evidentiary:alchemy

note: this is part one of an exploration of admission requests - my next post will go much more in-depth.

Discovery is the phase in which both parties - defense and prosecution in a criminal case, or defense and plaintiff in a civil case - seek information from one another.  This can include depositions (testimony under oath), interrogatories (written questions), admission requests (when one party asks the other to admit or deny particular facts), and requests for documents such as papers, audio tapes, photos, etc. Unlike the actual trial, discovery requests can include non-admissable information. In fact, they can include any information that might reasonably lead to admissable evidence.   

How can we use discovery in writing?

Remember, we are engaging in a dialogic, adversarial relationship with our memory, perceptions, and imagination.   As I discussed earlier, we have to be ready to play prosecution and defense, to think about the jury, and to cross-examine our ideas.   Once we can do this, the writing process changes.   Establishing facts, questioning witnesses, and excavating documentary evidence are all suddenly fraught with questions and doubt.  They become reflective.  Reflection is especially fruitful in creative nonfiction, when memories, emotions, and interpretations are often contestable - and indeed, contested. 

This post will focus on admission requests.  It seems so simple, right?  The prosecution asks the defense to admit or deny certain facts.  Prosecutors may wish to establish that both sides agree on a victim's cause of death, for example.  This smooths the process and provides focus for the trial.  If both sides agree on cause of death, this does not need to be contested in court.  The questions will lie elsewhere. 

But this is never clear-cut, especially when writing memoirs or personal essays.  I may believe a certain memory one day, but doubt it the next.  Or I may disagree with my sister about something our parents said.  In order to create a favorable image, I might be reticent to admit certain things.  (Will I want to admit to the world that I have lied?  That I have been mean, nasty, and selfish at times?  That I stole or cheated?   Or that I do not understand my own life?  That I am unreliable?  That my memory fails?)  And oh yes, do not forget that most jurisdictions will not allow a party to deny an admission request simply because the answer is unknown.  A position must be taken - a decision made.  There is no getting out of anything.

Okay.  So you want to write an essay about your grandmother's nervous breakdowns, but you were too young to understand the ones you witnessed (as if anyone can ever fully understand them, anyway).   You may have some vague, blurry memories of her throwing plates or being taken to the hospital.  Let's say her brothers and sisters do not agree about the cause or nature of her disease.  Neither do the doctors.   Which facts are contestable, and which can be agreed upon from the outset?  How can an admission request help you along in the process?

Of course, this is not literal.  We are using the legal process as metaphor.  There is no need to serve papers to your family (or self).   What you can do is take note of when family members agree.  Same with doctors. You can ask questions of family members and make lists of agreed upon and disputed facts. You can also consider why certain facts are so contestable, and what that might mean for the "case" (but that comes later).   

The great thing about admissions requests is that they are very narrowly focused - very concrete.  You cannot ask vague questions about how someone feels.  You must be direct, specific, and clear.  Did grandma throw plates at grandpa?  Did those plates hit his head?   In establishing the "facts," you are also focused intensely on the concrete details of the narrative.  This will help create a rich, nuanced story.   And because you know which "facts" are contestable - and which are not worth a fight - you reserve your energies for real conflicts.

One of the most important aspects of admission requests - and discovery in general - is the idea of being as open and honest as possible.  Any attempt to hide facts (or documents, but we'll get to that later) will damage your case.  Your lawyer - or in this case, your writing process - will simply not be ready to wrestle with the conflicts that arise from dishonesty,  half-truths, deception, or lazy thinking.  You must be prepared to look bad.  How can you get to the truth with only half the story?

next: an in-depth exploration of admission requests, establishment of facts, and the problem of objective truth

Now that Typepad is working, I can finally post the second part of admission requests.

Questions to explore (pulled from your emails):

How can this help my writing process?  What if no one agrees on any facts?

As I mentioned in part one, an admission request allows the defense and prosecution to focus on the contested details and aspects of the case (since they know which facts they already agree on).  Contested memories, emotions, events, or details are where the conflict lies.  In other words, figuring out which things lack conflict will help you discover which things are teeming with it.

Even this can be tricky, however.  Every member of your family may remember a particular holiday differently, but these inconcistencies often mean absolutely nothing.  The more creative nonfiction you write, the more you will understand how fluid and mercurial human memory can be.  On the other hand, these inconsistencies may reflect the inner turmoil of an unhappy family.  Or the quirkiness of a strange one.  In such cases, the holiday memories might be useful.

This is where judgment comes in.  Pay attention to your physical and emotional responses.  Does it hurt your stomach, just thinking about that holiday?   Does your jaw tense tight, when your sister shares her version of events?  Or do you just enjoy the story?  If you feel a visceral response, there might be something there (or you might just have a competitive relationship with your sister - which, hey, could make a great essay).

What if nobody agrees?  What if there are no established facts?  How do I find them objectively?

The first thing you need to realize is that there is no such thing as pure objectivity.  Even the most scientific processes are laden with assumptions and bias.  If an educator wants to study the effectiveness of a particular teaching style, and she does so by measuring standardized test scores, she has already revealed at least two biases: that standardized scores reflect learning, and that higher test scores are a worthwhile goal.   Even the methodologies of so-called objective measurement can be biased:

This brings us back to the admission requests.  Do similar memories imply accurate memories?  Not necessarily.  You may be asking the wrong questions. 

But none of this means you have to doubt every fact or stop trusting your judgement.  In response to strong criticism of bias in scientific research, Karl Popper “proposed a standard for testing knowledge claims” (Gall, et al., 2003, p. 29).  According to this standard, a hypothesis can never be proven; it can only be refuted or supported by the evidence (Gall, et al., 2003).  Which is precisely what creative nonfiction strives to do - provide evidence (concrete memories, actions, and details) in support of certain ideas (cultural, familial, personal, or political). 

Popper maps out a much-needed middle ground between subjectivity and science.  No one can claim to know the absolute truth, but at the same time, science is not forced to dissolve into meaningless relativism.  This is why an adversarial, dialogic process is so important.  It helps writers reflect on the slippery nature of truth and memory, finding their own middle ground.  Their own truth.  Admissions requests are a good first step in the process.

References:

Gall, M. D., Gall, J. P., & Borg, W.R. (2003). Educational Research: An
Introduction (7th ed.). Boston: A and B.

Wolcott, Harry. (1995). The Art of Fieldwork. London: Altamira Press.

Part three of the series on Discovery Phase: Document Requests

Document requests are fairly simple on the surface.  Videos, legal documents, audio tapes, and other items may be crucial to the discovery of admissable evidence in a case.  They add dimension and complexity to the story and can serve to verify certain facts. 

Documents can be incredibly useful for creative nonfiction as well.  But be prepared.  They can also surprise us.  I recently received a box of family photographs from my mother, only to discover old, crumbling papers detailing the lives of my great-grandparents and grandparents. There were legal papers, property deeds for relatives I never knew existed, death certificates, receipts for coffins, maps, photographs, and ship schedules, printed in German. The family myth had always been that my grandmother immigrated to the United States from Germany, albeit under ambiguous circumstances.  The documents showed that it was, in fact, my great-grandparents who had immigrated, and that Grandma was actually born in Iowa.  (She apparently returned to Germany for some time, and then returned to the United States during WWII.  This could account for the confusion). 

What I came to understand was that I actually had something invested in the original story - emotionally and psychologically.  It was part of my identity.  What did it mean that Grandma allowed this myth to exist?  Why had she lied in her own diary, which she left to me after she died?  Or did she lie?  Were the documents the ultimate authority, after all?  Why should I believe a birth certificate over her own diary?   Why did any of this matter at all?  What did it mean for my sense of self and family?

So know this:  If you ask to see the papers, you may not like what you see.  Or your sense of reality and identity may shift.  This is good.  It means you are onto something.   

A few years ago, I requested my medical charts in order to verify certain dates, as well as the names of medications, tests, and therapies I had tried.   The charts were enormously helpful in that regard, but they also introduced a whole new set of facts.  I learned doctors' opinions of me as a person (not just as a patient), as well as the degree of surveillance I had undergone while in the hospital.  I also learned how family members did or did not support me in my quest for healing.  (Again, family myths were destroyed).   The lesson is that documents are rarely simple or easy.  They may verify dates or other facts, but they will complicate others.  In other words, they contribute to the adversarial, dialogic process described earlier on this site.  They do not resolve it.

Consider this for your own writing.  How might your old diary complicate your current memory?  How might your medical charts reveal family politics you had never before considered?  If you find the obituary for a loved one, will it reveal something you did not know?  Did your (now divorced) parents videotape their wedding?  Is it strange to see their early romance documented on video?  Does this complicate your understanding of their relationship?  Look at documents as a way to confront difficult memories, truths, and lies.  They are rich sources of information, inspiration, and personal growth.  And they can help you along in the writing process.

The patterning of human behavior is key to the concept that the study of the spatial arrangement of artifacts can be used to infer the behavior from which they result.  Because of this, the spatial context of artifacts, including their relationship with the natural environment, is more important than the artifact itself.  Removing an artifact from its context destroys much of its potential to help reconstruct human behavior.  -From Forensic Taphonomy: the Postmortem Fate of Human Remains by William Haglund and Marcella Sorg

In other words, context is everything.  Context is all you have. 

What does this mean for creative writing?

Let's say your character writes her former lover to confess that she never got over him - that she walks past his downtown apartment every morning, dreams and fantasizes about him, wonders about his life.   

Now, imagine she mails this letter knowing that her former lover is married.  This certainly changes the emotional, psychological, and moral nuances of the story.   

What happens if this man is unhappily married?  Does it matter if the woman is married, too?  What if their affair began - and ended - while both were already engaged?

Context, however, can be more far-reaching and broad.  Imagine  the lovers live in a culture where adulterers are punished by stoning.  The letter suddenly takes on a dual nature - as criminal and personal confession.  The saliva on the stamp and seal are samples of DNA for the court.  And the mailing is (possibly) an act of marital and literal suicide. 

Or imagine bombs falling on the city, strict police curfews, massive unemployment, terrorist attacks.  This certainly changes the context for love.  What if the woman is part of a resistance movement?  And the man is not?   

The facts (events, characters, place) do not create the whole story.  Rather, conflict and meaning arise from the resonance between context and facts.  This will be the theme for the next series of posts, about forensic archaeology, taphonomy, and context.