Tag Archives: science

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: For One Night, Magic and Light Beat Out Doom and Gloom

Forty-one years ago, after an emotionally difficult sophomore year in college, I took a job as a camp counselor at a sleep away camp in rural Pennsylvania. I didn’t want to go home, and I didn’t want to stay in Providence, and I thought a summer of working and living and playing with kids would be good for me. It was, mostly. But that’s not what this post is about.

All the counselors at the camp had two essential duties. First, they were bunk counselors, living with and taking care of kids in a given age group. I was assigned to a bunk of twelve-year-old boys, who, I learned, straddle the line between “kid” and “teen,” ping-ponging from angelic to demonic and back again with breathtaking agility. And second, counselors had a specialty that they taught throughout the summer. I was an avid birdwatcher and nature enthusiast even then, so I was the nature counselor. As it happens, my fellow bunk counselor and I were both named David. He had been at the camp for several years, so he was “Old Dave” and I was “New Dave.” And my colleague in the outdoor program was also named David, so he and I were “Camping Dave” and “Nature Dave.” (It didn’t seem to bother anyone — well, except me — that I didn’t like being called “Dave” then any more than I do now.)

Near the end of the summer, Camping Dave and I organized a sleep-out for any kid or counselor who cared to join us, so that we could watch the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Our plan was to have the kids sleep out on the huge soccer/baseball field, cook s’mores, watch shooting stars, and stay up past their usual bedtimes. Sounds great, right?

Except things didn’t go according to plan.

They went far, far better than we hoped.

Because that night there was a northern lights display that lit up the night sky up and down the eastern part of the United States. My brother was camping in Vermont that same night, and he saw it too. The kids thought it was very cool, though I don’t think they understood how special it was to see what they were seeing. A few were disappointed that the weird, curtains of light in the sky made it impossible to see shooting stars.

Dave and I, and the other counselors who were with us, were thrilled. Most of us had never seen the northern lights before. The glow in the sky was mostly green that night, at least it appeared so from where we were, and it danced and flickered and shimmered for hours before fading well after midnight. To this day, my memories of that night remain vivid and joyful. Before this past Friday night, it was the only time in my life when I saw the aurora borealis.

Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024, photo by David B. Coe
Aurora Borealis, May 10, 2024, photo by David B. Coe

Friday night, found me in Tennessee rather than Pennsylvania, and yet, in a testament to the power of this year’s solar event, Friday’s display was every bit as spectacular as that first one so many years ago. And yet . . . .

We got our first hint of the possibility of unusually widespread aurora sightings a couple of weeks ago. Astronomers reported an increase in solar flare activity that they thought would soon peak at historic levels. On Friday itself, when the first of the huge flares occurred, scientists again noted that this could mean unusual aurora occurrences.

But those predictions were buried in news reports of quite a different nature. Most of the news outlets neglected to focus on what turned out to be a wondrously beautiful event that linked people all over the globe. Instead, most articles warned of what the sunspot activity and solar wind might do to communications satellites, electric grids, internet providers, and other parts of the electronic infrastructure on which we depend. And hey, I get it. Media outlets and the governmental and scientific institutions to which they turn for information when stuff like this happens don’t want to be caught off guard. They don’t want to be blamed for the dislocations caused by foreseeable problems. So they emphasize the expected bad news and downplay anything that might detract attention from those dire potential consequences.

As it happens, though, the few disruptions caused by Friday’s solar flares turned out to be minor. The real story turned out to be the phenomenal views of auroras enjoyed by people around the world in areas for which such sightings are usually quite rare.

Look, no one who knows me would ever confuse me for a Pollyanna. I am a lifelong pessimist. I am Mister Doom-and-Gloom. I am Eeyore. But Friday night was amazing, a night I will remember for the rest of my life. And I wonder how many people missed their chance to experience it because news of what was going to occur wound up buried in stories about terrible troubles that never materialized. Probably a lot. Which is too bad. Because the collective joy shared, across continents and oceans, by strangers who were fortunate enough to see the auroras, both borealis and australis, was an inspiring, albeit temporary antidote to the doom and gloom that confronts us on a daily basis.

I hope you were among the fortunate who saw the display.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Professional Wednesday: “Hidden Brain,” Perception, and Fiction

On a recent drive I began listening to the Hidden Brain podcast, with the brilliant Shankar Vedantam. I had listened to scattered episodes before, but never in a systematic way. But this was a long drive and I wound up listening to more than half a dozen episodes, each one fascinating, engaging, and informative. If you’re not familiar with the podcast, which focuses on topics related to psychology, neurobiology, and human behavior, you should check it out. It’s pretty amazing

During my drive, though, one episode in particular lodged in my thoughts, because it threatens to undermine a lot of what I do every day as a writer.

The episode, which first aired only a couple of weeks ago, is called “How to Really Know Another Person.” And the upshot of the discussion was that we can’t really know another person, that when it comes to sussing out the reactions and emotions of other people, we are, as a species, kind of inept.

When we write fiction, we present our stories from the viewpoint of our narrating or point of view characters. Sometimes we use just one point of view character. Sometimes we use several. But when we use more than one, we only switch point of view with a new scene or chapter. At any given moment in a story, we are limited to our narrating character’s perspective. We can know what they are thinking and feeling and remembering, but that’s all. The moment we start to give our readers access to the thoughts and emotions of several characters at once, we are violating point of view and falling into omniscient voice, which is out of favor in today’s literary market. The term used for this — not kindly, I might add — is “head-hopping.” It’s something we don’t want to do.

And so, in order to give our readers insights into the emotions and thoughts of actors other than our point of view characters, we have to rely on the observations and insights of the narrating character. Those characters might pick up on facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, subtleties of spoken conversation, and any number of other clues to keep readers in the know about the feelings, motivations, thoughts, and loyalties of the people the POV characters encounter. The narrators are our readers’ guides to all elements of our stories, and so their interpretations of these interactions are crucial to furthering our plots.

But now let’s return to the Hidden Brain podcast I heard. As Vedantam points out at the beginning of the episode, recent studies have shown that “many of the clues we use to read the minds of others, are suspect.” In other words, all those things I have my point of view characters picking up on, are, in reality, less than accurate. According to his guest on the program,Tessa West, an associate professor of psychology at New York University, the best way for us to find out what others are thinking and how they are feeling is — surprise! — to ask them, and to make our questions as specific and focused as possible.

The problem with this, of course is that while this may make for better relationships in the real world, it makes for truly lousy fiction. If all the misunderstandings and intrigue and misdirection among our many characters were simply cleared up by heart-to-heart conversations, our novels would all be thirty pages long and boring as hell. More to the point, the solution offered by Doctor West — which, again, is probably really good advice for improving interactions in the real world — doesn’t account for the fact that many of our fictional relationships are adversarial. A character who asks forthright questions of a potential enemy probably isn’t going to get honest answers, at least not without making the exchanges seem incredibly contrived and unconvincing.

So what are we to do? The tools our POV characters rely on don’t really work. Should we have them habitually draw the wrong conclusions from their interactions with other characters? That is likely to tick off our readers before too long. An unreliable narrator is one thing. A buffoon is quite another.

Or do we assume that most of our readers don’t listen to the Hidden Brain, and that even if they do, what they want from us is a good story, rather than an accurate portrayal of the latest in psychological research?

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that this is the approach I recommend for others and also the one I intend to stick to myself. Let’s be honest: fiction is always an imperfect reflection of reality, and not just because of the magic systems and invented worlds we find in fantasy. As an example, our characters tend to be far more articulate than we are. If we wrote dialogue the way it sounds in the real world, it would be full of “um”s and “you know”s and “like”s and such. We would have a ton of spoken sentences that never quite get to the point or follow rules of grammar. Instead, the conversations we write for our characters sound the way we wish our real-world conversations sounded — witty, snappy, clear, natural.

In the same way, I will continue to allow my point of view characters to pick up on visual and aural clues as indicators of what others are thinking and feeling. Yes, after listening to the podcast, I may choose to have them get things wrong slightly more often. But my characters are not going to start asking questions of one another that are too frank to maintain suspense.

Sure, I want my stories to be believable. But I also want them to entertain.

Keep writing.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: About That New Normal…

Don’t look now, but there is a new Omicron variant — the so-called “Stealth Omicron” — moving across Europe, and it is likely already here in the U.S. It is more contagious than the original Omicron, which is a little scary, given how transmissible the first iteration has proven.

The thing is, this is likely our future. One variant after another, each carrying its own unique attributes and, thus, dangers. As many have said already, Covid is not going away. Rather, it is likely to circulate through the population continually for years, even decades to come, ebbing and flowing much like influenza.

Which means we need to learn to live with it.

I am not, and have never been, a Covid denier. I am vaxxed and boosted, and when the next booster is available, I will get it. I have been diligent about masking, and continue to wear a mask when I shop or go into most public spaces. Put another way, from the beginning of this pandemic, I have followed the science. I’ll continue to do so. And I will continue to urge others (perhaps you, gentle reader) to get vaccinated. Vaccinations remain our single best hope in combatting the pandemic. Vaccines protect individuals and so they also protect communities. If you’re not yet vaccinated, please consider getting the shots.

But having said that, I also have to add this: I am weary of this pandemic, and I find those moments when I am able to take off a mask in public — when being served food or drink in a restaurant, for instance — incredibly liberating. I miss conventions and look forward to attending several this year, including DragonCon, which could be, I know, a super-spreader event waiting to happen. I would love to get to the point where I feel comfortable attending movies, concerts, and sporting events. I enjoy those things. I want them back in my life. I am tired of dealing with supply chain issues and higher prices, both of which are a direct consequence of this worldwide health crisis.

During our older daughter’s fight against cancer, she has at times been immunocompromised. I am deeply sensitive to the needs and fears of those who are at greater risk from the virus. I am also sensitive to the concerns of those who have suffered professionally and financially from the economic impacts of social distancing and shut-downs. Just as Covid itself has shown an uncanny and disturbing capacity for attacking organs and systems throughout the human body, so the pandemic has impacted nearly every aspect of our society and economy. It is, on all levels, pervasive and insidious.

And, once again, it’s not going away.

So how do we live with it, as a people, as a community, as a world? As I said, the best weapon we have is the vaccine. But we also need to recognize that some people simply will not give up on whatever notions or ideologies prevent them from getting vaccinated. There will always be a portion of the population that chooses vulnerability over protection, and that therefore facilitates the spread of future variants. The efficacy of masking is somewhat less clear than that of vaccination, and many vaccine skeptics are even more skeptical of wearing masks. Herd immunity will remain beyond our reach for the foreseeable future.

The same has been true of the flu for decades. And to be clear, I make the comparison reluctantly. Despite the claims of the uninformed, Covid is NOT just a glorified flu. It is NOT just an overhyped cold. Influenza kills between 12,000 and 52,000 Americans annually. The common cold kills far, far fewer. Covid, in its first two years, killed over 900,000 Americans. But flu shots work pretty well for those who get them. Covid vaccines, from what I understand, are actually more targeted and thus more successful.

Covid infection ratesAnd so those who trust the Covid science will remain safer than those who don’t. Those who keep up with vaccinations and boosters will get sick less often and less severely. They will die in far smaller numbers and spend far less time in the hospital. The numbers are dramatic and indisputable. Sadly, but predictably, living with Covid means accepting an ever widening gap in the rates of infection and in case outcomes between those who ignore the advice of medical professionals and those who follow it. It means accepting that some social and economic disruptions will be unavoidable. One-third of the people in this country are unwilling to protect themselves and their families. There are bound to be consequences for this.

In recent months, there have been more and more articles and reports about “compassion fatigue.” Medical professionals are having a harder time expressing sympathy for those unfortunate individuals among the unvaccinated who are getting severely ill. Many, like myself, who make the effort to follow the science, are losing patience with those who don’t. Because their choices are hurting the economy, delaying the return to “normal,” and putting all of us at risk. I suppose it’s fair to say that this post is a symptom of my own compassion fatigue. It’s not that I don’t care that the unvaccinated are getting sick, that so many are being hospitalized, that too many are dying. It’s not that I don’t recognize the tragedy. But I can’t help feeling the outcomes are self-imposed.

I know that’s harsh, but it’s how I feel. We are fighting to find our footing in a world forever changed by this pandemic, and every person who defies the realities presented to us by medical professionals makes this task just a bit harder. We, as a society and a nation, are ready to move on. We are eager to have our lives back. And we are denied the ability to do so by the decisions of a stubborn — and, I would add, misinformed — minority. It is one more growing chasm in a country already riven with such divisions. Sadly, though, that too is part of our new normal.

Wishing you a healthful week.