Zola...

I think Zola’s idea of monitoring humans using the experimental method in order to write literature is very interesting. It is very much like what field anthropologists do while observing different cultures. They write “exactly” what happens and how people interact. However, in order to write a fictional story, I don’t think the experimental method would work on humans. I think the method cannot measure complex human feelings. In reality, we haven’t found any method that could measure the full complexity of human feelings even now. In addition, while writing a story, the writer would have to create characters that have details that make them come alive to the readers. This would be really hard using a scientific method, because the descriptive words would still be in the perspective of the writer. In fact, even if a group of humans were just filmed doing their daily activities, the perspective of each viewer would be different. And, therefore, each would have a different opinion of the same film.