Monthly Archives: March 2012

Unknown's avatar The Beach Writer 2:47 pm on March 27, 2012
Tags: , , , propaganda, ,   

Part 2 of truth doesn’t have to be complicated

It’s said there are 3 sides to every story: his side, her side and the truth.

Truth is easy enough to determine when we’re talking verifiable facts. Dates. Times. Exact numbers of widgets. Writers either get these right or wrong in nonfiction and their fact checkers and readers judge them accordingly, as I blogged last week.

But how those facts are perceived, and the meaning assigned to them, is personal. People can perceive the same event quite differently. A handful of people to one person can be a crowd to another, or a gang to a third. The devil is not just in the details, it’s also in the conclusions drawn from those details.

Personal perceptions are part of any story told. Even a “just the facts ma’am” recounting is subject to spin. But that’s not automatically a bad thing.

Writers of nonfiction are expected to draw conclusions based on their perceptions. Journalists, technical writers, essayists and creative nonfiction writers all make judgments as they write. Writers decide what facts to highlight, and order of importance, based on their knowledge and experience. They write the truth as they know it, drawing conclusions based both on verifiable facts and their perception of what those facts mean. It’s unavoidable.

And that’s ok.

Of course there have been, are, and will again be writers who take things too far. That’s why we have terms like exaggeration, melodrama and hyperbole.

However, the nonfiction writer does have certain obligations to the reader. The writer must not alter facts. And when it comes to descriptive words (such as few, several, many, near and far), the writer must sincerely strive for accuracy as they relate what they perceived.

Ultimately the writing speaks for itself. The honest, the accurate, the most truthful perceptions are often the most enduring works of nonfiction. Perhaps that is because we humans love a true story. Perhaps it’s because we have gotten pretty good at figuring out when people are lying to us, be it to our face or in writing.

The nonfiction writer cannot deliberately mislead the reader. That’s propaganda. Fiction.

That’s the line that cannot be crossed.

Unknown's avatar The Beach Writer 2:24 pm on March 19, 2012
Tags: fabrication, , , , nonfiction story, , verifiable facts,   

Truth doesn’t have to be complicated

Once again the writing community is blathering breathlessly about the nature of truth. What are facts and why are they stubborn things? Can true stories be told without tweaking what happened to make the tale more dramatic or compelling? How much tweaking is too much tweaking? What does nonfiction really mean anyway?

This happens every so often. A journalist bends the truth or creates an imaginary friend as a “source” to get the big story to press. A memoir writer makes up events that never happened or people who never lived to help propel a life story into a best seller. An essayist publishes a book detailing an argument with a fact checker that attempts to justify stark departures from reality because those departures allegedly “sound better.”

Unfortunately the latter has led to literary minds once again wrestling with the question of truth and the role of factual accuracy in nonfiction. Thankfully, according to this source, at least one panel of writers apparently understands that the issue is not that complicated.

Truthfully, this is a topic that writers shouldn’t have to discuss. All prose writing can be divided into two categories, fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is made up, even if it’s based on real events. Nonfiction is, brace yourself, not fiction.

Each of these categories can then be subdivided into genres, but regardless of what flavor of the writing, readers bring certain assumptions to the table depending on which category the writing claims to be. Readers assume that nonfiction is, shockingly, not fiction.

Any nonfiction writer, creative or otherwise, who claims they can’t tell a good nonfiction story without altering verifiable facts (such as the number of businesses in a particular location, or whether two specific event took place on the same day) has three choices. One, select a story to tell that isn’t burdened with stubborn facts or inconvenient truths. Two, become a better writer, one that can weave reality into an intoxicating story without tweaking, altering, or outright fabricating. Or, three, write fiction.

It truly is that simple.

Unknown's avatar The Beach Writer 2:43 pm on March 12, 2012
Tags: back up files, creating,   

Back it up

I am prepping for a business trip tomorrow and I have a long To Do list. Last minute emails to the client. Meeting preparation. Checking in for my flight and printing boarding passes. Packing. Checking and rechecking between now and my departure to make sure I have everything I need.

The last thing I will do today, however, will be the most important task on my list. I will back up my computer files.

This is a lesson I have learned the hard way. Repeatedly. In the last 15 years I have lost 3 full book length manuscripts and countless business writing files including presentations, procedures, instructions and forms. One of the book manuscripts was never printed and is gone for good. Ditto for the countless business files.

It doesn’t matter how I lost them. Lightning strikes. Hard drives fail. Networks crash at the worst possible times.

There is one way to insure that all is not lost. Save often and back up your files on a regular basis.

It’s easier than ever to back up your work these days, with programs and apps designed to let you click your way to peace of mind. Many of these apps provide the added bonus of allowing file access and sharing among many devices which makes business communication and travel easier and lighter. But bells and whistles aside the key is maintaining a back up of your work on a separate device or cloud.

I’m not going to promote any particular program here because it doesn’t matter what you choose to use as long as it works for you. What’s important is that those of us who work and create electronically regularly take the time to back it up.

Unknown's avatar The Beach Writer 2:50 pm on March 5, 2012
Tags: , , gulls,   

Into the wind

There are two kinds of reactions that the local gulls have to windy weather along the coast. Most of them huddle together in the sand, facing the wind with resistance and determination not to be blown away or allow their feathers to get ruffled. But a few abandon the sand and use their wings, not to resist the wind, but to interact with it. They play.

Gulls

There is nothing wrong with hunkering down. Sometimes battening the hatches and facing the storm is the only sensible approach.

But there’s nothing creative about it.

The creative ones are the gulls that see the wind as an opportunity and make the most of it.

On a particularly blustery day this winter my husband and I stepped onto the beach and found ourselves directly under half a dozen gulls hovering just out of reach overhead. They weren’t going with the flow and being blown about. They weren’t fighting the current.

Those gulls were managing the stream to suit their purpose. Not fighting the change, but allowing it to support them and enable their play.

Gulls

We stood there beneath them and watched as they experimented with the air, landed in the sand to rest, and then resumed their game of positioning themselves directly over our heads, at just the right angle to stop flapping their wings, stop moving a feather, and pause right there in midair.

Look at me, they seemed to say. Watch this!

We did.

Now when I visit the beach on blustery days, I watch for gulls playing in the wind. I always find a few, though usually not as many as we watched that first time together. Whether it’s one or a dozen, however, the lesson is the same. When faced with adversity, we can hunker down until it blows over, or we can use what we’re given, manage it, manipulate it, and transform it to create something spectacular.

Gulls

Creating is more fun.

Take every opportunity to soar.