It’s hard to conceive of life in the 21st century without considering the impact of science. From our smartphones to satellites and everything between, science defines modern living.
Yet sharing the great stories that make such science possible apparently requires the talents of an actor who once played a philandering, wisecracking battlefield surgeon for laughs. And I mean that as a compliment. Actor Alan Alda, whose long career includes many distinguished roles, will probably forever be associated with Hawkeye Pierce, the battlefield surgeon he made famous on the hit TV series M*A*S*H from 1973-1983.
From 1993 to 2005, Alda hosted Scientific American Frontiers, a PBS television series backed by the science journalism of the respected journal Scientific American. In a recent New York Times interview, Alda explained how this role led him to a new passion, helping scientists learn to share the real stories behind their discoveries that, without help, far too many of them would rather wrap in scientific mumbo jumbo.
Alda’s passion illustrates one of the key tenets of StoryCrafting, WordWrite’s approach to storytelling. We have learned that true storytelling requires an authentic story, rooted in truth, shared by a fluent storyteller, who continually reads the audience to make sure there’s engagement. Alda focuses on turning science geeks into fluent storytellers.
“Scientists often don’t speak to the rest of us the way they would if we were standing there full of curiosity,” Alda told reporter Claudia Dreifus. “They sometimes spray information at us without making that contact that I think is crucial. If a scientist doesn’t have someone next to them, drawing them out, they can easily go into lecture mode. There can be a lot of insider’s jargon.”
Alda finds this tragic because, as he puts it, “Every experiment is a great story. Every scientist’s life is a heroic story. There’s an attempt to achieve something of value, there’s the thrill of knowing the unknown against obstacles, and the ultimate outcome is a great payoff – if it can be achieved. Now, this is drama!”
Indeed it is – from Archimedes crying “Eureka” in the bathtub to Alexander Graham Bell summoning his assistant over his newly invented telephone to the battles of today’s scientists mapping the human genome or puzzling over solutions to climate change.
Alda’s solution has been to teach scientists to become storytellers through the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, where he says the idea is “to put people through games and exercises that force them to make contact with the other player. You have to observe the other person, anticipate what they are going to do. You almost have to read their minds.”
Turning scientists into fluent storytellers – and helping them to read the audience as well – illustrates two of the most important anchors of an authentic story. The first and most important, an authentic story rooted in truth, is rarely an issue in science. It’s the pursuit of knowledge, punctuated by awe and wonder that drives most scientists to charge into the unknown. And that makes for great drama.
In our work at WordWrite every day, we are confronted by this same question: How can we help our clients tap the inherent drama in the authentic story they’re trying to share? We seek the truth in what we call the capital “S” story — the story that explains why you do what you do, why someone would work for you, invest in you or buy from you.
If you want to know more about how to do that, download our free whitepaper on authentic stories. Have thoughts about science and storytelling? Leave them in the comments.
