How can people doing technical, archane work be portrayed interestingly?
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?
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Writing biographies like these for a mass audience will require that the reader understand the subject's work. This can be handled by long expository passages, or, as is more frequently done, concepts can be broken up into small, easily digestible pieces. These can alternate with the story of the subject's life, information provided to the reader only as is needed.
Many writers seem to have a knack for getting science writing "right", and I suggest that your best strategy is to read those books. Look at what these writers do well, and learn from it.
Here are just a few examples of the books I've read. While most of these are not biographical in nature, the same issues apply:
- The Best American Science Writing series is probably the best place for you to start.
- Simon Winchester is a wonderful popularizer of history and science. His books cover geography and geology as well as politics and history. I particularly recommend Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded for an amazing blend of sociology, geology, environmental issues, and politics.
- Isaac Asimov was famous for making many, many topics accesible. He wrote books on physics and chemistry that may be of interest, despite being somewhat outdated now. The Neutrino: Ghost Particle of the Atom is a particular favorite of mine.
- Brian Greene's book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory is a wonderful if slightly slow read. The book is somewhat technical but understandable if the reader sticks to it.
- Carl Sagan's seminal book Cosmos is the essence of readable science popularization.
- Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell are great introductions to then-current theoretical physics.
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) focuses more on Richard Feynman the man than the work, but is a great read and is well worth your time.
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