Proposal: Commissioning Fanfiction for Science Communication · 9:31pm Jul 31st, 2019
I would like to invite comments on an idea I have for a future science communication fanfiction project. This has been taking shape in my head for some months, but it is only now I have had time to write up a plan.
As I reported earlier this year, I won an award from Oxford University for my efforts trying to engage everyone with science through pony fan fiction. I’ve been thinking about how I could take this SciComm (Science Communication) project a step further. The award came with a financial bonus, so I thought I might use this to commission some fan fiction.
How would this work? I’ve never commissioned stories before, but I note there are writers on this site advertising their services at very reasonable rates (typically $20 or less for 1000 words) . However what I want is a bit different to a typical commission. I want to recruit writers to come up with their own story about a specific scientific research topic.
Here is a plan: I send writers a list of short descriptions about particle physics research topics [1]. They then pick one and read up about it. They ask me all the questions they want. Then they use that as a prompt for a story. They send me a short pitch, which I then comment on, correct any misconceptions about the science, make suggestions, veto anything inappropriate. They write the story. When it is finished, I will read it and write a short explanation of the science for the author to put in the box at the end. They publish it. We both promote it on our blogs and other channels.
[1] For example:
Antimatter: Antimatter is a strange mirror reflection of the matter in our universe. Antiparticles have identical, but opposite, properties to particles: negatively charged electrons are mirrored by positrons. Antiparticles can be created, studied, and are used in medical technology. It remains a mystery why our universe is almost entirely made of matter, when we believe the Big Bang created both particles and antiparticles. The answer may be connected to subtle asymmetries between particles and antiparticles, being probed at high energy interactions at experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and other big machines.
If successful, this project will:
- Create some awesome stories
- Reveal new ideas for mixing science and ficition
- Get people in the fan fiction community talking about particle physics
- Show that commissioning fan fiction works as a way to promote research
This sort of science/art collaboration is not uncommon. Professional writers I know of who have done this include Sara Maitland (Moss Witch and Other Stories), and Geoff Ryman (When it all Changed). Musicians, artists, dancers, and many other creative professionals have done this. What I would really like is to show that commissioning fanfiction is something any scientist could consider as a way of promoting a research story.
However this is an experiment. It might be a flop that just produces some odd stories, that nobody understands and sit unread among the thousands of other odd stories on fimfiction. To make it a success I will need to recruit good writers. I have no idea how easy this will be. Will potential commission-takers read my brief, say no thanks—we prefer less-demanding clients? Or will they be up for an interesting challenge? A project like this probably looks better on your résumé than many fanfic commissions.
I am ideally after writers with a track record of writing stories which get lots of readers. You don’t need a science background, you just need to be willing to engage with a research topic, and try to pick out something about it which you can weave into a fanfic. I am not expecting writers to copy my style. You could explain the science directly, or you could come up with a metaphor to illustrate the underlying principle. Having seen the creativity of WriteOff participants at interpreting prompts, I am sure a good writer will be able to come up with a story idea.
At this point this proposal needs some peer review, so I invite your comments. Do you think this is likely to work, or is it a silly idea? Who are the best writers taking commissions and how do I persuade them to go for something like this? Would anyone be interested?
Further details: SciComm with Fanfic – Further details
Okay but what is spin tho
I'd certainly be interested in tackling this. Might as well get some use out of my physics degree.
I think this is a really interesting idea, and like all research projects, it's hard to say how it'll turn out, but I definitely hope it succeeds.
I'd be interested in writing more edutainment fics as well. My background is electrical engineering/compsci/AI rather than physics, but I think I still remember some things from undergrad. (I also have a deep personal love of the Fourier Transform, so if you have any ideas about how to introduce a concept like that in a fic, I'd be all ears.)
Certainly sounds interesting, and part of me wants to sign up while another part thinks I will struggle to work with science I'm not making up myself on the spot to fit the story
I'd like to propose writing staff. A room full of people can create better ideas than a single person. I'm not proposing design by committee, but individual responsibilities with group feedback. Right now you're just proposing a science advisor and an author. I recommend having a chief editor, staff editors, content editors, copy editors, authors, and pre-readers. Look at how Super Trampoline has set up the feghoot contest. It's incredibly well organized, but towards a different purpose.
I recognize this idea may complicate your research, but involving more people is definitely worth the effort. Consider a partnership with an existing group for this effort.
Have you looked at how the Science Wide Open books were created with Kickstarter by a board game company involved in science education? If you haven't, please do. That effort involved community participation and funding to great effect.
I'm involved in my local community with educational efforts through board gaming. This type of thing is right up my alley. I'll be watching this space for updates.
This is a fascinating idea! My primary concern, speaking as a writer potentially willing to sign up for such an endeavor, is how vague the connection to the subject would end up being, particularly if we’re talking Equestria-proper. Still, I’d like to see the list of topics to see if I can come up with something. Unless of course this would suffice for antimatter:
“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“Hi, I’m Anti Pink—“
BOOM.
For potential future work, please consider pairing a contest with charity. Use the works produced from this project as examples of what you're interested in, establish a fundraiser in connection with an established charity--something like Adopt a Classroom or Room to Read, solicit community involvement in running a contest, provide science concepts from multiple fields, and start advertising hard.
Recruit folks on fimfiction to spread the word and participate, involve pony radio and youtube, and advertise at conventions, social media, etc. If working in partnership with an established charity, they can give a signal boost across more-traditional forums; it sounds like you have the chops to make this work.
Details like guidelines, standards, approvals, judging, etc tbd. Set aside some small, fixed amount of what's raised for prizes, and the rest goes to charity. You'll probably have some of those details carry over from this project.
From my own work with registered charities, I find that involving more people/groups will aid in success as they'll all be invested in the outcome and work to make it succeed.
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Ask Torque Wrench. Intrinsic particle angular momentum. It's the same for antiparticles.
5097282
Cool
5097285
Thanks for your interest
5097286
I did hear of someone using Fourier Transforms to explain stories, but not using stories to explain Fourier Transforms. I'd love see it done.
5097290
This is why I want to work with a writer to develop a story idea. Explaining the science is my job. I want to pay someone to write a story. Having someone who doesn't know anything about particle physics might work better as they can better imagine how reader will interpret something.
5097298
This would have to be agreed. I would like to accept any idea as long as the writer is genuinely trying to write a story about the science, and not just tag science into an unrelated science.
One of the stories in Sara Maitland's book has a plot pretty close to this (except without Pinkie Pie).
5097296
Thanks for the suggestions. I'd like to keep things simple for now, but could look at a bigger team effort for future projects. I don't have the time to co-oridinate a big project now and I've seen other projects fail because people were over ambitious at the start. I'll check out the books.
Interesting. My PhD is matscieng but keep me in the loop.
The writing-help channel in FimFiction's discord server has a pinned list of editors/authors for hire that may be useful.
server announcement
server invite
This is intriguing o.O
I'm curious and interested. However, most of the current particle physics being studied seems to have one of two qualities: (1) so esoteric that any story beyond describing ponies in goggles and lab coats sipping coffee becomes infeasible; or (2) produces potential catastrophic consequences well beyond pony abilities to counter.
So, well, it really would depend on the specific topic.
5097494
Ch28 of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality brushes against fundamental physics in an interesting way.
Is that the type of thing you'd be looking for in a story, Pineta?
This sounds deid cool, and something I'd be interested in tackling as well. The main issue I can foresee has already been brought up: that some of the science might be esoteric enough that you'll get bewildered and plaintive stares from the writers you're collaborating with rather than coherent horsewords. (Pity us poor psychology graduates who can just about remember that the brain plays a role in something, and not much else.)
If you're willing to explain the esoteric bits and/or refer people to resources breaking the concepts down, though, then that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Here are some useful resources for researching physics topics as a lay person.
YouTube channels SciShow Space and Kurzgesagt, or the science reporting on
Ars Technica.
Of course, run anything in these links by the expert if planning to use it.
5097316
Concept always bothered me: Any antimatter creates an annihilation, not just a specific macro counterpart.
And anyway bound atoms and anti-atoms wouldn't immediately annihilate (there's a quantum decay time in principle but I don't know that it's calculable for macroscopic objects): This is why anti-hydrogen is one proposal for storing antimatter.
I think you'll be best out getting non-scientists as the writers, personally. Half the time people don't understand my explanations (see above) :P
Also I finally landed a job so I'll be too busy between work and my own projects for this.
5097318
Plus big teams are hard to coordinate. Remember trying to get that MLP Physics paper together?
5097314
As Prachett might say, that explanation is instructive while being wrong in almost every meaningful way. :P
Actually it's not quite like that (so you know that I know), I'm exaggerating for humor. Still for those here who haven't had graduate-level quantum, let's just say that quantum spin is weird.
5097494
(1) Particle physics doesn't have to esoteric. I can explain primordial nucleosynthesis to seven-year old children with a pile of Lego bricks and they get it. You just have to explain it in the right way. The aim of this project is to find a way. It may be the best writer for this will be someone who has not studied physics, who can keep asking me questions until they get a narrative they can understand and turn into a story.
(2) I don't include nuclear weapons in current particle physics topics, so I can't see any truly catastrophic consequences - certainly nothing Twilight and friends couldn't handle.
5097532
HPMOR is certainly an example. It does weave a lot of discussion of science topics into the story, often very well, and it has been extremely successful. The messages that the author is trying to get across is not quite the same as what I want to do. As it is as bit of a cult thing, it may not the best example of how to do scicomm with fanfiction in a similar way to how Fallout Equestria is not the best example of how to write a pony fic.
5097811
Not that Anti Pinkie Pie has to obey the laws of physics any more than Pinkie Pie
Congrats on getting the job. Is it fun?
5097837
Indeed. The story has an agenda beyond science education. Not trying to push that. You said particle physics and my mind jumped to erasers. Waveforms as a plot device is uncommon. The next closest thing that came to mind right away was the detail-free Naked Singularity. Sugar, Cubed references mathematical concepts also without getting into details.
Looking through my shelves, I find The Writing on the Wall. It is an excellent story exploring nuclear waste management. It could do more to frame the topic, but it's a thought-provoking piece.
Hey now. Let's leave politics at the door.
5097837
Well it's a teaching job, so it's hit or miss. Actually it starts in a bit over a week, but there's a lot of class prep. Teaching algebra-based classes this term, but hoping to get an astronomy class next term: I like those. Still, gonna try and have some fun with the Concepts in Physics class, especially with Dr. Stone airing this year. This one's a pure teaching job, but I'm hoping to get either a research component here (if a new tenure-track position gets approved and I get it) or a lab job elsewhere next year.
Oh and Legos (tm) sound like a fun way to do particle physics. Might have to bust those out when we get to that unit (if we do: it's not in the course requirements so it's an optional bit at the end if there's time).
5097837 Let me give one example which serves for both. Observations of distant galaxies over the past few years have rendered significantly different rates of expansion of the universe- Current theory is that the rate of expansion is accelerating due to an unexplained "dark energy", but this dark energy isn't observed anywhere close by because you don't get dark energy near anything that has mass (like, for example, our galaxy and everything in it).
Now, what consequences does this have for you and me? Probably zero, since the odds of our visiting another galaxy were nil with or without this fact. But there is a small chance that the accelerating expansion might be an indication of the imminent collapse of our universal bubble to a lower energy state- which would erase anything and everything we've ever known with no real warning and definitely no way to stop it.
Or not. Speculation about dark energy seems pretty wild from here, and you'd definitely know more about the subject than I do.
But it's either lab-coated ponies sipping coffee or unavoidable, unpredictable doom for the ponies. And while an entertaining story could be made either way, I don't think either would be educational.
Of course, I may be misunderstanding you. You're calling for stories about current avenues of research (i. e. cutting edge observations and experiments), but in your response you seem to be asking more about explanation of pretty well-established scientific theories instead.
Is there a reason this is limited to particle physics? There are a lot of areas of science that could benefit from better public outreach.
I had an idea a while back for a story exploring evolution from an Equestrian perspective, covering basic natural selection, the selfish gene, altruism, evolutionary stable strategies, horizontal gene transmission in bacteria etc, all through pony-relevant metaphors. It was going to be called On The Origin Of Harmony By Means Of Natural Selection. It turned out to be way too big a topic for me to handle, though.
I second 5097296 's suggestion of having staff editors, and volunteer for the role. I may not be of use to you as an author or science consultant, but proofreading I can do.
5097915
Teaching always takes a long time to prepare, but once you've done it one year, it's a lot easier the next. The Lego explanation of particle physics was developed by Ben Still, who published a book "Particle Physics Brick by Brick". Might be worth asking your college librarian to order a copy.
5098103
Because I am a particle physicist and if I am paying the writer then I get to choose what the story is about. And because if I commissioned a story about biology and the author got something wrong, then my biologist friends would shake their heads at me and tell me to stick to physics.
You should definitely write that story, but you will need to find another financial backer.
If this trial is a success then I might look at getting other scientists involved and apply for a grant for a wider project.
The Weight of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures
I thought this project rang a bell. The linked collection of short stories is in my reading queue. Just bumped it up because of this thread. It's a project that used "science fiction authors, visual artists, experts in fields ranging from public policy to electrical engineering, and talented student researchers to create technically grounded, inspiring visions of a future shaped by a transition to clean, plentiful solar energy” using an NSF grant.
5098353
That does look interesting. Now in my reading queue too.
5098337
Yeah I've taught both of these courses before, which helps, but it was at different schools and in one case with a different textbook.
Particle physics got cut from the course topics, actually, but I'll see if there's a copy of that in the library (and about ordering it if not!)
Back on topic, anyone familiar with the manga/anime Dr. Stone? Its scientific explanations are quite interesting, although it's necessarily limited to more direct practical applications by the storyline. The anime recently did the formula for gunpowder (with a disclaimer about not trying it at home), while the manga is building up to the process for catalyzing nitrate formation with platinum.
5098358
Dr Stone is new to me. Senku's Kingdom of Science sounds interesting.
On topic of manga, my kids love Survive! Inside the human body, which teaches fun facts like why we have sphincters. Not sure why my kids love it⸮
I've been looking through science-themed groups on the site. There doesn't seem to be one focused on hard science or science education. I'll spend some time in the coming weeks scouting for relevant fics. Having more examples of what's already out there would be helpful.
This sounds like a great idea. Sorry that I am late to the blog, but, Tuesday. Mother went into a coma. We believed that she would die this weekend, but she came out of the coma yesterday. I am behind on my blog-reading.
5098358 5098382
I'll have to check out Dr Stone. There is a 'Manga guide to...' series. Some are little more than textbooks with lots of pictures, but others do manage to weave in a story. I was impressed by the 'Manga guide to calculus' one. I gather there is more of this stuff available to those who read Japanese.
5098795
Sorry to learn that you almost lost her. Difficult times I know.
5099954
¡Thanks!
Interesting. I am a physics professor. I'd like to hear more about this.