How does one classify "sciction"?
Sciction is a type of non-fiction with specific
characteristics.
1. It must educate as its primary goal.
2. It must portray real scientific endeavor not
futuristic scientific imagination as in science fiction.
3. The educational information must be based on
fact.
4. The information must be upgradeable: In fiction,
the contents are largely immutable except for possibly
translations into more modern language, or dialects
or other languages. In sciction, information may become
outdated which means book revisions may be associated
with revisions of the factual scientific contents of the text,
like any other text-book.
5. It must have a distinct literary style: dialogue,
characterization, play within prose, composites of reality all
are
features that reflect this genre of sciction.
Why is Cry the Beloved Mind appropriately
classified under the broadest guise of "non-fiction"?
With the classification of Dr Neppe's new pioneering
classic, Cry the Beloved Mind: A Voyage of Hope in the
new literary genre of "sciction" the
question is legitimately asked, is it non-fiction or fiction?
This is more than theoretical as it is currently
the only book specifically defined as in the literary genre of
sciction, though no doubt others exist.
Sciction has most similarities to another new
literary genre called "creative non-fiction" which is
non-fiction with fictitious embellishments. We believe it to be
different, however, from creative non-fiction because there are
no
such fictitious embellishments. Every facet of
this book "Cry the Beloved Mind: A Voyage of Hope" is
based on
fact.
What parts allow for fiction?
Why then "sciction"? Where does the
fiction come in? It is only a peripheral facet. The characterization
of the
student, Andrew is fictitious, though, he could
resemble many medical students. The dialogue between doctor and
patient, and doctor and medical student is based
on fact but written as fiction. The characters of patients are
fiction only the sense that no specific patient
in the book exactly resembles one single patient the author has
treated. However, such patients' symptoms and
problems are real composites extracted from several different
patients. The fiction is the literary component
of sciction.
Why the non-fiction classification ----
is it the science?
Simply because this is how the book was
written. It is written as a medical and scientific document. Like
other scientific papers, it is not neutral, but expresses opinions
and preferences. The object of the book is scientific education.
But to make such a didactic text especially worthwhile, it is
written in a prose and dialogue style ---- a play within prose
--- that is designed to fascinate, provide hope and help and teach
all at the same time. It would have been far easier writing pure
non-fiction, like many of the books that preceded it. But this
would have compromised its style and short-changed the reader.
They would have read a dry scientific treatise not a fascinating
piece of non-fiction designed to help thousands of lost souls.
But are there specific examples of non-fiction
in this book?
Indeed, yes. Every patient described in the book
is reflected in appropriate scientific literature in regard to
the
nature of the new discovery or innovative or pioneering
treatment. Footnotes appear citing the appropriate
literature. Moreover, the more general teachings
such as absorption or metabolism of medications have a solid
basis in scientific endeavor. Moreover, each and
every case described in the book, has a solid basis in reality
and
no key information has been changed, other than
to disguise the patient or exclude out irrelevancies in the case
history or allow composites. This has the dual
function of emphasizing certain points and also disguising the
patient's identities for confidentiality. In fact,
in a review in the King County Medical Society Newsletter (1999),
Dr Ronald Scheneeweiss makes the following comment:
"Dr. Neppe has written
an insightful and often humorous book based on his many years
of working as a neuropsychiatrist and psychopharmacologist.
He has coined the term "sciction"science through fiction
"" to describe his technique of creating composite patient
stories from his clinical experience.
I wondered whether the cases
were more fiction than science so I asked him if he had made up
any of the "facts.
He assured me that all the cases are composites of real patients
that he has personally taken care of."
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