Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37729
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37729
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> How much value do publishers and editors place on informative/educational content in fiction stories?

### No value at all.

Consider a Romance; When Harry Met Sally. What did you learn there, that you did not know before? New, factual, interesting things, mind you.

Consider a SciFi movie, Star Wars. What new facts did you learn about _our_ world in the entire series? New, factual, interesting things? Nothing I can recall.

Fiction is for entertainment; period. If you insist on describing something real, then for the sake of entertainment you must do some research so you don't drop-kick a knowledgeable reader out of their suspension of disbelief.

If you put the jugular vein in the leg, I'm going to have to put the book down for a minute to get over laughing. Not with you. At you.

The same if your expert swordsman calls the hilt of his sword a "handle." (The hilt consists of pommel, grip, and guard.)

If you MUST have your farmer doing some farmer-only-thingy, do enough research to not make a fool of yourself. If she is harvesting apples, she's likely in a cool climate and apples are harvested in September and October. Not early July. If your story time line demands the scene be in early July, or someplace apples don't fare well, find something else for her to farm or do instead. Feed chickens or gather eggs. And spend thirty minutes reading something about those too.

That's all the "educational" you need, enough to not make a fool of yourself, shocking the reader back to reality and out of immersion in your story.

This is about as important as not using a word incorrectly, and not having a wild misspelling of a word. For the same reason, reasonably knowledgeable readers will catch it.

I'm not saying you need to write for _experts_ in every field, but presume you are writing for typical college graduate with good grades; they know a little about a lot. Even an American math student like me had to take American and World history, sociology, psychology, art and art history, years of English, Mythology, Physics, Astronomy, computer courses -- and then all the basic math and algebra and geometry and statistics that everybody takes, then the advanced math courses.

I am also not saying "write what you know." That can make it easier, you don't have to do as much research. In some cases it leads to fiction nobody else could write, like getting into the nitty-gritty of lawyering or medicine. But it can also turn writing from fun into work, an extension of your working day, that slows you down. So "writing what you know" is a personal choice.

I am saying that all that matters is a good story. It doesn't even have to be an original plot; Star Wars isn't. But the elements of the plot are original and compelling, George Lucas did that with stellar imagination, enough to capture a generation of movie goers. The same goes for Harry Potter: Rowling's imagination filled a fantasy-mystery plot with something new and compelling. It doesn't really educate us in any way about things in the real world.

Think about sexual content in a novel: It is one form of entertainment, but it is not demanded and, as Harry Potter proves, sexual content is not a _necessary_ component at all; you can write a bestseller without even an obscure allusion to it.

Likewise, being casually educational can be one form of entertainment, but publishers and editors and agents only care about overall entertainment value that translates into **_sales_** and profits. That's it. Like sexual content, educational content is not a _necessary_ component at all. You can write without it.

Just do enough research to not make a fool of yourself.

Original score: 6