A Note to Beginning Science Writers
From time to time, I get letters from people thinking seriously about becoming science writers. Some have no idea how to start; some have started but want to know how to get better. I usually respond with a hasty email, so that I can get back to figuring out for myself how to be a science writer. I thought it would be better for everyone—the people contacting me and myself—to sit down and write out a thorough response.
First a caveat: I am probably the wrong person to ask for this advice. I stumbled into this line of work without any proper planning in the early 1990s, when journalism was a very different industry. The answer to “How do I become a science writer?” is not equivalent to “How did you become a science writer?”
I was the sort of kid who wrote stories, cartoons, and failed imitations of Watership Down. By college, I was working on both fiction and nonfiction, majoring in English to learn from great writers while trying to avoid getting sucked into the self-annihilating maze of literary theory. After college, I spent a couple years at various jobs while writing short stories on my own, but I gradually realized I didn’t have enough in my brain yet to put on the page.
In 1989 I wrote to some magazines to see if they had any entry-level jobs. I got a response from a magazine called Discover, saying they needed an assistant copy editor. I got the job but turned out to be a less-than-perfect copy editor, which means that I was a terrible copy editor. Fortunately, by then my editors had let me start to fact-check stories, which is arguably the best way to learn how to write about science. I got a chance to write short pieces, and I realized this was an experience unlike any previous writing I had done. I was writing about the natural world, but in nature I discovered strangeness beyond my own imagining. And scientists were willing to help me come to understand their discoveries. I stayed at Discover for ten years, the last four of which I was a senior editor there, and then headed out on my own, to write books, features, and other pieces.
In other words, I did not know in college that I wanted to be a science writer. While I took science classes because I enjoyed them, I didn’t get a degree in science. I didn’t go to graduate school for science journalism. I only had the good sense to recognize that I had fallen into a deeply satisfying kind of work.
That’s one reason to take my advice with a grain of salt. Another is the fact that for the first five years of my career, I did not have access to the Internet. I did not have email. At the time, magazine publishers did not see the point of rigging their computers to telephone wires. So my on-the-job training in science writing started in the antediluvian age when magazines and newspapers held a near-monopolistic control over science writing. The only alternatives were crudely printed zines which attracted only a tiny fraction of the circulation of large magazines, and none of their big-ticket advertisers.
All of that has changed, of course. BoingBoing, one of those crude zines, is now a hugely successful web site. It took a very long time for many in the science writing world to realize that change was coming, and many tried to ignore it once it had arrived. Just as I had stumbled into science writing, I stumbled into its online world. In the early 2000s I began enjoying the handful of blogs about science. When Natural History decided to stop publishing my essays, I realized that the essay genre was going to be a hard sell to other editors. So I set up a blog where I didn’t have to pitch someone beside myself.
At the time, blogs seemed like odd distractions. Along with everyone else, I had no idea that they would end up at the heart of science journalism. I also didn’t realize that traditional science journalism—and journalism in general—was undergoing a drastic change. Depending on who you talk to, a better word might be metamorphosis. Or collapse.
That’s why, as I write this note in 2013, I personally feel very lucky to have ended up making a living as a science writer, but I am very cautious in recommending it to others as a line of work. If you have decided that you want to become a science writer, make sure that your impression of the field is accurate. If you have a hazy sense of journalism as it was circa 1990, then you have to update your perceptions.
American newspapers enjoyed a great boom after the end of World War II, but that boom crested around 1990, and newspapers now employ fewer people than they did in 1950. During the boom years, newspapers hired lots of science writers for weekly science sections. At their peak, in 1989, there were 95 in the United States. Now there are 19. When newspapers try to stay profitable through cuts (never a wise strategy, but one that makes the books look good in the short term), the science section is often the first to go.
To Beginning Writers
If you like audio, I have also spoken to audiences about my own experiences in science writing.
From time to time, I get letters from people thinking seriously about becoming science writers. Some have no idea how to start; some have started but want to know how to get better. At first I responded to these requests with hasty emails, so that I could get back to figuring out for myself how to be a science writer. But then I thought it would be better for everyone — the people contacting me and myself — to sit down and write out a thorough response. I first wrote this essay back in 2013, and I’ve updated it a little from time to time.
But first a caveat. I may be the wrong person to ask for this advice. I stumbled into this line of work without any proper planning in the early 1990s, when journalism was a very different industry. The question “How do I become a science writer?” is not equivalent to “How did you become a science writer?”
While I didn’t know I wanted to write about science, I have written for as long as I can remember. I was the sort of kid who wrote stories, cartoons, and failed imitations of Watership Down. By college, I was working on both fiction and nonfiction, majoring in English to learn from great writers while trying to avoid getting sucked into the self-annihilating maze of literary theory. After college, I spent a couple years at various jobs while writing short stories on my own, but I gradually realized I didn’t have enough in my brain yet to put on the page.
In 1989 I wrote to some magazines to see if they had any openings for entry-level jobs. I got a response from Discover, saying they needed an assistant copy editor. I got the job but turned out to be a less-than-perfect copy editor, which means that I was a terrible copy editor. Fortunately, by then my editors had let me start to fact-check stories, which is arguably the best way to learn how to write about science. I then got a chance to write short pieces.
At some point, I realized this was an experience unlike any previous writing I had done. In nature, I was discovering strangeness beyond my own imagining. And scientists were willing to help me understand their discoveries, in long conversations over the phone or visits to their labs and field sites.
In other words, I did not know in college that I wanted to be a science writer. I didn’t prepare for the career by taking a lot of science classes or going to graduate school for science journalism. I can only take credit for being able to recognize when I fell into a deeply satisfying kind of work.
That’s one reason to take my advice with a grain of salt. Another reason is the fact that for the first five years of my career, I did not have access to the Internet. I did not have email. At the time, magazine publishers did not see the point of rigging their computers to telephone wires.
This was an age when magazines and newspapers held a near-monopolistic control over science writing. The only alternatives were crudely printed zines, which attracted only a tiny fraction of the circulation of large magazines and none of their big-ticket advertisers.
All of that has changed, of course. It took a very long time for many in the science writing world to realize that change was coming, and many tried to ignore it once it had arrived. Just as I had stumbled into science writing, I stumbled into its online world. In the early 2000s I began enjoying the handful of blogs about science. At the time, I had been writing essays for Natural History. When they stopped running essays, I decided to set up a blog where I didn’t have to pitch ideas to anyone beside myself.
In 2004, when I began blogging, many professional journalists looked at it as an odd distraction from real work. Along with everyone else, I had no idea that it would end up at the heart of science journalism. I also didn’t realize that traditional science journalism—and journalism in general—was undergoing a drastic change. Depending on who you talk to, a better word might be metamorphosis. Or collapse.
And so, while I personally feel very lucky to have ended up making a living as a science writer, I am very cautious in recommending it to others as a line of work. I still find science writing wonderful after three decades, but the industry is full of upheaval and uncertainty. If you have decided that you want to become a science writer, make sure that your impression of the field is accurate. If you have a hazy sense of journalism as it was circa 1990, then you have to update your perceptions.
American newspapers enjoyed a great boom after the end of World War II, but that boom crested around 1990, and newspapers now employ fewer people than they did in 1950. During the boom years, newspapers hired lots of science writers for weekly science sections. At their peak, in 1989, there were 95 in the United States. By 2013, they were down to 19. When newspapers make cuts to shore up their profits, the science section is often the first to go.
Resources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/a-note-to-beginning-science-writers
https://carlzimmer.com/to-beginning-writers/
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/letter-beginning-writers/
https://brownbagteacher.com/scaffolding-beginning-writers/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/a-note-to-beginning-science-writers