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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6635
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'd like to write the biography of an important, underrated scientist who performed a really important experiment. He persevered for many years, became ill (and recovered) along the way, and practically invented molecular biology. He and his work deserve to be much better known, as do the times through which he lived (born when Pasteur introduced the idea germs cause disease, lived long enough to see the double helix).

The problem is that he had pretty much no life outside his scientific papers. He was intensely private, kept no diary, and has no legacy of personal letters. It's hard to make a personal connection when so few details are known about a person's life.

I struggle with whether he's too boring to be publishable, or whether I lack the writing skill to portray him skillfully. So I'm looking for advice. For the record, I do have _some_ personal info, but I'm essentially asking for tips on how to turn technical archane papers into a gripping story. ... And suggestions for biographies I might turn to as models?

Original score: 4