Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge and Fiction (Part 3: Character Development)

This is the third post in the "Knowledge and Fiction" Series.

Part 3: Character Development Through the Lens of Knowledge

All stories have the following five elements: plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. In this post, I will focus on characters and the process of character development.

Not everything in a character’s backstory makes it into a novel, but the more detailed the backstory, the easier it is to deliver believable characters whose actions, inner monologue, and interactions align with who they are. My background as a Knowledge Management professional influences how I think about backstories, by focusing on—no surprise—knowledge.

I’m not suggesting this is the only or the best way to approach character development. It’s simply how my brain has been wired after several decades of working in knowledge management. Here are a few aspects I consider:

Key Considerations for Character Development

• Learning History
  Everyone has a personal learning history. What is the character’s learning history? How and what have they learned from their experiences? This could include pivotal moments in their education, career, or personal life that shaped their knowledge base.

• Approach to Learning
  A character’s ongoing approach to learning is related to their learning history and could impact how they approach new ideas and their awareness of knowledge gaps. Are they open-minded and curious, or do they resist new ideas? What knowledge do they have access to, and how do they seek or acquire it? How do they consume information—are they avid readers, podcast enthusiasts, or experiential learners? What’s their attitude toward technologies that support learning and information access?

• Unique Skills and Sharing Knowledge
  What unique skills have they acquired, and how did they acquire them? Are they good at sharing knowledge? If so, with whom, and under what circumstances? Consider how their willingness or reluctance to share knowledge impacts their relationships.

• Knowledge Network
  What does their knowledge network look like? Who do they rely on for specific insights or advice? Explore the dynamics of trust, mentorship, and collaboration within their network if it has a potential impact on the plot. Are they well-connected or isolated?

• Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge
  How do tacit knowledge (intuitive, experience-based) and explicit knowledge (codified, formalized) manifest in their actions? Consider how these types of knowledge influence their decision-making and problem-solving.

• Emotional Impact of Knowledge
  Knowledge is not neutral—it carries emotional weight. What a character knows or doesn’t know affects their emotions, choices, and relationships. Some knowledge is empowering, while other knowledge becomes a burden.

  One particularly complex emotional dynamic is the burden of knowing more than others:

  • Does the character feel isolated by what they know?
  • Are they responsible for sharing or withholding information that could change lives?
  • Does their knowledge put them in a moral dilemma or create an internal conflict?

  Emotional engagement with knowledge can reveal vulnerabilities, strengths, and motivations, shaping the character's arc.
  
  
  

  

  Just a "KM" slice of questions that might be relevant to character development.

  
  

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Three Connected Ideas for Future Posts

• Illustrating Character Development through a Knowledge Lens Using Fictional Characters
  This would be a close follow up to this post, taking each of the elements I have highlighted and exploring each of them with a different well-known character from fiction (books or movies). 

• The Role of Memory in Character Development and Plot
  A character’s knowledge is shaped by memory, which carries its own mysteries. Memory is not just about what a character has learned but how their memories shape their worldview and decision-making.

• Point of View and the Role of the Narrator
  How is knowledge shared with the reader through an engaging story? How can each key character’s knowledge shine through, unhindered by the voice of the main narrator?

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As I write these posts and develop my novel, it’s tempting to include details that would reveal elements of the plot. For now, I’m intentionally keeping these discussions generic, resisting the urge to give away too much.

What I can say is that because my novel takes place in 2065 and advancements in technology impact all of these elements—memory, learning, and knowledge-sharing—on both an individual and societal level.

Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge and Fiction (Part 2: Evolution)

This is the second post in the "Knowledge and Fiction Series."

Part 2: Evolution

Fiction often resides at the intersection of two distinct continuums: didacticism vs. pure entertainment, and realism vs. speculative genres such as fantasy and science fiction. On the first axis, stories may be crafted to educate, provoke thought, or impart moral lessons, leaning towards didacticism. Business novels and fictional case studies--mentioned in the previous post--, fall at that end of the continuum. At the other end, fictional accounts may exist purely to entertain, offering escapism without a direct message. I’ve experimented with both extremes.

On the second axis, realism anchors a story in the tangible and familiar, often reflecting societal norms or historical settings. Meanwhile, speculative fiction—including fantasy and science fiction—liberates itself from these constraints, imagining worlds governed by different rules, whether shaped by magic, advanced technology, or alternative realities.

These continuums intersect in countless ways. The specific intersection I’m aiming for now, lies toward the speculative end, focused on a relatively close time horizon of the next 30–40 years. On the didactic-entertainment axis, I’m stepping away from didactic fiction. Yet, I can’t imagine writing a novel purely for entertainment. I say that now, but I’ve written—and filled my head with—fiction entirely for my own enjoyment, so I don’t mean to diminish its value. In fact, didactic fiction that isn’t entertaining rarely reaches many readers.

At this stage in my life, the fiction I want to write should provoke thought, raise awareness, and inspire individual and collective reflection. If it’s not entertaining, it must at least be engaging. That’s my aim.

More specifically, in this new phase of exploration—and perhaps because I can’t entirely turn my back on 25+ years of knowledge-related work—I want to investigate how speculative and science fiction address knowledge-related themes, such as:

• Knowledge as power
• The role of knowledge in survival
• The emotional and cultural contexts of knowledge
• Fragility and preservation of knowledge
• Dangers of knowledge misuse
• Knowledge as a living, evolving entity
• Personal knowledge vs. collective knowledge
• Ethics of knowledge control
• Interplay between human and machine intelligence
• Knowledge as a tool for social and economic mobility
• Different ways of knowing—and perhaps even how the concept of “knowledges” relates to ideas around the multiverse and quantum theory.

That last one might be a stretch, but explorations require stretching the imagination and taking risks. That includes the risk of saying or writing something ridiculous—or venturing into unknown areas that later prove fruitless. But that’s probably a topic for another blog.

I wrote a novel once that touched on this theme. I think it was called In Her Mind’s Eye. It’s the only novel I ever tried—weakly—to publish. The main character had synesthesia, which allowed me to explore a unique way of experiencing the world, sensing, and knowing.

 

This is illustrative, not meant to be exhaustive.

This exploration could easily expand into multiple dissertations. Instead, I’ll take a selective approach, using my current novel’s needs to guide the inquiry. I’ll need discipline—an analysis of the ‘critical knowledge’ needed to complete the novel successfully. Even writing these blog posts often leads to tangents, connecting ideas and exploring different pathways. It might not make for “good writing,” but let’s call it “exploration writing.” It feels raw, like an explorer’s journal. And yes, I overuse the words explore and exploration—I call myself a knowledge explorer, after all! 😊

In a recent post, I addressed my insecurities about writing. I find myself oscillating between confidence, acknowledging the preparation I’ve done over the decades, and self-doubt, reminding myself that I’ve never published a novel. But that’s nonsense. As I tell myself: “Je vais me foutre la paix.”

What’s Next?

2025 Blog Series: To provide a sense of what’s coming, here is what the full series looks like, with the caveat that the italicized posts have not been even drafted yet.  At the end of each month, I also plan on writing a short post on progress made with the actual writing of the novel – without giving away the plot.

• Setting My Sights on Fiction– 12/26/2024
• Facing the Blank Page – 1/1/2025

Beginning of the Knowledge in Fiction Series

• Part 1 – Past Experience 1/8/2025
• Part 2 – Evolution 1/15/2025 – this post
• Part 3 – Knowledge and Character Development
• Part 4 – Knowledge at Societal Level
• Part 5 – Knowledge as Plot Element
• Part 6 – Fiction Writing, World Building, and Knowledge Management
• Part 7 – Books for Writers – Learning to Write

Reading and Listening

• Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
• Playground, by Richard Powers
• Hua Hsu, “Richard Powers on What We Do to the Earth and What it Does to Us,” The New Yorker, September 9, 2024. 

Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge and Fiction (Part 1: A Review of Past Experience)

 

This is the first post in a “Knowledge and Fiction Series”.

Part 1: A Review of Past Experience

Over the years, I have explored the interplay between knowledge and fiction from several angles. I am glad my blog and other unpublished notes allow me to easily revisit these themes before I dive in again with fresh insights.

Around 2008-2009, I was reading a lot of  didactic fiction and business novels: Didactic fiction involves using storytelling to convey practical lessons in a way that engages the reader and encourages critical thinking rather than following a prescriptive path. I wrote one full novel in this genre. It was called “Learning Log”, with a subtitle that read “A Knowledge Management Novel”. I wrote an accompanying White Paper, “Integrating Didactic Fiction in Structured Training."  The format was an experimental TiddlyWiki, my favorite Personal Knowledge Management tool. Here are some related blog posts showing a clear concentration around the same timeframe.

• Fiction with a Mission (2008)
• Didactic... in a Good Way (2009)
• Didactic Fiction (2009)
• The End (June 2009)

I have also explored storytelling as a method for knowledge sharing, which revolves around using narrative as a tool for organizational learning. A lot has been written about that, but my own interest in it was accelerated with Steve Denning's book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (2001) and later his business novel, Squirrel, Inc: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling (2004).  This second book aligned even more with my interest in didactic fiction.  Here are a couple of blog posts along those lines:

• The Springboard (2017)
• KM Chats (2011)

As an educator, I have dabbled in the use of fictional case studies for teaching. This involved crafting imaginary scenarios to deepen the reader or student’s understanding of a situation and sharpen critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Perhaps it is a subcategory of storytelling for knowledge sharing.  I mostly remember the  hand-drawn picture of a country I had named Kamala (nothing to do with politics) but I found much more in my files.  I found a small note attached to the case study itself that reads “GREATEST CRAZY IDEA” and then “Filed under Things that flopped” (see photos below). 

Now that I reread the few pages I kept, it seems it was my first ambitious effort to combine teaching or some form of knowledge transfer with fiction. And yet, I was not teaching or doing Knowledge Management work at the time. I would call that a fascinating creative flop because I still believe in what I was trying to do. I am not sure I even tried to sell it to my supervisor at the time. I was just having fun. This was, however, related to another recurring theme in my work: Technology. It was Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) then and it is Artificial Intelligence (AI) now.  There is a date on the document that accompanies the map, so I know that is where my brain was in 2006. 

Documentation of some crazy, perhaps creative, early work (2006 and 2009). The fact that I bothered to keep these paper copies in sleeves in a binder full of "important" documents suggests I was proud of those efforts and wanted to be reminded of the fun I had working on them. 

For teaching purposes, it is better to rely on case studies based on real “stories”.  I learned a lot about that in my NASA years.  Still, short fictional scenarios can be useful. In the context of my KM class at George Mason University in the Fall of 2024, I experimented with short fictional scenarios created with the help of generative AI and experienced some of the pitfalls of using AI for more creative work.

And then, on and off during my career in international development, I explored the fiction of international development, which is all about examining development themes through a narrative lens. This deserves a lot more attention because of the depth of issues that could be explored.  The theme that re-emerges today in the context of my current fiction work revolves around the telling of the story: “Whose story is it?  Whose experience?  Whose knowledge?  Who is telling the story?”  This last question is critical because as I start putting down some initial words for the novel, I need to settle on a Point of View (POV).  Here is a 2009 blog post related to the Fiction of Development.

Next, I will write about how my approach is evolving and my current and near-future focus.

Facing the Blank Page

In the previous post, I bravely announced that my big project for 2025 was a fiction writing journey. Like many aspiring writers, I've been wrestling with those familiar voices of self-doubt: "No one cares about what you write." "You should probably start with short stories and see if you can get those published first." "Do you know how many people actually make money from books?" "Nobody reads books nowadays." These aren't just random fears – they're the voices of perfectionism and imposter syndrome that can plague any creative endeavor.

During my journey reconnecting with French through YouTube this year, I discovered something useful. There's this fascinating philosophy professor and author, Fabrice Midal, who wears striking yellow outfits, including yellow glasses. His bold fashion choices aren't just eccentric – they're a testament to his philosophy of authentic self-expression. One of his books is titled "Foutez-vous la paix!" (in French).

While it loosely translates to "Give yourself a break!" in English, the French version carries more weight, especially in first person: "Je vais me foutre la paix!" The English translation feels tepid in comparison. In French, you can really let that sentence land by emphasizing "FOUTRE" – that initial "F" sound seems to physically expel those nagging doubts about rejection letters and critical voices.

What about fear? "Je vais la FOUTRE dehors" (I'm going to throw it out) et je vais me FOUTRE la paix. Even emphasizing the "P" of "paix" works – it's like pushing away those persistent doubts that try to derail our creative ambitions.

Now, whenever those familiar doubts creep into my thoughts – whether about writing, professional projects, or any creative pursuit – I return to my new mantra: "Je vais me foutre la paix." It's become more than just a phrase; it's a permission slip to create without the burden of perfectionism.

PS:  I wrote this post a few days ago.  It's now January 1st and I've typed the first 1,000 words.  The journey has started.  I am on my way. 

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Related and Recently Read: "Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure," by Maggie Jackson (2023).
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Coming Next: A series on Knowledge and Fiction.