by Jason Lusk

Created on: June 18, 2008

However amazing science can be, it's more of a mechanical thing. Scientific writing is mostly documentation and an attempt to answer the question "how?"

We can read up on, say, clinical depression. Perhaps the scientific literature can explain it to us and answer many of our questions. But it can't explain why the same type of depression affects different people in different ways, at least not totally.

Only life can answer such a question. And good fiction is a reflection of life.

A novel or short story may depend on science; the situation of the story might not even exist without science. But the fiction writer is there to captivate others, to grab their hearts and take them on a tunnel ride of drama. Fiction isn't about going to school, even though you may learn something new.

And while the fiction writer is chronicling his or her drama, the science writer is telling a story that basically says this: "We're trying to figure out this puzzle, and here's what we've found so far."

There can be a fine line between the two, if you choose to see it that way. Say you're writing a novel about the origins of Native American societies. Since it's a novel, it's fiction by definition, but you must use anthropology and archaeology to tell the story.

The science of that plot may be interesting, and it may even lead the writing into new scenes and unexpected places, but it's the drama the interplay between the characters and their world that will reach out to readers.

If a story involves the science of technology a runaway A.I., perhaps the common reader will not care one whit about the amazing intricacies of how such programs come into existence. Certain details should be in the story, of course, to provide legitimacy, but what reaches into the hearts of readers is how such a thing affects the characters.

I'm one of those who can't read a long scientific article straight through. I have to read a page or two, put it down, and come back to it later. If I try to keep going, I get bored, agitated, and I might fall asleep.

Art reflects life. Science seeks to explain life by mechanical means, and scientific writing is a documentation of this. Science is fascinating, but I'm a living example that your genetic makeup can do little in explaining your personality/nature.

As I said, only life can explain that. I've lived a very different life than those of my elders, so science can't fully explain why I am the way I am.

In reading fiction, we may find characters to whom we relate in some way, and this is almost always the great reward of reading stories. Science tells us we're all human, we have such and such DNA, and so on. Stories tell us we're not alone.

Scientists and science writers attempt to explain the pieces of the puzzle where they fit, how they relate to each other by formula, etc. Fiction writers dream, imagine, speculate, and live.

Human nature, as the term is often used, resides in the latter.

The insight needed for scientific writing involves complex parameters and formulae. The insight fiction writers tap into is a fundamental, basic set of emotions and thoughts.

Look at how much human culture has depended on storytelling for its survival throughout history, long before we had any established sciences. Then you tell me.

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