I recently joined in conversation with a group of professionals who, like me, are passionate about turning science topics into a storytelling affair. Guiding discussions was global change biologist, climate philanthropy consultant and Science Through Story founder, Sara Elshafie who is well known for her work with organizations who seek to transform their science into meaningful knowledge for their audiences. Her work sits among a growing number of others' including mine, who understand by experience that conveying complex knowledge to vastly varied people from within an equally varied socio-cultural situations is fraught.
I’ve come to appreciate desserts. The Hostess chocolate pies I used to keep a buck in my pocket for simply don’t cut it anymore. I especially have a thing for New York Cheesecake. Bored with the monotony of bakery and restaurant cheesecake sameness, a quest to find or contrive a recipe that would satisfy my New York Cheesecake fondness began. If you think, as I once did, that cheesecake is cheesecake is cheesecake, a recipe I stumbled will tempt you to place cheesecake lessers among other San Francisco curbside economy oddities.
George Carlin famously said “Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.” But, wait, what's the glass half idiom got to do with this? Well, it's a recipe of sorts; one Mr. Carlin deserves some high accolade for because in it, a glass of any feature stands naked before us no longer needing play the role of harbinger of feeble, binary constraints, allowing us to have a go at other possibilities. Indeed, the simple formula suggests something beyond the ‘blah’ and ‘meh’ of this here cheesecake reality of mine. With it I step into a realm of a "HOLY CREAM CHEESES BATMAN," 21st century tastebud rave of masticative and gustatoral nuance! To call it personally meaningful would understate just how profound this discovery has been.. My epicurean eyes are now open!
As I've shared this you can in a genuine sense say you’ve just “met” a character (me) based on a personal and true experience (replete with tantalizing embellishments). By knowing something about me, (choose mundane, trivial, scandalous...whatever you like...however it hits you...) you can share in a dessert lover’s journey into cheesecake bliss. And if you DO share my cheesecake sentiments something else happened too - you got a little curious about the recipe. Here it is. Make it, eat it…you won’t regret it. https://www.seriouseats.com/epic-new-york-cheesecake-from-bravetart
Carlin’s is a simple observation introducing a radical notion that ideas aren’t static. Just the opposite; given free rein they can walk, skip, trot, run or run amok, crash and burn, launch into space - something akin to a limitless sky. His pun allows givens room to break or reform with a little urging. Experiences, realizations, new information; these and more lead to meanings we can in some ways expect to be lurking behind the drama masks of personas we use in stories to convey ideas.
You met the character of me today. I didn’t make me up; I’m real…I represent someone (likely someones) who was satisfied with their equivalent of Hostess chocolate pies, then realized something else…something different...more...less, existed. A cascade of events that created a dilemma needing some kind of resolution emerged and was indeed resolved upon undertaking a journey to discover something personally meaningful or met a satisfying pitch - which is the aim of all such quests.
Who or what you or your audience meets tomorrow depends on the story needing to be told to reach a meaningful outcome for them.
In the next of this “Character Developed Science” series, you’ll learn about approaches science storytellers use to make information something that audiences personally care about.