I ran a writing workshop recently during Clunes Booktown Festival on writing science, which is ironic because I was a terrible science student. In my undergraduate psychology degree, the subjects I struggled most with also happened to be the most scientific – behavioural biology, genetics, statistics.
Secondly, I never intended to write a book about science. I’d started out to write a book about the people involved in the Milgram obedience research, not the research itself. So I was worried about whether I was really qualified to talk on the topic.
I went back and re-read science writing that I loved, made some notes and set off early on a Sunday morning to face my class. A seismologist, a microbiologist, a pharmacologist, every kind of -ologist I could think of all sat in a semicircle in front of me, pads and pens ready, politely waiting to hear what I had to say. All of them wanted to be able to turn scientific writing into something engaging and readable.
We kicked off by reading the first page of a recent New Yorker article by Jerome Groopman on using the body’s immune system to treat cancer.
I asked them whether by the end of the first page they wanted to keep reading. The answer was a unanimous yes. What was it that hooked them in and made them want to keep reading this story? Here’s their answers.
- A great science story is a human story. It’s about people – their struggles, their conflicts, their journey – including the writer’s own.
- In a great science story we become as engaged and interested and fascinated as the writer is with the topic.
- There’s a mystery or a puzzle at the heart of the story that has to be solved.
- The story is rich in detail and texture. The writer breathes life into the story with rich detail, observations, and anecdotes that help us see, hear, feel what he or she is experiencing.
- We feel we’re in the hands of an expert. There’s an authority and confidence about the writing that’s compelling. Even when the writer makes surprising leaps or connections, we trust them and follow along.
- Technical or scientific concepts are explained in a way that not only connects with our own experiences but helps us understand things in a new way.
This list might be sounding familiar to you. It certainly did to me. We could have simply dropped the word ‘science’ from the conversation and lost nothing as a result. What people were describing was how great science writing is great storytelling.
Who’s your favourite science writer or what’s your favourite science story?