Remembrance of Really Important Stuff

I'm currently reading David Lodge's classic The Art of Fiction, and it reminds me that I have absolutely nothing to add to the great body of work on how to write. Some of that great body is actually great writing itself, so why bother?

Well, I keep at it mainly to remind myself of what to do as I work on my next book. Speaking of which, I wish to say a few words about memory. Here they are: Memory is important.

If this seems obvious, I refer you to the recent hyperbole that claims the Internet effectively functions as an extension of our memory, that we no longer need to actually keep any information in our heads, but merely need to know how to look it up. To me, this is not only idiotic, it is dangerous. It is rather like saying that the existence of pharmacies means we longer need to take care of our health—we can always go to the drugstore and get the appropriate medication.

OK, that's a terrible analogy, or at least an imprecise one. The point is there has always been a difference between reference works and actual knowledge. For a nonfiction writer, the distinction is essential. There's simply no substitute for keeping lots of information in your head.

If I really must explain why, let me simply say that research is not simply a process of transferring data from a source to your word-processing files (or manuscripts, as we once called them). Rather, you must understand a fact's significance as you research, which is only possible if you remember previous facts you have encountered. To understand your research, you must see connections between data, which requires you to keep a great deal of information in your head. Indeed, if you have a good memory, certain facts will leap up at you as significant, in light of what you already know—facts that eluded other writers, or were discounted by them.

When you write a biography, you are in the process of painting a richly detailed, realistic landscape. If all of your previous brushstrokes disappear from  your vision every time you make a new one, the final picture will be utterly incoherent. But if you keep the whole in your mind as you work, it stands a chance of emerging as an organic, authentic, and recognizable whole when you're done.

So to hell with that "the Internet is my memory" crap: Know what you're talking about, and you might actually make some sense.

Entertainment vs. Accuracy

A month has passed without a new post! My apologies. It has been . . . busy.

On my return, I found a comment waiting, asking for my opinion on balancing accuracy and entertainment. How far can a biographer (or nonfiction writer in general) go in making a scene vivid, or heightening the drama?

As is so often the case, this is, ultimately, a matter of each writer's judgment. There is no easy formula. And, is so often the case, that judgment should by guided by a sense of truth and authenticity. Research—thoughtful, creative, but pertinent research—provides the material for vividness and drama that is still accurate.

The worst thing you could do is to invent, even if it seems highly plausible. Just because a subject is often described as behaving a certain way—for example, arching her eyebrows and snorting in derision—does not mean you have license to describe that character as behaving that way in a specific instance, when no direct evidence suggests any such thing. Specific details must come from direct evidence, or you're slipping into fiction.

Somewhere between bad and OK is the openly stated guess, indicated by "surely," "likely," and "must have." An example might be, "Washington surely found British intransigence to be infuriating." This is honest, since you're being clear that you don't really know Washington's mental state, but it's unsatisfying at best and distracting at worst. Ask yourself: Does the reader really need to be told what Washington likely or surely felt? Don't the contextual facts suggest his likely reaction more strongly than your commentary?

Usually such guesses should be spoken when they run counter to the obvious. If there's a reason why Washington might not be infuriated with intransigence, that's interesting—tell the reader why. Otherwise, it's best to let the facts speak for themselves if you truly don't know the character's reaction. Having spoken so wisely on this issue, I have to admit that I've overused these words myself. It's easy to overuse them, because often one use is too many.

So what does work? First, for vividness, do as much research as possible. Bear in mind odd details that you run across; pull them in to highlight your narrative. In discussing Vanderbilt's family and sexual life in the 1850s, I faced the fact that I had precious little evidence. To introduce both the subject and set the stage for discussing the lack of evidence, I began with two contemporary news stories—one a commentary, complaining about how the ladies flashed too much ankle when crossing a muddy street, and another about the prosecution of a large importer of French pornography. The juxtaposition of an obsession with concealment and the consumption of explicit material accomplished three goals: It immersed the reader in the culture of the moment; it allowed me to state openly that I didn't know much about my subject's sexual life; and it allowed me to hint that there was a lot going on, somewhere out of view.

Often this goal of making scenes vivid, when direct evidence is scanty, is simply a matter of reading widely about the times. What were people wearing? What were the cultural sensations of the day? Who were the celebrities? What did the newspapers say about the weather on this day or that? Was there a political conflict that was dividing people? Next, could any of these facts play an organic role in the scenes you're writing—not an artificial one? Research is vital, but you can't just dump it on the page.

In trying to evoke the emotional impact of the death of Jesse James's father, I had no letters or diaries to speak directly to what the survivors felt. So I focused on the estate sale held by the county to settle the late father's debts. The bare list of possessions that were tallied and auctioned off reveals how the family's intimate world was cut open like a can and emptied out before outsiders, who walked off with pieces of that world.

Drama and narrative tension can only come from research that puts you in touch with the intersecting forces, personalities, and agendas that created conflict. Who were your main character and his or her antagonists? What did they want? Why did they want it? How did they set about getting it? What were the implications of each conflict, both for your subject and society at large?

I'm thinking of the second chapter of The First Tycoon, in which Cornelius Vanderbilt helped his employer, Thomas Gibbons, fight the Livingston steamboat monopoly. In rewriting, I had to throw out lots of tedious legal details, which seemed important in the first draft simply because I found them. Instead, I had to flesh out the character of Gibbons, his goals, his plans, his motivations; same with his foes, as well as Vanderbilt himself. I had to look broadly at the times, and identify what larger themes were expressed in this particular legal and business battle.

It was a conflict, I argue, that reflected the last stages of a slow-moving rejection of the hierarchical society of colonial America, and an embrace of individualism and competition. My research not only gave me vivid details about how Gibbons looked or how his rivals handled his challenges to duels—it allowed me to depict this conflict as a high-stakes struggle for the future of America.

In this example, I had to read secondary sources—what historians had written in arguing with each other about the early American republic—to make sense of the primary. But there's no substitute for immersing yourself in the primary sources, so you can evoke an authentic and complete sense of another world.