Things That Happen in Fiction
David Teague
Associate Professor of English
“There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen.
These people are wrong.” --Neil Gaiman
Storytelling is an art; storytelling is a skill; storytelling is a discipline.
Alongside opposable thumbs and language, the ability to string “what-happens-next” into
enticing narratives is one of the defining characteristics of the human species. The ability
to do it creatively has brought us literary achievements ranging from William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet to William Steig’s Brave Irene. The ability to do it rationally has
brought us non-fiction masterpieces such as The Origin of the Species, Civil
Disobedience, and Principia Mathematica by Sir Thomas Newton.
Still, as a professor and as a creative writer, I’ve always thought it a shame that the world
of facts is so firmly walled off from the realm of imagination. This is not to say that I
advocate making up random historical incidents in the classroom or fabricating the names
of new elements in the lab (although in my novels I have been known to do both).
But I do advocate using creative writing as a tool to teach other disciplines, like history,
social studies, chemistry, music, and yes—even math.
After all, as the great Neil Gaiman suggests: the things that happen in fiction really do
happen.
So what if, to teach history or social studies, we set our students the task of writing
historical fiction? The possibilities are exhilarating. What if we equipped our pupils
with the techniques of character development, plot, and setting, and asked them to place
their own characters into a historical event to explore it? The discipline of developing a
point of view, the immediacy of personal involvement, and the adrenaline of creativity, in
my personal experience, creates living, lasting connections with seemingly distant
historical events.
What if we explored with our students the amazing ability of picture books to capture
behavior, and then asked them to illustrate major events in the lives of particular animals?
Say, for instance a hairless mole rat? (I have also tried this. Although “Dewey and the
Hairless Mole Rats” still looking for a publisher, I am now an expert on hairless mole rats.
They are truly fascinating animals.)
What if we turned Charles Darwin’s struggle to formulate the theory of evolution into a
one-act play? It would be an excellent one, with compelling character motivation, rising
conflict, climax, and falling action, and it would teach the scientific method at its best.
What would be the benefits to our students if they learned to distill some of the essential
facts of the subjects we teach them, and set these facts in motion in stories of their own
devising?
I can suggest at least a few:
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Confidence. To write a story is to own it.
Competence. To own a story is to know how it should be told. Right down to the
proper grammar.
Empowerment. A storyteller is the absolute ruler of his or her world.
Discipline. Storytelling is tricky, and hard.
Enthusiasm. It’s a great feeling to tell a story that people enjoy.
And these, of course, are only a few possible benefits, just as what comes above are only
a few possible subjects and creative approaches. The real work of our seminar will begin
when we start examining the knowledge and the competencies we want to impart to our
students and deciding what form of storytelling will lead them where they need to go.
I personally have a deep engagement with American Literature, American History, and
American Cultural Studies, as these are the subjects I teach most often, and could serve
as an objective resource in those areas, but the fascination of this seminar will be in
seeing how many different disciplines we can connect through creative writing.