On Writing: Perspective

"So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms."

— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

Almost nothing anyone ever says is unadulterated fact, no matter how hard they try. There's a reason for this.

History and news, to take two examples, aren't simple lists of dates and events. They're stories, often complex ones, told about actual people who did various things for reasons they probably thought were good. Consider reading the box scores as opposed to written accounts of the game. Was it an intentional foul, or just one of those accidents — or is the truth somewhere in between? Was the ref blind or was he biased?

And that's just a sportsball event. Imagine something marginally important.

People don't talk in terms of fact, and can't tell truth without applying a frame that can grant setting, perspective, and emotional connection to the listener. Do that from multiple perspectives and you get different stories — all of which can be true. Sure, we can suppose an underlying greater Truth, but only on very rare occasions do we have the opportunity to glimpse it unveiled.

Now would be a perfect moment to say those loaded words "Fake News", but I won't. Instead, let's talk a bit about storytelling.

As writers, our primary goal is to entertain— well, no; strike that. Our primary objective is to get paid lots of money for what we do, become rich and famous, get lots of fans, and just maybe sell a book to Hollywood. Or Netflix. Whatever.

Anyway: In order to do all that, "50 Shades" and sparkly vampires notwithstanding, we have to be good at what we do. Our stories must be entertaining, believable (within certain limits), highly compelling, and if at all possible, informative. We need to know our topic, do research, build worlds that are internally consistent, and write with the genuine voices of relatable characters.

That last is of vital importance. It's those perspectives we generate that permit our readers to understand the stories we tell them, to make sense of our words and relate them to themselves. We have to make our stories real.

Otherwise, they're just words.