Fact in Fiction: Fact or Fiction?

We read a newspaper article and expect it to be true.  Journalists are fired for 'fabricating facts', which is really just a polite way of saying 'telling lies'.  The same goes for memoirs and other non-fiction.  Remember A Million Little Pieces?  It's still out there but is now marketed not as a memoir but as a "semi-fictional novel", whatever that is.  But what about fiction, literary and otherwise?  How should facts be used and, if they are, is it ok for the author to fudge them, take creative license?

I began to think about this after an aspiring author in my writing group read a chapter from his novel about a patient in a mental institution in the 1960's.  The patient was purely fictional but the institution was based on a real place.  Fine, right?  Of course.  That's what authors of fiction do after all: blend reality and make believe by taking real things from their real lives to create an imaginary world.  The old writer's adage - write about what you know - assumes just this type of melange.  But this author was worried, uncomfortable about taking creative license with the facts.  He wasn't sure where to draw the line.  Which got me to thinking: is there a line?  Do authors of fiction owe their readers some fealty to the facts?  Are there any rules of thumb?

Find a Balance

In my experience, the first rule of thumb is to find a balance.  It goes without saying that authors of fiction often use facts.  It is, in fact, this very blending of reality and make-believe that can make fiction so enjoyable.  I recently read Owen King's Double Feature and found his descriptions of movie making to be informative and enjoyable while, at the same time, firmly connected to the story that author was trying to tell.  So too with another book I recently read: Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue.  Reading his descriptions of Oakland I felt as if I was actually there, had actually seen the places he described.  And the descriptions were not gratuitous but essential to understanding the characters, who were firmly of their time and place.  In these books facts are a tool, a device used to make a lie - the fiction - engrossing and believable.  The authors find a balance in which facts further the story they are trying to tell.

On the other hand, who among us has not read a novel that becomes bogged down by facts.  I find this to be particularly true with genre fiction, in particular, thrillers.  Page after page of detailed descriptions of weapons.  Pedantic, detailed descriptions of geography that read more like a page from a textbook. Dan Brown, master of the genre though he may be, is in my opinion guilty of this sin with his overly-detailed descriptions of architecture and Renaissance paintings.  The details do not so much further the plot as broadcast to the world the author's intensive research and mistaken belief that the facts must be as interesting to his readers as they evidently are to him.  The equation has been inverted: facts should be for the writer to use in furtherance of his story, not for the reader as an attempt by the author at forced edification.

Don't Be Sloppy

The second rule of thumb is to be accurate.  If you decide to use facts, then give your readers the courtesy of thoroughly researching them.  It is one thing to knowingly veer from the facts in furtherance of your story but another to use facts that you think to be true but which are not.  Readers can be a demanding lot.  If you have your protagonist driving around in a green 1974 Mustang convertible then they have a right to be raise a ruckus (Mustangs only came as hardtops between 1974 and 1982). Research is for you, the author, not your readers: it gives a good author the ability to write with authority on a topic in which she may not be expert and to pick and choose the particular facts that further the story instead of regurgitating a textbook page on, say, virulent strains of SARS.  

Research also then gives you the ability to take creative license, which should always be a conscious, informed decision, not a mistake.  It was just this issue that troubled the writer in my group. He wanted to base his novel in a particular time but use a psychiatric term that was no longer in use at that time. He was uncomfortable about doing this because, he said, it wasn't accurate.  Whether to take artistic license or not is a decision that he, as the author, needs to take for himself.  But what is crucial is that he is doing it consciously, knowing, based on his research, what is factual and what is not.  

One way to address artistic license is to be upfront about it.  Many fiction books are prefaced with an author's note such as this:  “Readers may note that we have taken certain liberties with ....”  In my view, this approach is perfectly fine and much preferable to taking license and not admitting it.  But in the end, it is the author's decision.  Some fact-focused readers may object to artistic license but then, after all, we are talking here about fiction.  As long as the fact is fudged consciously, then it is the author's decision whether or not to do it.  

Be Believable

Readers read fiction knowing it to be false but with the hope of being drawn into a world that feels real. Judicious use of facts is a wonderful way to do this, a way to blur the line between reality and make believe in order to draw the reader into the story.  And, in fact, the facts may not be facts at all but pure make believe.  The author's task is to make it believable.  Maybe your story depends on a special, one-of-a-kind car, faster than any production model ever made.  That's fine as long as it feels like a real possibility.  But if you are describing someone who puts the pedal to the metal in his Toyota Corolla and takes it up to 250 mph, all of a sudden you are no longer believable and your readers will be lost.    Fiction, after all, doesn't have to BE real, it just has to FEEL real.