Saying Something New

The surest way to maintain readers’ interest is to give them new information.

Insofar as facts that are new to one reader are often known to another, factual information cannot usually be classed as “new”. Accordingly the writer should always seek to maintain readers’ interest by presenting information in an engaging way, for example by:

• using an attractive writing style;
• setting familiar information in an original or at least unfamiliar context.

Familiar Information

Familiar information is an essential component of factual writing. The reader cannot be expected to engage with the writing at all unless there are some links with the reader’s universe of thought. For example, complex scientific papers are incomprehensible to lay people who cannot grasp the underlying concepts, let alone the constructive arguments. By contrast, biographies invariably connect with their readers through shared roots in the familiar territory of human nature. In history or historical fiction meanwhile, there may be further connections through the more or less familiar map of history.

Unfamiliar Information

The nature and extent of unfamiliar information are perhaps the most crucial quality criteria for factual writing.

For example, the historian may succeed in writing for a lay readership by providing a lively and witty but otherwise unimaginative account of events that are already well documented elsewhere. Expert readers will have no interest in such a text (unless their role is that of critic) because it offers nothing to inform them or provoke their thinking.

If, however, the same historian illuminates his lively and witty account with innovative leaps of thought, s/he may appeal to lay and expert readers alike. Other historians will not necessarily agree with the writer’s assertions, but they will be stimulated by them at least. Lay readers will enjoy the engaging style without necessarily being aware of any controversy surrounding the writer’s assertions.

Hypotheses

Hypothesising is the essential technique for making leaps of thought in factual writing. The established facts often tell a coherent story, but they rarely tell the whole story, let alone all the stories that might be told.

The effects and outcomes of significant events may be firmly established as historical fact. Causes and effects, meanwhile, are usually less clear cut. Even if the main players in the drama were obsessive diarists or willing to be interviewed for days and weeks, many crucial aspects of their lives, their influences and their behaviour remain open to question.

The thoughtful writer invariably finds that many of his/her questions must go unanswered. The only path to progress is to create possible answers — hypotheses — and to consider the extent to which one’s hypotheses are supported by the facts.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

The requisite burden of proof varies with the circumstances. In legal proceedings, for example, the prosecution’s hypotheses must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. In scientific research, the supporting evidence for one’s conclusions must withstand the scrutiny of the whole community of experts if the conclusions are to gain acceptance. Unarguable logic is important in business report writing too.

Such rigour is only possible if the area for investigation is sufficiently narrow. The detective, scientist or business consultant must limit his/her field of enquiry in such a way that the logic underpinning the hypotheses becomes inescapable.

Inescapable logic is usually beyond the reach of historians and biographers, however, insofar as the requisite factual information on so wide a canvas is invariably incomplete or even patchy. Accordingly historians, biographers and other fact-based creative writers must choose a path that enables them to overcome the shortcomings of the available factual information without compromising the integrity of their work. Such paths include:

• writing a candid analysis of alternative hypotheses, showing the extent to which they are supported, or not, by facts (e.g. a history that seeks to explain conflicting documentary sources);
  
• concentrating on hypotheses that are reasonably well supported by facts and placing them within a sympathetic creative context (e.g. a quasi-biography of an obscure historical figure);
• using unquestionable facts (excluding uncertain hypotheses) in the background of a creative piece (e.g. a novel set in an actual historical context).