I have, on occasion, been asked when penning a non-fiction work, ghostwritten or under my own name, whether to emphasize the facts of the story or the emotions aroused. My reply is always: ‘Both! Both!’ The one makes little sense without the other.

It is common to gently mock someone who has mentally filed an array of nerdy facts, from the constituency represented by Clement Attlee to the scorer of the winning goal in the 1968 FA Cup final¹. But facts matter when building a story; they are the bricks, the emotions are the interior décor. While the emotional pull that a work exerts upon a reader rests on the capacity of the narrative to engage a reader’s empathy with the protagonists – to be rooting for them, or at least care whether they overcome the challenges that they face; the narrative often makes little sense unless it rests upon a solid foundation of facts, facts, facts. A preliminary task is often to sketch a timeline of events. Did this decision by the principal character take place before or after the divorce, or the outbreak of war? Did it occur during a pandemic? Was the individual under financial pressure? These apparently small details can transform our understanding of certain decisions or dramas.

Knowing the boring, nerdy facts may be more than a mere detail, it can be transformative to our understanding of the wider narrative. My favourite example is to cite the nerdy fact that Adolf Hitler never came close to majority support in inter-war German politics. It is a common belief, as a warning about sinister undercurrents in human nature, that he was swept to power by winning the popular vote. Yet his party, the National Socialists, peaked at just over one third of the vote in 1929. Their support fell by four percentage points in the last democratic elections before the dictatorship, held in 1932, at which they lost 34 seats. The two left-wing parties between them attracted more votes (13.2 million to the National Socialists’ 11.7 million, according to Wikipedia). Hitler became Chancellor in a coalition government, from which position he orchestrated a coup d’etat before banning and persecuting his opponents and seizing control of the media as well as the state apparatus – essentially the same manoeuvres that Donald Trump and his supporters attempted in the Capitol Hill riots in January 2021.

It is probably fair to observe that very few people in the English-speaking world have ever considered the point of view of the nearly seven out of ten German citizens in the 1930s who did not support the Nazis, many of whom were imprisoned or executed. Looking up nerdy facts on Wikipedia can alter not only one’s perspective of history, but challenge widely held assumptions about human nature.

It is quite rewarding, as a proud nerd, to be able to use this secret superpower to help carve out a career as a non-fiction author and ghostwriter. I acknowledge that obsessing over facts while neglecting emotions, motives and relationships leads to a dull, even unintelligible work; but going to the other extreme can result in a highly misleading emotional mess. Nerdy facts do not constitute the whole story, but you don’t have a coherent narrative without them.

1. Stepney Limehouse and Jeff Astle, respectively.
   
   
2. Philip Whiteley is a full-time author, ghostwriter and journalist. He writes non-fiction under his full name and fiction under the byline PJ Whiteley. His website is www.pjwhiteley.com