Telling stories makes us better noticers of the world

Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life.

That could almost be a description of doing science, but it comes from literary critic James Wood of Harvard University and The New Yorker magazine, in his book How Fiction Works. By studying how fiction works, science writers can acquire fantastic new powers for communicating science—especially when it comes to observing details and making metaphors.

This month, we got a beautiful example of science-level detail-observation and metaphor-making, in the draft of a fictional exploration of falling in love with, and in, nature, authored by a computer scientist blessed with the observational instincts of a poet. We preceded that text with a few excerpts from Wood’s book on how fiction writers choose what details to include in a story and how fiction writers create compelling metaphors—essential tools for every science writer’s toolbox.

In our discussion, our reactions to specific aspects of the draft text differed wildly. Some readers wanted more clarity about the temporal shifts that occurred in the story, while others felt entranced by the vagueness of what was happening—a reminder that sometimes a writer just has to be true to their own vision, without necessarily trying to appeal to readers. We also considered the risks of a writer delving into too many details. For instance, descriptions of surface-level beauty might end up getting in the way of a reader's perception of deeper, more hidden aspects of a character or scene. Ideally, details would be chosen carefully for inclusion exactly because they reveal something hidden.

Image: Vinh Sino, Vecteezy