence" is another rant entirely. So, let's get back on track with citations.

When should you cite something? Here is what The Author Learning Center says under Citation Best Practices for Non Fiction:

"The best practice for nonfiction writers is to cite any of the following material:

• Direct quote: Cite the reference whenever text from another source appears in your book.
• Paraphrase: When you rely heavily on another source, even if it's not a direct quote, you should cite the reference.
• Springboard idea: Include a citation for any idea or concept that you use as a springboard to develop your own ideas and theories.
• Obscure fact: When mentioning a fact that's hard for readers to verify, it's helpful to cite where you obtained the information."

 You can verify this at https://www.authorlearningcenter.com/editing/basic-editing/w/citations/6967/citation-best-practices-for-nonfiction

That is an appropriate use of citation. It is a quote from somewhere else. Even if I took their four suggestions and reworded them slightly, I should still give them credit. And I have let the reader know where I obtained the information. This is handy for me so I don't have to think of all the reasons why you should cite something. But, I also have some ideas of my own regarding improper use of citations that are my own thoughts. Solid citations enhance the credibility of the writer and provide pointers for the reader who may wish to dig a little deeper. This is all good, but the use of citations can be damaging if they are abused; damaging to the creation and dissemination of knowledge, that is.

First, a word about the environment in which "knowledge" is created.  In the past half century or so there has been a proliferation of dozens if not hundreds of new academic fields that range from "not ready for prime time but promising" to "pure crap''. To be kinder I should say that they range from nouveau to pseudo. To be even more economical, I am going to group these fields under a single term and call them wobbly. Some wobble only a little and will eventually become fully respectable. Some wobble so much that they will eventually wobble themselves out of existence. This growth in the number of new fields occurred due to growth in the number of colleges, growth in the number of students, and growth in the public's curiosity to understand all aspects of life as well as we understand gravity. Where is Newton when your dog dies or your girl friend leaves you for a better choice?

In this expanding industry of education, academics are under extreme pressure to publish. This is how knowledge is expanded in traditional fields. People do research and write papers while their peers in the field review the papers to insure that the contributions are legitimate. This is not a perfect system. But, it is not a bad system, unless you are working in a wobbly field in which case the quality assurance becomes as wobbly as the field if not more so. While our base of knowledge has expanded greatly, the base of not really knowledge has expanded much faster. How does this happen? Their are many reasons, but I am going to focus on two that are inextricably tied to citations.

1) People who publish papers abuse citations giving a false sense of veracity to wobbly papers. How do they do this? First, they do a search of any number of article databases to find papers relevant to their topic. Then they put the most popular ones in their bibliography. If they are bold, they may even cite a few of them in the paper. You can see this in statements such as "many researchers have expressed concern about..." [1][2][3], etc. They will rarely explain what the cited paper said and how it supports the author's claims.

2) Reviews are often more concerned with their reputation or the reputation of the field than they are with the quality or veracity of a piece of research. That is, they are more likely to approve your paper if it generally agrees with papers they have written and even more likely if you have cited one of theirs papers.

Once this bit of wobbly knowledge has escaped into the real world, people who have political agendas latch on to the results and present them to support their worldviews. Wobbly journalists who often have agendas of their own, take the baton of wobbly knowledge and carry it to the next step. They inform a wobbling public to reinforce their world views or to ridicule the world view of "the other". Second tier advocates take this baton to the next step and represent it as confirmation. At this point anyone who disagrees becomes dismissed as a denier.

To be fair, I should point out that all this wobbling is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it doesn't get too far out of control. There is no time in recorded history when we have had 100% certainty about anything. There is no chance this will happen in the future. We need our knowledge to wobble a little lest their be no room for improvement. We just don't want it to wobble too much. If it does, it risks shaking itself apart and being replaced by something different whatever that might be. So, we try to strike a middle path between an order that suffocates new ideas and a chaos that makes daily life a struggle. How do we do that? Well, we all just have to do the best can.

For my part, I try to earn credibility though my content. What I say is interesting or makes sense to you or it doesn't. I avoid references unless I feel they are necessary to show the reader where an idea came from. I write what I think. Others may not agree with what I have to say. And that is perfectly reasonable. But they cannot tell me it is not what I think unless they believe that I am joking or somehow being contrary. I read a lot, mull it over and write about my thoughts and reactions. Or, in short, I read, I think, I write. LegoCogitoScribo.

 

Getting Back on Track for 2022

 The second half of 2021 was dominated by exploring ideas, reflecting, soul searching and wrestling with several important decisions. As it turns out, this was all good stuff. However, I would take being focused and productive, over trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing, any day. Still, it is important to have periods of exploring and reflecting as a dedicated focus might just keep you going in the wrong direction. As it turns out, some fairly minor adjustments were needed to get back on track again. And it feels way better to be back on track. Let me explain.

Some time last Spring I decided that my non fiction work was going well after finishing three books (The Meaning of Life, Predicting the Future and The Ghost of Socrates). And, I was well on the way with a fourth (Writing Stories to Explore Possible Worlds). All was going well and I had learned a lot about the self publishing process. One of the downsides of learning a lot is that you realize what you should have done, and I was tempted to go back and fix everything. But, I decided to move forward instead.

I decided to spend the summer improving my fiction writing skills. I read and listened to many, many books on writing fiction, and many, many more fiction books. It was a productive summer and I realized that good fiction was within my grasp, but it would require some serious work. So, then, I had to decide whether to put the non fiction on the back burner and ramp up on the fiction writing, or put the fiction writing on the back burner and push ahead with the non fiction writing. I think that some day I will be able to do both. But, I am in learning mode now and focus matters.

In addition, sales were not going well largely because I had not done any marketing and had done nothing other than create this blog to create a presence on the web. This is not the Field of Dreams. It is not true that you write and readers will find it. They have to know about what you have written and they have to want to read it. This is a much higher standard. I needed to create more of a presence, which was another learning curve.

After, three months of anguish, thrashing, being in a slump, and wrestling with many decisions, I finally figured out what I needed to do. I will spare you the details of the thrashing and cut to the final decisions.

 I created my main website at DrJohnArtz.com . It tells a bit about me, for those who are interested, and lists my books with links to them on Amazon. I will also list the series I am creating on YouTube with links to the channel. This was a big improvement because it was difficult to explain to people what I was doing and where to find my stuff. 

One of the issues I had wrestled with was whether to use my own name, a pseudonym, or a trade name. As you can see from the URL in the previous paragraph, I decided to use my own name. Still, I really like the trade name that I used to name this blog (LegoCogitoScribo) and wanted to use it somehow for a lot of reasons that I won't bother you with now. I had also created a YouTube channel by that name, and had gotten a Gmail account and a Web domain using that name. None of those are reasons to use this trade name. But, I liked the concept of I Read, I Think, I Write. I will explain that in next month's post.

I decided to create a secondary website at LegoCogitoScribo.com where I would post book reviews of some of the books I was reading and really liked. I doubt that I will spend much time reviewing books that I was not that crazy about. There are a lot of really interesting books coming out lately on both writing and emerging ideas. I thought some people might like reviews and comments to help them decide which they might be interested in. Hopefully, traffic to the secondary site will draw traffic to the main site which will draw traffic to the books. Or, at least, that's the plan.

I have a main YouTube channel (DrJohnArtz) where I need to create some content as I have been creating content under a pseudonym. Fortunately, the pseudonym channel has not drawn a lot of traffic as it was really a learning channel for me to learn what not to do. Or, at least, it turned out that way. I plan to post a series for each of my non fiction books on my main channel. So, if you don't want to bother reading one (or any) of the books, you can watch videos on YouTube instead. Hopefully, traffic to the YouTube series will draw traffic to the books as well.

My secondary YouTube channel (LegoCogitoScribo) mirroring my secondary website and, using my trade name, it will have book reviews. Again, if you don't want to read the stuff you can view the videos on YouTube.

The fiction writing will go on the back burner for now but I will continue to read fiction and read books about writing fiction for the next year or two when I will bring it back to a front burner and see what I can do. 

Writing and independent publishing these days is like one person trying to put up a circus tent. It is possible, but it takes determination and persistence with a lot of learning and a lot of mistakes along the way.

Fortunately, it all makes sense to me now and I look forward to a focused and productive 2022.

How Stories About Future Possible Worlds Are Different

Let us begin by defining what we mean by "Possible Worlds" as this term can be very misleading in its most general interpretation. Certainly, any world that can, potentially, exist in reality or in one's imagination, is a Possible World. But, that is not very helpful as it would be difficult to conceive of an Impossible World. In fact, it one were to conceive of an Impossible World it would have to exist, at least, in their imagination. According to this general definition that would make it a Possible World. Hence, this path circles back into itself and we need to put some boundaries on it.

A story exploring a Possible World will focus on possibilities brought on by social policy, emerging technology or even current trends with possible consequences. The story is a vehicle for examining and evaluating outcomes. The protagonist is of secondary importance as the protagonist, if there is one, is there for his or her epistemological value in examining the possible outcomes. And the theme has to do with the ethical question being examined. Other major elements of the story such as the characters, plot or setting are chosen for their epistemological value as well. We could even say they are chosen for their probative value, although we are not trying to establish facts, merely possibilities.

In some ways, stories written to explore Possible Worlds are no different than stories written for any other purpose. Yet, in other ways, they may be very different. First, any technique, approach, or genre used to write a traditional story can be used to write a story exploring a Possible World. So, if you are already comfortable writing a particular kind of story, you can use that approach for a Possible World as well. But, the overlap does not end there. In Wired for Story, Lisa Cron points out "Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future." So, every story is about the future. In an earlier post I quoted Aristotle who said “it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen, -- what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.” (I provided it here so you wouldn't have to flip back.) So, a story, in general, is not only about the future but it is about a future that may never even come about. What is the difference?

The phenomenon under exploration is the impact of a social policy, technology or current trend. There may be other motivations for a story to explore a Possible World, so I will offer those as examples. What happens to the protagonist and those close to him or her is far less important that what happens to large groups of people whom we do not know personally. Hence, changes in the character arc of the protagonist are far less important than resulting arc of social and political changes. While a writer may extrapolate the impact on a protagonist based on his or her own experience, the impact on a possible world may not be (in fact probably won't be) anything the writer has experienced. Hence, it requires more imagination.

Writing stories to explore possible worlds presents a unique writing challenge. Writers may not be familiar with possibilities inherent in changes brought about by social policy or technology, while planners or engineers who might be able to envision possibilities may not have the writing skills to express them effectively.  A catch phrase you often see in books on how to write is "write what you know". This is a problem because nobody knows the future. So, it must all be done in your imagination. But isn't every story a product of the writer's imagination? Yes, but it is informed imagination. And Possible Worlds are based on informed imagination as well. If you know what has happened in the past, and you know what is happening in the present, then extrapolating possibilities that might occur in the future is a reasonable next step.

Writing a story to explore a possible world might sound like a daunting task. After all, just writing a story is a major challenge. Writing a story that somebody might read is yet a bigger challenge. And when you add the requirement that your story focus on a Possible World that may or may not lay in the future, it sounds like and impossible task. But, it turns out that writing a story to explore a Possible World can be much easier.

If you pick up a recent book on writing (or read one of the many series on writing) you will, almost certainly, encounter a concept called character arc. Character arc is the inner transformation of a character over the course of a story usually as the result of facing a conflict or crisis of some kind. Readers enjoy stories with a character arc because they identify with the protagonist and vicariously experience the forces that led to the change along with the accompanying emotions. They often wonder what they would have done in similar circumstances and may get some insight into their own character as a result. But, while character arc is an important element of many popular stories it is not a necessary element of every story. 

For example, in mystery stories, the most important element is the mystery and most hard-boiled detectives do not change a great deal over the course of the story.  Sherlock Holmes didn't change much. Neither did Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Lew Archer or Spencer. Still there are many wonderful stories involving these characters and readers like their consistency. Similarly, in series using the same detective, or the same central character, the protagonist may change slightly over the course of the series. But, readers don't read individual volumes to see how the protagonist changes. They read the individual volumes to see what the protagonist is doing this time.

Similarly, in expository novels such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the point of the novel is to reveal circumstances of which the reader may not be aware rather than to reveal inner struggles and the resulting changes in the protagonist.  This is much closer to a story exploring a Possible World which is also expository although it is exposing a possibility rather than a reality.

If you feel you need a character arc, you can try a simple one such as the loss of innocence character arc where the protagonist goes from a state of naivete to state of mature realization.  Here the protagonist starts out unsophisticated about the technology or emerging social pattern, but realizes its potential (good or bad) by the end. The protagonist is converted. They may even be converted to a different assessment of the phenomenon being explored. That is, they started out with a negative assessment and were converted to a positive one or vice versa. If you have written stories before, and are comfortable with more sophisticated character arcs, you are certainly welcome to make the arc as sophisticated as you choose. However, the goal of a story which explores a Possible World is to shed light on the impact and/or outcome of the Possible World, not on the psychological growth of the protagonist.

The recent work on the science of storytelling, some of which was discussed in earlier posts in this blog, points to the fact that readers like stories that resonate emotionally. And, certainly, a good way to invoke the readers emotions is by having them identify with the protagonist. But, it is not the only way. In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, it would be difficult for readers to not feel an emotional connection with the protagonist. However, it would also be difficult for the reader not to have an emotional reaction to the processes in the meat packing houses of the day where anything from rats to rat poison might end up in the sausage. In fact, it was the repulsion that readers felt in response to the meat packing processes that led to Federal Food Safety laws rather than sympathy for the protagonist.

Another way in which stories written to explore Possible Worlds may differ from more traditional stories is that several stories may be written to explore a Possible World from different perspectives. This is largely unprecedented in current fiction. Imagine if the view of the future presented in George Orwell's 1984 was challenged by Bob's Version of 1984 where everybody finds happiness in the new age of technology or Aaron's Version of 1984 where the new age of technology, even with its drawbacks, allows humanity to thwart a threat of some kind which would not have been possible without the technology. Maybe Sarah's Version of 1984 might see the technology being used to group or pair people with similar outlooks to reduce social conflict. Ah, but sadly, we never saw Bob's, Aaron's or Sarah's version because once 1984 was written, it because the only perspective we are exposed to.

So, to get to the point here, there are four main ways in with stories written to explore possible worlds are different: 1) they don't require character arcs; 2) multiple stories can be written offering alternative views of possible futures; 3) writing a story to explore a Possible world requires more in depth understanding of current circumstances and their implications; and 4) writing a story to explore a Possible World requires more imagination than writing a more traditional story that explores the human condition with which most of us are already familiar.

Wired for Story

In the last post, I introduced Lisa Cron's book "Wired for Story" as an exemplar of the third wave in the evolution of thinking about writing stories. I called this the Grounded Technique Phase because it not only takes a very structured approach to writing but it grounds that approach in recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. This is both good and concerning. It is good because writers will be able to design and construct more compelling stories. If you think of stories as the humanities equivalent of experiments (perhaps thought experiments) we can learn a lot more about ourselves by writing stories and, perhaps, follow on stories. (I am tip toeing into Possible Worlds here, but will tip toe back so as not to digress further.) 

It is concerning because writers who know more about how stories impact people will have a major advantage over readers (think propaganda and advertising). The food industry in the end of the last century learned a lot about what makes food taste good and that is why we have potato chips claiming, rightly so, that you cannot eat just one. What if stories were that compelling and that addicting? Would brainwashing replace obesity as one of our leading (mental) health problems? Just thinking out loud.

Earlier in this blog, I mentioned Will Storr's book "The Science of Storytelling" as an example of this emerging approach to writing. But Storr's book did not come out until 2020, eight years after Cron's book came out. Was Cron's book the first in the third wave? I really don't know, but I suspect it was.

Regardless, it is a well written, informative book and an exemplar for the Grounded Technique Phase. So, I am using Cron's book as a marker for this significant turn. What, exactly, is this significant turn? In simple terms, it is the integration of reader psychology (cognitive neuroscience) with storytelling techniques. You don't create a sympathetic protagonist because we think readers like a sympathetic protagonist. You create a sympathetic protagonist because the reader wants to feel what the protagonist is feeling in response to the events that are occurring in the story, specifically those events that affect the protagonist in a current area of vulnerability. It is all about the reader's emotional experience reading the story and the reader's ability and desire to identify emotionally with the protagonist. Nobody wants to read a story in which the protagonist is just fine.

At the risk of being simplistic, I would summarize the Grounded Technique in the following way. 1) You need a protagonist who is in a moment of crisis because there is something that matters to the protagonist which is not the way the protagonist believes it should be. 2) The reader must care enough about the protagonist to emotionally bond with him or her and feel what the protagonist feels as he or she seeks resolution to the crisis. 3) The writer must reveal important information about changes in the protagonist's condition on a timely basis so as to maintain the interest of the reader.

Sounds pretty simple. (Perhaps because I have over simplified it). But, how do you do this? Well that is what the book (Wired for Story) is about. Some of this is what some writers already know. Some is counter to traditional views. Some is clarified tradition views. And some involves mistakes that beginning writers make and could avoid if they knew more about what they are doing. I have avoided getting into any detail regarding the cognitive neuroscience which grounds this advice as the book does an admirable job of explaining this as it goes along. And, if you are interested, which you should be if you wish to write popular fiction, then you read this book at some point.

So, on the positive side, I would strongly recommend this book to any aspiring writer of fiction. It not only spells out what you need to do, but why and how as well. Most of the techniques you might, eventually, figure out for yourself. But, that would take some time and study. And, figuring out the "why" would be even more challenging. This is a problem because without understanding the why, one cannot easily vary from the script (that is the 'how to write' script, not the script you are writing), which means that the end products will look a lot alike. For a lot of writers this is OK. After all, if you can sell a few TV scripts and get a book on some best seller list now and then, why complain?

 Here is the problem. You often hear advocates of the Refined or Grounded Techniques Phases making a distinction between "literary" and "popular" fiction. They will say things like "The difference between literary and popular fiction is that popular fiction sells and literary fiction doesn't". They might pull up examples of literary fiction such as James Joyce's Ulysses or William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury" as evidence that there is no joy as well as no profit in literary fiction. OK, OK, I get it. But, I feel inclined, if not obligated, to defend literary fiction even though I am no fan of either of the works just mentioned.

I would make a distinction between three types of fiction: popular fiction, quality fiction and experimental fiction. Although there is some overlap, each has a very different purpose and must be judged by different standards. The purpose of popular fiction is entertainment. The reader wants to enjoy the story. It is possible that a work of popular fiction provides more than entertainment, but if it fails to provide entertainment, it fails as a work of popular fiction. The purpose of quality fiction is to hold up a mirror to the human condition so that we can better understand it. The reader is looking for growth and enrichment. If the reader enjoys the story as well, then so much the better. But, if the story fails to provide any enrichment, then it has failed as quality fiction. Some might argue that a piece of work must provide quality writing in order to be quality fiction and I would agree. But, if a work delivers great insight into the human condition through simple prose, it does not lose the designation of quality. On the other hand, if a piece attempts to provide insight into the human condition by barbarically abusing the language, I would respectfully submit that it has fallen short of quality fiction. Finally, the purpose of experimental fiction is to push the boundaries of what we consider as legitimate fiction. There are plenty of examples of this within the academic realm. There purpose is to expand our understanding of fiction as opposed to our understanding of the human condition. At one point, stream of consciousness pushed the boundaries.  At another point film and graphic novels joined the challenge. It is unfair to restrict experimental fiction to fiction which is difficult to read, although it may very well be. It is the quality of providing insight into our understanding of fiction that makes it experimental. Personally, I would say that the books by Joyce and Faulkner mentioned above were failed experiments. But, that is just my opinion.

The three types of fiction mentioned in the previous paragraph still don't cover the full range. For example, children's stories, folk tales, zen stories and so on don't really fit into the trinity just provided. The good thing about an approach like the Grounded Technique approach is that it structures the work of writing for the aspiring writer  and reduces the complexity of fiction to a manageable level. 

I have heard advocates of the technical school attempt to prove that this technique is more general than it really is. Examples are presented, usually from quality fiction, that arguably fit the technical mode as though this gives the technical approach credibility. This is not necessary. It can easily stretch to other kinds of fiction and can be intentionally ignored in cases where it does not apply. After all, if we did adhere to the strict use of the Grounded Technical approach, we would have to give up children's stories, folk tales, and the majority of quality and experimental fiction.

I have gone on a bit here as I both herald the Grounded Technique approach and stress its limitations. My reason for this is that stories written to explore possible worlds may not easily fit the Grounded Technique paradigm. (They may, as well, but that is a different argument). The purpose of a story written to explore a possible world is different from the purposes of Popular Fiction, Quality Fiction or Experimental fiction. Why is that? We will take that up in the next post.