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 the job but turned out to be a less-than-perfect copy editor, which means that I was a terrible copy editor. I got a response from Discover, saying they needed an assistant copy editor. In 1989 I wrote to some magazines to see if they had any openings for entry-level jobs. 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. ![]() 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. ![]() I was the sort of kid who wrote stories, cartoons, and failed imitations of Watership Down. While I didn’t know I wanted to write about science, I have written for as long as I can remember. The question “How do I become a science writer?” is not equivalent to “How did you become a science writer?” I stumbled into this line of work without any proper planning in the early 1990s, when journalism was a very different industry. I may be the wrong person to ask for this advice. I first wrote this essay back in 2013, and I’ve updated it a little from time to time.īut first a caveat. 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. 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. Some have no idea how to start some have started but want to know how to get better.
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