Randy Olson's "Don't Be SUCH a Scientist," Chapter 3: Don't Be Such a Poor Storyteller

  

Olson opens his chapter on storytelling by telling his own story about the time he got up to ask a question in a packed auditorium and couldn't get to the point and never did really ask an actual question.

It's hilarious. And it has happened to most of us.

The arouse and fulfillment method he outlined in the previous chapter can only take you so far. The hook can hold an audience for a little while, but not forever. What you really need is a good story, one that arouses and fulfills at the same time.

But scientists are poor storytellers. They understand the formulaic structure part but not the art of character.

Here's how to do it:

So much of our daily lives consists of having real-world experiences that are...just a bunch of random events. But the way we make sense of events is by editing, trimming, rearranging, and massaging the information in an effort to slowly move it toward archplot. We try to make it into one of the simple stories we best know how to understand and relate to We try to simplify things into a single good guy and a single bad guy with a single clear conflict that leads to a climax and then a resolution We can't always  make this happen, but when it does, it's very satisfying. And very accessible to the general public. 

He goes on to describe the scientist's primary problem with storytelling: the urge to keep it accurate and the need to make it interesting. Accuracy versus boredom.

And there's more to mass communication than accuracy. Sure, scientists want to be 100% accurate, but that's really not feasible when it comes to actual mass communication.

Stories need conflict, and they need to be concise:

Set up your subject (first act), give it the twist at the end of the first act (first plot point), explore several possible ways to untwist it and relieve the tension (second act), reveal a possible solution (second plot point), and then weave all the content together to release the source of tension (third act).
Something like this: "I study starfish on teh California coast--the only species that spawns in teh dead of winter. I thought it might be due to predators of the eggs being less common at that time of year, then I thought it was due to the best timing for the spring algae bloom, but now it looks like it probably has something to do with a seasonal migration of the starfish which is what I now study--the way that spawning season might be related to adult movements of starfish." 

So being an effective science communicator is about telling stories that are concise and that include conflict. If you can do that, the public may just listen.