Storytelling as a tool of technical explanation-improvisation risks and benefits

K. Echlin (1997) published her main research findings on infrasonic communication between elephants in the form of a novel, called “Elephant Winter”. Echlin was then invited to address the 1998 IPCC conference because of the “juxtaposition of both literary and extraordinarily effective technical writing evident in her book”. (T. Malkinson, 1998). Echlin reported that until the conference committee contacted her and invited her to address the IPCC, she had not known that she had created “technical writing”, and still did not know how she´d done it. Echlin´s book exemplifies both the benefits and the risks of creative improvisation. The risk consists in not knowing how a new aesthetic or technical effect is created or how to reproduce it. In this paper, I analyze Echlin´s novel, together with other novels constructed to help explain technical topics: R. Persig´s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (1974) and A. Manning´s “Supposition Error” (1996). The analysis indicates principles governing the successful incorporation of storytelling in technical explanation. These principles relate to concepts of minimalist documentation (J. Carroll, 1998), as well as rules of textual clarity developed by K. Riley and F. Parker (1998)