Jack Harris

Erik Hoel Q&A Reflection

Erik Hoel is a Doctor in Neuroscience and writes about fictional stories that have a

strong relation or basis in a scientific topic. He discussed his unique writing and how he

balances storytelling with his scientific knowledge. I haven’t read any of his novels, but I am a

science major and I was excited to hear about a scientist also being creative and enthusiastic

about writing. The novel he discussed for most of the talk was The Revelations, a novel about a

young scientist questioning and determining the true meaning of consciousness in humans. I

was confused how he could talk about a scientific topic and not bog down his writing with high-

level science jargon. He said he loves to work with characters and dive into their feelings and

emotions about these scientific topics so people can have a personal connection with the

science. He works with fiction and connects it to common scientific questions and brings in

personal characters that help us connect to these scientific concepts. Hoel said he couldn’t

write about the chemistry of the brain and consciousness, but he wanted to talk about how

subjective events and experiences are interpreted by people. He works with fiction and

connects it to common scientific questions and brings in personal characters that help us

connect to these scientific concepts.

One of the questions I had during the talk was when did his science background help

him enter the fiction writing field. Erik said he is at University of Wisconsin-Madison getting his

PHD and it is very high-level informative scientific research. He said the environment he worked

in, which was very demanding yet informative for his writing, helped him with creating scientific

questions for his writing and how he can connect it to everyday people. His writing technique
was another one of my questions and he said he enjoys doing it when he feels like he wants to

write. Erik writes in short bursts throughout the week when he comes up with a writing idea to

guide his work and thought process. I found this interesting and I think I have also found this

helpful for myself because lazy writing usually does hurt my work, but when I have an idea to

guide me, I work well with my thoughts. One of my main takeaways from this discussion was no

matter the background that anyone has a creative nature and can create interesting fiction that

can tie into their own life. Being a science major, I never wrote creatively very often and I’m

excited to continue to express my creativity and write short stories with my own personal twist.

His technique of using ideas from his work environment to create his stories was an interesting

tactic that I think I will use in the future. He also uses multiple perspectives in his stories to give

different feelings and emotions on the topic of the story to help the reader make their own

feelings on the topic. I think this will be a useful tactic to shift the perspectives around during

my stories to make my stories more complex and giving the reader a better understanding of

the feelings of other characters.