our own stories can be improved by
teamwork and this is something that runs
counter to the way I grew up I came up
with the idea that of writers as they
sit in a room by themselves you you
gather your research you distill it you
get it down and you refine it and then
you get it out to the world truth is
very different and so I’m going to share
three stories about how I came to learn
that to improve my storytelling through
other people
they all use other people through
interviews through other skills visual
skills and through teaching so first
interviews I teach here in the science
writing program of Johns Hopkins and one
piece that we always include is
interviewing interviewing sources for a
range of things and typically students
don’t want to do that to spend time the
idea for them typically is that writing
means you practice writing and revising
and that will improve and the idea of
arranging an interview and going out and
having this conversation recording it
transcribing it and then sort of sifting
it for some bits it seems like a lot of
investment for not a big amount of
return and yet and so often they will
ask well can i interview my spouse or
can i interview my partner on something
I already know just to get this out of
the way and really that’s a missed
opportunity I tell them the fact is that
telling this story is they far from
being just a big
it’s a big makes the storytelling easier
if you bring someone else into your
story you get another voice you get
other experiences you get other context
that help you tell your article or your
essay
it makes the lift of the storytelling
much lighter for you still I completely
get that it’s a it can be very
uncomfortable to to do that and that’s
how I found myself in Texas a number of
years ago with the docq small
documentary crew we set up I was going
across a city I didn’t know Houston to
go pick up an interview subject that I
had never met and I wasn’t sure how they
were gonna contribute to our story
so this felt very much out there I was
wandering on the drive across Houston as
it was getting dark why am I doing this
and the fact is the interviewees a
well-known national historian Douglas
Brinkley had carved out time at the end
of a day of teaching right University to
make time for us and so we’d set this
spot and so I drove across town I being
the writer that was my designated job to
be driver and go pick him up and I get
to the campus and it’s dark and the he
comes out after classes and he has a
jacket in one hand and a can of Red Bull
and the other and he says this is dinner
and we get in the car
he’s seeming like it is at the end of
the day my doubts are still there as far
as well how what is he bringing he’s a
basically a presidential historian we’re
talking about a wide range of people in
the 1930s Americans how is this going to
help I’m concerned that our scarce grant
money is going to be used up on an
interview that we won’t even be able to
use but he sits down in front of the
camera and suddenly he is full of a
passion for this period
for the the movement that we’re
describing this experiment and we see
that he’s bringing both stories and
context and analogies into the picture
in a way that we had not anticipated and
so when the film comes out he is a great
voice in our PC there is on the right
and it is if I had any doubts beforehand
in terms of the the benefits of kind of
reaching out beyond what expect to be
useful or an interview for stories that
helps convince me otherwise
well the flash-forward a number of years
and I’m finishing my next book it’s a
story about three families during World
War two and how they get caught up in
the war in different ways three
generations of immigrant family and some
get caught up in profiteering some in
through espionage some by having all
four sons drafted and sent to the front
lines and so it’s a big story but I want
to be able to find a way to sort of tell
and at least an introduction to it in a
short video online I thought an
animation would help get that across
there was one problem I didn’t know how
to make animations I tried for some of
the programs couldn’t do it but so I
reached out to a young team in Baltimore
and called clean cuts and I knew from my
documentary experience well I can script
a short piece I can give them the audio
from my interviews with people who
hadn’t been heard before and they could
help me sort of get that together gave
them some ideas of visuals I felt like
we were in a pretty good place so the
animator took it for weeks go by
she comes back with the draft and I’m
stunned she has taken what I’ve given to
them and she has actually visually made
a more organic storytelling approach and
and she furthermore has taken a step
back and and seeing some parts of it
away as I’ve been very conveying the
character that I hadn’t anticipated I
had left out some of the audio that she
brought back and made it actually a more
heartfelt short video and so this this
relationship that I thought was going to
be less of a full partnership benefit by
having that teamwork and had being open
to having a much fuller partnership than
well finally I like to talk a little bit
about teaching and of course it’s no
secret that teaching is collaborative
you know the evidence the more
interactive that you make the classroom
is you know the more successful it is
the more successful the learning is and
so I typically invite other writers to
come to speak with us so there’s more
interaction they get again different
voices usually its authors sometimes
it’s a fiction author speaking about
something they’ve written related to
science sometimes it’s a radio producer
but usually it’s somebody who identifies
as a writer after David Kaplan is a
physicist at here at Johns Hopkins
he doesn’t identify as a writer he
doesn’t affilate
although he’s made a film he’s finished
he calls himself a physicist yet the
film he made is called particle fever
it’s about the physicists who work with
the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland
and when I saw the film in in a theater
I thought wow this is the most
compelling depiction of science and
scientific process that I’ve seen in a
long time and of physics
and so I thought well maybe I should
invite him to speak with our class so I
did I reached out and in a way that felt
very different in terms of having a
scientist speak with with writing
students and he generously agreed and so
he came and he started telling us about
why he made the film and he said he
wanted it all the documentaries he’d
seen about science typically they felt
dead to him they didn’t capture the
passion of scientists debating ideas and
and exploring and not knowing what’s
what the next step is their uncertainty
involved and he also he said what he
wanted from the film was for viewers to
fall in love with these characters he
basically introduced three scientists
from different backgrounds and he wanted
viewers to get the sense of them and and
the excitement of the scientific process
and so a light bulb went off as he was
as he was saying these things for us in
the class here this this scientist
presenting his work was saying that
actually the emotion was came first for
him and getting this story across and
the content was secondary in that sense
it followed well being writers we asked
about his audience he imagined his
audience would be and Kaplan hated that
question he said a good story would find
its own audience and his work worked out
that way it’s still a good question to
ask and then finally he actually kind of
challenged us he said talked about the
the pitfalls that science writers
typically fall into in interviewing
scientists he said often the biggest
temptation is to ask scientist to speak
in simple terms to think about the
audience while they’re on
and he says that’s too hard you get
somebody talking about their work they
want to you want them to speak about it
in a way that you capture the the fire
in their eyes if they’re trying to edit
themselves while they’re talking about
their work you lose that fire so just
let them go let them let them talk about
what they’re working on and and let it
go for you know 15 20 minutes it’s
digital now it’s not as expensive as
film used to be so just you can go back
later with a graphic or something and
explain the two or three main terms that
a viewer needs to know but let the
passion of the interviewee drive the
storytelling and it was remarkable that
the period was he was sharing this deep
storytelling truth in a way that I would
not have gotten and hadn’t gotten from
other guests that I’ve had and so
reaching across different skill sets
really really opened things up in a ways
that I had not anticipated and really
Kaplan said you know at the end of the
day his advice to storytellers science
writers and scientists was the same
allow yourself not to understand what
the hell is going on and that’s the
point I’ll leave with you today
storytelling does take work telling your
own stories does brainstorming and
rehearsal but expand the range of people
involved get other voices other skills
even other perspectives on the work and
allow yourself at some point not to
understand what the hell is going on [Applause]