The Unexpected Analogy of Technical Data and Fictional Novels
I had written and self-published several fictional books by the time I participated at the S1000D User Forum in Seville at the end of September 2016.

So when I got challenged to explain what a data module actually was, I suddenly had an idea. I exclaimed, “Data modules are so much like scenes in a novel!”

Right after that, I couldn’t stop the flow of realizations.

“Just as scenes,” I said, “data modules have a start (for a procedural data module, it is preliminary requirements), the middle (the procedure itself), an end (close-up requirements), and one setting (a unit or assembly, where the operational or maintenance procedure takes place). And in a way, just like the scenes in a novel, they tell a concise and self-contained story, or a future short story, that is how the given procedure is to take place.”

This epiphany might also have been facilitated by a statement I made during the presentation I made at the same User Forum in Seville before the above discussion took place. During that presentation, I claimed that technical manuals were books, whatever format they are in or however interactive they might be.

The presentation and the discussions afterward only strengthened this flow of parallels between novels, books in general, and S1000D conformant technical publications.

After the User Forum, I jotted down a list of topics I could think of when relating S1000D and its constructs to storytelling, and I came up with at least seven of them immediately. Today, I guess that you can find an equivalent in a technical manual to any tool or construct the fictional writers use in their novels so artfully.
['Victoria Ichizli-Bartels']
['Technical Publications', 'Technology', 'Serendipity', 'Analogy', 'Fiction']