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n a quiet afternoon, Susan was sitting on her couch when an email arrived: she had been accepted as an intern at an organisation. Less than 24 hours later, she was at her new workplace, meeting colleagues and receiving her first assignment – a task she had never tackled before.
Guided by mentors and competing with fellow interns, she quickly learnt the mix of cooperation and rivalry that shapes many early career experiences. The turning point came on the presentation day, when her rivals misplaced her file. After a brief reprimand, she recovered the correct file and delivered a presentation that won praise.
By the end of the internship, Susan was taking stock of what she had learnt, not just about the work itself, but also about persistence under pressure. The story, she says, follows the arc of a positive quadratic graph. She links that choice to a belief she once encountered: that strong mathematical ability can translate into stronger writing. Her conclusion was straightforward: apply the same structure and rules to words as to numbers and the results will improve.
Recently, I revisited this idea and did some research. As I delved deeper, I began to notice clear similarities. In an insightful New Yorker article by Alexander Nazaryan, titled Why Writers Should Learn Math, he discusses how both mathematics and language begin with the basics. It is true that we are required to study these subjects as part of a compulsory curriculum. We learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as the building blocks of mathematics. Likewise, we learn the grammar, vocabulary, syntax and sentence types that form the foundation of a language. Later, both subjects progress to more abstract concepts, calculus in the case of mathematics, and the interpretation of words in the case of language.
Consider poets: they are meticulous in following set patterns of stanzas, paying attention not only to the physical appearance of words on the page but also to their phonetics, ensuring they fit with the rhythm of the poem. In Urdu, we have a variety of poetic forms such as the ghazal, masnavi, rubai and nazm. Each differs in sentence structure and has its own distinct geometry.
Further elements of literature complement the idea of mathematics even more. If I consider Aristotle’s concepts of defective and episodic plots, I am reminded of the value mathematics brings to writing. In Poetics, Aristotle states that a plot that is not a complete whole, one that lacks a beginning, middle and end, and in which the actions are inconsistent or improbable, is at best a failed attempt. A work must have proper continuity and magnitude.
This points to the need for sound planning, where crafting a story can resemble working through a mathematical function, with attention to probability, slope and magnitude. The unfolding actions should have an element of predictability and relevance, rather than veering into complete irrelevance. Mindless writing, in this view, is futile.
There must be order.
The three-act structure in screenwriting supports the argument for integrating mathematics into writing. In a feature-length film, the story is divided into three acts with precise time allocations: the first act should make up about 25 percent of the two-hour runtime, the second act 50 percent, and the third act the remaining 25 percent. In this way, the narrative is organised through numbers and percentages. Delving deeper, each act is broken down into eight sequences, which further develop the story. This structural precision underscores the importance of mathematics in writing and its crucial role in shaping effective plots.
Humans are naturally drawn both to patterns and to departures from them.
This raises the question, as I attempted with Susan’s story at the beginning, of what might happen if we were to structure our writing around mathematics and adhere to its rules more strictly. David Foster Wallace, for instance, famously based his novel Infinite Jest on the structure of fractals, with numerous subplots arranged not chronologically, but in a recurring pattern that ultimately forms a larger whole. Wallace pursued this painstaking approach out of an obsessive love for mathematics. Yet it illustrates how closely writing can be linked to mathematical principles, a connection that goes beyond the obvious rules we follow unconsciously, such as syntax.
Ernest Hemingway is known to have crafted passages that mirror fractals. In reading his work, one gradually realises how a recurrent element evolves over time, with slight but significant changes that are not immediately apparent. Other writers, such as Lewis Carroll and Thomas Pynchon, have also experimented with these techniques. Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, in particular, weaves mathematics into fiction, using it as a key to explain cause and effect, the unpredictability of events and analogies drawn from calculus.
While this is a more rigid approach to incorporating mathematics into writing, it raises a bigger question: what about literary experimentation, which has produced some of the most remarkable works in history? What about the absurdist style, or the freedom to be uniquely subjective? Alexander Nazaryan notes that fiction written solely by the rules is “cold arithmetic.” Art exists to push boundaries, to break free, to transform through imagination and to embrace the surreal.
If we were to limit ourselves strictly to patterns and mathematical rules, the arts and literature would never have produced the works that became famous precisely for breaking convention. Writers often bend or defy such rules, just as filmmakers do. Kafka moves readers because he delves into the absurd and the improbable. Audiences are often most engaged by films that resist easy prediction and offer genuine surprise. Experimental literature thrives on twisting conventional plot structures, defying syntax and embracing multimodality in language, form and narrative.
Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves is a striking example, mind-bending in style and layout, it offers readers an immersive experience into the vulnerabilities of its characters, demonstrating how form itself can become a vital part of storytelling.
To claim that mathematics is essential for literature is to place limits on creativity, making writing rigid and overly scientific. Of course, writers need a basic understanding of structure and rules, just as artists must calculate light and darkness or study proportions. But strictly following the rules does not produce innovation. It is experimentation that opens new avenues and fresh perspectives.
In fact, it can be more rewarding to first master the rules and then deliberately break them, using that disruption to reveal another side of the arts. This returns me to an idea I encountered in another article: humans are naturally drawn both to patterns and to departures from them. Together, they keep literature dynamic, surprising and alive.
The writer is a student at LUMS with an interest in foreign languages, particularly German. She may be reached at faleha.hakimgmail.com