
What's the use of stories that aren't even true? - adnam
http://swombat.com/2012/7/25/stories-that-arent-true
======
DanielBMarkham
I love this line of inquiry. "Big Fish" is a good movie to watch along these
lines if anybody is interested.

 _Does fiction have a place in business writing?_

Yes, and it's sorely needed.

One point Swombat missed was that much of what we read as non-fiction is
actually closer to very speculative science-fiction. For instance, nobody
really knows what the year 1700 was like in England. We have various accounts,
we make various assumptions, we fill in the blanks with educated guesses. In
the end, whether we mean to or not, we create a narrative of things that
happen that makes sense to us.

The same goes for 1900, or 1200. All of history in this way is a form of
fiction. (A very good and very educational form, I might add)

The same goes for what constitutes popular science articles. Somebody wants to
write a popular article on how human sexuality developed. So they accumulate
lots of studies and data, then create an evolutionary-based scientific-
sounding narrative around that. Makes for great reading, and most wouldn't
even think of it as fiction, but I don't think it approaches the "truth" of
something like 2+2=4, or even the validity of Newtonian Physics.

Our brains love narratives, stories, and will find them even where none exist.
It's the way we are wired to learn. Pure fiction, by being unconstrained by
facts, allows us to explore how various emotional states are reached and
vicariously think about how we would act. It does a heck of a lot of good in a
lot of ways, the least of which is that it helps us practice how to learn.

~~~
swombat
_One point Swombat missed was that much of what we read as non-fiction is
actually closer to very speculative science-fiction. For instance, nobody
really knows what the year 1700 was like in England. We have various accounts,
we make various assumptions, we fill in the blanks with educated guesses. In
the end, whether we mean to or not, we create a narrative of things that
happen that makes sense to us._

I'd argue that you could say the same about supposedly factual stories and
accounts. After all, people are highly subjective in the way they remember
stories. For example, the way I would tell the story of how my first startup
fell apart is very different to the way my cofounder would.

------
austingunter
I love the point you make here. There are two elements at play in our
decision-making, the "cerebrally rational" element, with data, deductive
reasoning, and concrete examples.

The other side is the "abstract" (the opposite of rational isn't irrational)
element, where reason is inductive, and we can notice patterns in the stories
we tell each other. That's the purpose of an archetype, and why Joseph
Campbell's work lives on. If you want a good primer on this, pick up a copy of
"He" by Robert A. Johnson. It's an easy read.

The purpose of telling a "myth" or sharing an archetype is to communicate
something that is true about life, and let the listener induce the meaning.
Deductive reasoning has its place, particularly where startups who have to
make revenue or die are concerned, but sometimes the answer isn't one we can
verbalize. We just "know it." Like Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in "Blink,"
Einstein's Theory of Relativity popped into his head suddenly one day, and he
had to spend the next several years backtracking so he could _prove_ what his
mind had unconsciously put together.

I guess my point is that, just because something isn't based in sensory
reality, doesn't make it false.

------
mardack
Thanks for the suggested perspective, Daniel. It is interesting to consider
using fiction to help spread business Truths. The trouble with that notion,
however, is that business is not all that profound; at least not at the level
where most people actually want to be informed. It's one thing to write about
BIG ideas that relate to business (like the great education in professional
excellence we got from Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead). But business non-fiction
is dominated by, essentially, How-To books. I find it doubtful that the
mundane requirements of transferring tactical and experiential business
knowledge to lay readers are compatible with producing great literature. Even
the "best" non-fiction business books (like Chris Anderson's Long Tail, for
example) fall far short of literary greatness. Great literary works achieve
their universality and timelessness by aiming higher, and for a bigger
picture. Business books are concerned predominantly with business usefulness,
which has a very short shelf life.

------
danmaz74
I'll tell you a story. Ten years ago I was thinking about trying to create a
startup, and a friend of mine was interested in trying with me - but he just
couldn't make a decision to leave his full time job.

I had just read a book about starting your own business - how to create a BP,
basic accounting etc. - and the book opened with a story; the story of two
cats. One cat lived at his owner's home, an easy, comfortable, boring life.
The other one lived on the street, was never sure about what he could have
eaten for dinner, had some scars and bad memories. But he was really living.

I lent this book to my friend, and he decided to go on with our plan. As he
told me, it wasn't all the rational arguments, the data, the real world
examples that did the trick, but that little fable at the start of the book.

So we left our jobs, used up all our little saved money and some from our
families, failed to find the funding we needed, and our adventure didn't
finish in glory. All thanks to that little piece of business fiction.

------
RTigger
This reminds me of the codeless code - obviously fictional stories, but
written in such a way to make commentary on design patterns and practices in
software development. They make for a very entertaining read, and are
excellent at driving the point home.

<http://thecodelesscode.com/case/45> as an example.

------
adrianwaj
Fiction was utterly destroyed for me in high school where it was rammed down
my throat, and when I was examined on finding deep meanings where the author
may not have even intended or wanted. Biblical stories would be my pick if I
had to move toward fiction, if you can even call it that.

~~~
EvilTerran
_Fiction was utterly destroyed for me ... when I was examined on finding deep
meanings where the author may not have even intended or wanted_

Post-structuralism[1] has its place, and I'm a big fan of it now, but I also
hated having it pushed on me in high-school literature lessons -- that seems
to be a very common experience, and one that really can damage people's
enjoyment of fiction thereafter.

I'm not sure whether the problem's one of presentation ("find the meaning! it
can be anything you like!"; "er, say wot, miss?"), or whether the average
teenager just doesn't have the right intellectual frame to really appreciate
the idea "meaning is a product of the interaction between text and reader, not
a product of the text alone".

Back in high-school, I overcame my frustration at the perceived arbitrariness
by approaching the task ironically -- "sod it, I'm gonna pick the most
outlandish reading I can think of". The teachers seemed to think the results
were great, which I found pretty amusing.

[1] I refer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
structuralism#Destabilized...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
structuralism#Destabilized_meaning) in particular.

~~~
adrianwaj
Interesting. I suppose English teachers like total textbook responses to texts
(things they tell their students to say) or totally outlandish stuff to shake
them from monotony. I remember creating essays that were great (at least to
me) but not scoring particularly well, I also used to think if the author of a
text would be marked on response to that text, they'd fair pretty poorly too.
It really is a long time ago. I read things my old English teachers write now
in school magazines and they are hardly impressive.

------
dsr_
Fiction adds flavor that can help the point of a story stick in your head.

I don't think the hacker koans are necessarily retellings of actual events,
but they get their points across concisely and memorably. Aesop's tales have
the same quality.

~~~
jsmcgd
Tangential: I recently re-read a book of Aesop's fables that I had as a child.
I was surprised that the 'morals' of the stories are often not what we might
regard today as good advice.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesops_Fables#List_of_some_fabl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesops_Fables#List_of_some_fables_by_Aesop)

~~~
swombat
They were good advice for most of history... I'll be happy if my articles are
still providing valuable advice in decades, let alone millennia! :-)

~~~
jsmcgd
Ha, true. Although I honestly think in some ways your posts are 'more
timeless' as I think they're more considered. From what I remember most of the
fables are sound advice about morality in general but there's also a recurring
theme of not getting above one's station and knowing one's place in the world.
It irked my inner entrepreneur.

But now that I reconsider it, perhaps Aesop was right. Ambition has never
guaranteed happiness. Perhaps accepting one's lot in life is something to
aspire to. In fact it most probably definitely is.

Ah bollocks. Now I don't know what to think.

------
mekoka
An important aspect when using stories to convey lessons, whether they'd be
true or fictional, is to stay faithful to patterns grounded in reality, not
simply theory. That usually requires a solid life experience or at the very
least some considerable research. Otherwise, you would basically be writing
your opinion and it might not sound _True_ in the end.

Just consider a teenager who decides to write a love novel out of her
extensive knowledge on the matter. Some aspects of it might resonate with most
people, those would be the more common patterns. Other elements however might
be missing to the more mature audience, who has gone through a lifetime of
more complex relationships.

I would imagine that fictional writing for business is similar. You could
write based on general theories and sound somewhat "accurate", but the devil
is in the details and having first hand knowledge of more subtle patterns
(usually overlooked by most theorists) allows you to measure their importance
in that context. Good examples of such intricacies can be found if you dig
into the psychological aspect of running a business. What sort of poorly
documented, yet very common patterns can you find?

Imo, that's what would give realism to an otherwise very entertaining
fictional story and credibility to your lessons.

~~~
manmal
Case in point to your love novel example is the Twilight series :)

~~~
cdr
Or 50 Shades of Grey, which started out as a Twilight fanfic.

------
maayank
I think this is really dependent on the author's skill and how gracefully he
stretches our suspension of disbelief. Swombat has this skill, so I would
implore him to try it.

~~~
swombat
Wow, that's quite a compliment, thank you. I hope I can live up to it!

~~~
maayank
Even if you couldn't live up to it now (which is really in your head ;) you
would incrementally but surely improve to the point you can, so do not feel
pressured when you write those first pieces. I know you know this, but perhaps
it's a good time to be reminded of it :-)

------
randomdrake
Around 15 years ago, I read a fictional book that taught me about what it may
be like to go into the field of computers. It was called Microserfs [1] and I
absolutely loved it. I thought that it did a great job of describing the world
around software development and what working in Silicon Valley may have been
like.

A book that would have been non-fiction on the subject, may not have captured
my imagination as much, but this did a wonderful job. This is just one example
of an introduction to the business of computers through the use of fiction. I
think there's definitely a place for it.

For me, there's absolutely room for more fictional books that capture the
startup experience and show what life may be like. This would not only be
entertaining, but provide some sort of guidance for those interested in the
field beyond the Hollywood'd tech movies [2] that are available for them
today.

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microserfs>

[2] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network>

------
AndrewDucker
I think that fictionalising stories to make them more palatable, or easier to
digest, has its place, so long as it's obvious.

Dilbert, for instance, is famous for taking real life stories, adding a layer
of humour on top, and thus making them more memorable and have more impact.

<http://dilbert.com/2012-07-22/> for example.

------
tildeequals
Just wanted to note that fiction does have a prominent history in business
writing in the form of case studies. Most issues of the Harvard Business
Review include a multi-page fictional story about a middle manager and some
dilemma he or she faces, along with a suggested course of action from 4 real-
life middle managers.

------
mixmax
Some time ago I wrote a short story about a guy moving a boat. Really it was a
story about overcoming entrenched thinking, and how small nimble companies can
change the status quo.

It was pretty well received, so I've thought about writing a book in the same
setting where the young man that moves into the entrenched and old fashioned
fishing harbour gradually overcomes the old by using his wit and outlook and
eventually ends up owning and running a fishing fleet.

I've spent quite some time thinking through the plot, and I can tell you that
creating and telling a great story that also conveys sound and interesting
business advice is extremely hard.

You can read the original short story here: <http://www.maximise.dk/moving-a-
boat/>

~~~
swombat
_I've spent quite some time thinking through the plot, and I can tell you that
creating and telling a great story that also conveys sound and interesting
business advice is extremely hard._

I'd say it's impossible.

What is possible, at least in my experience, is to start with a good _story_
\- i.e. characters, a plot, a series of interesting interconnected events -
and let the meaning of those events shine through. I've never managed to craft
a story around a message - the message always emerged from the story.

~~~
smacktoward
If you drop the word "business" from "business advice," at least, it's not
impossible. Fables (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable>) and parables
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable>) are both types of stories that are
built around making a point, and there are examples of both that have been
good enough to still be popular thousands of years after they were first
written.

I would say that it's _harder_ to write a great fable or parable than it is to
write a great example of a general story, though, because the structure of
being built around an Important Point makes it easy to slip into preachiness
or didacticism. You have to work extra hard to make the rest of the story not
sag under the weight of the lesson.

------
aangjie
I agree, fiction has its place and relevance. Though my use of it has been to
remove a lot of preconceived notions i have about a current problem. i.e: i
have a decision to make and can't make up my mind, i go read a
fiction(something i've already read) and then after a couple of hours, i come
across some event/story-point and realization hits. Ah that's a similar
situation to my current dilemma. Related link i think fits here.
:<http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/03/rediscovering-literacy/>

------
adrianoconnor
My favorite business book of all time (well, joint favorite, alongside the 7
habits) is The E-Myth Revisited. It uses a fictional story to weave together
the lessons that the author is trying to teach. The narrative is based around
a lady who opened a shop to sell home-baked pies. Now she feels trapped by a
business that isn't thriving and that is actually making her miserable. In the
story, she meets with the book's author who coaches her on how to turn her
business around. The story is gripping, right through to the very end. You
really truly want her to succeed! After I finished the book I thought a lot
about not only the lessons on business that the book teaches, but also about
the way that the book was written and why I liked it so much. I think the
story worked so well as a way of teaching precisely because it was a well-
written story, and being fictional doesn't change that one bit.

Later I read another book, Made To Stick, that kind of cemented this belief.
That too is a great book, full of interesting little insights, and I'd highly
recommend it. Stories, especially the simple kind that can hook our attention,
are far more effective than facts alone can ever be.

Of course, if you have a real life story that meets the criteria of being
interesting and contains all of the lessons you need it to contain, that would
work every bit as well as a fictional story (maybe even more so, thanks to the
true-story element). But real life doesn't often work out that way. Things
aren't so neatly laid out, and you need to be careful not to get lost in the
minutia. I think writing from a fictional perspective also helps you to focus
on what parts of the story are truly important to what you are trying to say.

As a final, and tangentially related note, I think this crosses over to
technical writing too. The best technical book I've read (and over the years
I've read quite a few) is Agile Web Development With Ruby On Rails. I think
it's down to the way there's almost a story there, with the web shop that
they're building in the first half of the book. That makes the book
interesting. I raced through that section. The second half has no narrative,
it's just a bunch of technical facts laid out -- I don't remember anything
from those chapters. No other technical book has made a lasting impression on
me like that, and I strongly suspect it is because none of the other books
have had any semblance of story or narrative.

------
wangweij
Unless you really know the guys in the story or they have influences on your
life, what is the difference between a true and a fake story?

------
AndrewWorsnop
A great example of fiction in business writing is "The Richest Man in
Babylon". It's focused on principles of personal finance but you could easily
construct something similar for start-ups.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(boo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_\(book\))

~~~
adrianoconnor
Hmmm. I read that book a few years ago, and the only thing that sticks in my
mind is the bizarre use of mock-biblical language.

------
lionheart
I've read some "business" books like this before and always enjoyed them, even
though I knew they really were fiction.

"The Richest Man In Babylon" is a good example of this.

I would very much enjoy a modern, more realistic take on business in the form
of fiction.

------
chernevik
Any one interested in the power of stories, and the Truth of same, must read
Don Quixote.

"OMG it's so long and there are so many Great Books I'm supposed to read."
Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

