I thought nonfiction would be easy.
When I started Wealth Woman, my book on Kate Carmack and the Klondike Gold Rush, I’d already
written a few novels - two published, with a few more in draft. Much as I love
writing fiction, you have to make everything up. You have to create whole
worlds and people them. Sure, you get to decide what happens when and to whom –
but for every good choice a novelist makes, there are thousands of ways to go
wrong.
Nonfiction would be so refreshing. So straightforward. The
people are who they are. Events happen. I’d only have to gather the facts, then
present them in a beautiful and compelling matter.
Wrong.
Take, for starters, the wrangling of those facts. If you’re
going to contribute something meaningful on your topic, this requires a ton of
work (and no small amount of cash). You have to slosh through multiple
perspectives on each person and event, and from these you must fashion the
truest version of truth. You can’t make a mistake. You have to get it right.
There may be no such thing as a flawless book, but you can’t screw up
repeatedly, or you’ll lose the trust of the reader.
Enter the fact-checker. I first learned that novels got
fact-checked when Lodestar, an imprint of Penguin, published my first book, A Distant Enemy. The fact-checker
pointed out that surely there were no Yup’ik Eskimos alive during the waning
years of the twentieth century, when my book was set, who could recall the
first time they’d met a white person. After all, the Russians had colonized Alaska
way back in the 18th century.
But Alaska is
a big place, I reminded the fact-checker (gently – it was my first book, and I
didn’t want to be branded one of those difficult authors). Because there were
no resources to lure the Russians inland to the tundra where my book was set,
white people didn’t reach parts of that tundra until the first half of the
twentieth century. Score one for the author: my character got to keep the
snippet of dialogue in which he talked about the first time he’d seen a white
person.
Considering the multitude of ways in which traditional
publishing is cutting back, it’s not surprising that fact-checking now appears
to be going the way of the pay phone. To my knowledge, my last few books have been
fact-checked only by me. And judging from some books I’ve read recently, so it
is for other authors.
Take a book on the Klondike I’ve been
reading as research for Wealth Woman.
Released by a reputable press that specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction,
it’s a lively, well-written nonfiction treatment of what went on in Dawson
City
It’s the sort of book you’d recommend to your friends, if it
weren’t for some really big boo boos. Over and over and over, the author talks
about the Chilkoot Pass St. Elias
Range Coast
Mountains .) She describes hillsides blooming with wildflowers in
mid-April, even before the ice breaks up: fireweed, wild roses. (These bloom in
June.) Most grievous of all, when she mentions First Nations people, the author
gets the band/tribe affiliation wrong almost every time, which leaves the
unfortunate (and I believe unintended) impression that they’re all more or less
interchangeable.
My purpose here is not to come down hard on authors, which
is why I’m not naming this particular author or her book. I’m from Alaska, and
if Missouri is the “show-me” state, Alaska is the “you don’t know me” state: we
have something of a reputation for jumping on anyone who doesn’t “get” the
details of who we are and how we live – and I’ve never wanted to be one of
“those guys.” But we authors need to understand that in this BNWP (Brave New
World of Publishing), the fact-checking responsibility most likely lands
squarely on us – and in the internet age, when facts can be checked by pretty
much anyone, anywhere, the burden of truth has never been greater.
What’s an author to do? Pay attention. Don’t make
assumptions. Twist arms to get experts to read your drafts. Crowdsource if you
have to.
Fiction, nonfiction – it matters not. What we do isn’t easy,
and increasingly, we have only ourselves to rely on, especially when it comes
to getting our facts straight.