Richard: A few months ago, Ann wrote a post about beauty and truth in science writing. I object to neither. But she seemed to take exception to a “literary nonfiction” approach to science, and I wondered what in particular her objections were. So I thought I’d ask her. Hey, Ann, what gives?
Ann: Literary nonfiction is writing about the real world in a literary way, that is, a way that uses the literary techniques of fiction. I wrote that if a science writer has to choose between literary techniques (or beauty) and reality (or truth), that writer should choose truth. And if the writer wants both, that writer should find the beauty in truth. Is that blindingly obvious?
Richard: I know what you’re saying—or I think I do—but I wouldn’t agree that the issue is “blindingly obvious.” Yes, “literary nonfiction” (I know you dislike the term; if it’s any comfort, I usually use the term “creative nonfiction” when talking with students) is a just-the-facts approach, only using the techniques of fiction: characters, conflict, dialogue, setting, etc. In your original post, you go on to say that those techniques can be useful in science writing. So far, so good. But then you say you “don’t trust the premise” of literary nonfiction because the reader has to “trust the writer” to “tell the truth.” That’s where you lose me. Facts? Sure. Truth? Hmm.
Ann: Ok so “truth” has a little wobble on it here. A good writer shouldn’t have wobbles, sorry. “Tell the truth” usually means report the facts. But “truth” as in “truth and beauty,” that’s vaguer. And you’re asking me the difference between facts and truth? Richard. How could you? That’s seriously above my pay grade.
Richard: Sorry, but you started this. Sort of. Okay, I started this conversation, but you wrote the post that inspired this post. (Two facts!) (Also: We have a pay grade?)
Ann: I’ll make something up. Facts are what fact-checkers check: numbers, titles, names, dates, events. Facts are things we can both look at and agree to be the case. Truth is the world in which the facts are the case, the context plus the atmosphere plus the interpretation of the facts. So while we’ll probably agree on the facts, we may or may not ever agree on the truth.
Richard: How true! (Couldn’t resist.)
Ann: Writing fiction, making up facts is standard ops and truth is a matter of the reader agreeing to connive in the make-believe. Writing nonfiction, making up facts is a mortal sin. But what about truth in nonfiction? How do you judge that?
Richard: Maybe the distinction we’re circling here is objective versus subjective. Is a straightforward presentation of facts an exercise in objectivity? That’s what science ostensibly attempts—objectivity. But the choice of which facts to present isn’t objective. Nonfiction writers should ideally acknowledge the objective/subjective distinction in their own work (even before they get to the “literary” part), and I suspect that scientists who are honest with themselves do acknowledge it. The goal in science isn’t to be objective. It’s to be as non-subjective as possible.
Ann: God, Richard, I don’t even know what we’re talking about. I agree with everything you say and I agree that we should be as non-subjective as possible—
Richard: No, no, that’s not what I’m saying.
Ann: Well, if you’re going to be picky, no, you didn’t say “we,” you said “scientists.” I said “we” and meant that we should try like hell to make sure that the facts we choose also represent the truth we see of the world we’re reporting on. Ok, did we solve it now? Yes?
Richard: Not yet. I’m saying that facts = objective while truth = facts +. So the goal of science is to whittle away that + as much as possible. But it’s impossible to get rid of it entirely, and that’s where narrative enters.
Ann: I am not going to get sidetracked by the subject of narrative. Don’t tempt me like that.
Richard: Ann, remember, you’re the one who eased me into an adjunct gig at Johns Hopkins so I could create a course I titled “Science as Narrative.” Scientists are storytellers, too. Each has a story to tell, and each tells that individual story within the long narrative arc of the history of science. But as a writer of literary science writing (or whatever we want to call it), I have a different goal. It’s to stick to the facts, yes, but it’s also to tell a good +.
Ann: Yes, well, just yes. I’ll read your good + story with pleasure.
Richard: And I, yours. But I hope you see I wasn’t being “picky” in making the distinction between scientists and us science writers. I was thinking that scientists and science writers have a different responsibility when it comes to the question of truth. Scientists try to erase the +. Literary nonfiction writers—science writers or not—embrace it.
Ann: Well, I worry about that + stuff. It’s slippery. I’m still impressed with the contract with the reader that the fiction writer doesn’t have and the nonfiction writer does, the contract that a beauty-obsessed nonfiction writer can easily slight: as the redoubtable James Fallows says, it is to say to the reader, “I saw this.” And the reader says back, “Yes, I believe you did.”
Richard: And I, less redoubtable, suggest the literary science writer can say, “I think this,” and the reader can say back—should say back—”Yes, I believe you do. Hmm.”
———-
Photo: The Reader, by Kevin Dooley
Ahm… just a word and a question from a fan: “facts” are numbers, observations, mathematics. Nearly everything else is interpretation, so why not relax? Yes, things fall from above to the ground, thats a truth in this way of looking at things, but bejond that? we can not even be sure that the colours we are recognizing are real (in the sense of measurable data) or made up by our brain by mixing and estimating, how can state we are taking about facts?