Strange bedfellows
Last week, I had a very strange experience. I had been working on a scientific paper and had spent the whole day worrying about experiments and their accuracy. That night, I sat down for my usual nightly ritual of fiction writing.
I wrote: “Furthermore,” Stephen said to Nina”. At that point I had to stop. I checked what I had written, and to my horror found “Therefore”, “Thus” and “In addition” sprinkled throughout the dialog. I was afraid to go back and check the paper I had been writing. But I had to, and there it was…I had described a diagram as “graceful”. I had no choice but to stop writing fiction…yes, I mean the novel…until I had finished my paper.
Traditionally, scientific writing favored passive voice narration in order to remain impersonal and objective, although that is changing now. The emphasis was on being clinical, impartial and precise in the service of science. Every statement had to be supported with evidence, either in the form of a theoretical proof or exhaustive empirical corroboration.
In fiction, the more personal you get, the more powerful the story. It’s about breaking down walls and inhibitions and getting right inside a person’s head. And, you are allowed, actually required, to make things up. Which I find to be the most liberating part of writing fiction.
Yet, as I had mentioned in my interview, my scientific training has helped me think clearly about my characters and articulate their innermost thoughts. Most of all, the minimalism of mathematics has been a huge help while writing and editing my manuscript. I am still working on this skill and I hope that readers can see it in the evolution of my style from novel to novel.
Science and romance, odd but happy bedfellows.
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