Follow a science writer shaping a book – a STEM career glimpse

Did you know that at every Olympics, scientists work behind the scenes? I’m one of them! And I’m a writer, too. As a science writer, I wrote a book about it.

As a scientist (I'm a pharmacist and analytical chemist), I’ve been at three Olympics, working on the lab team. We test athletes’ samples for performance-enhancing drugs that are prohibited because taking them is doping. It’s cheating, it can be dangerous to health, and it’s contrary to the spirit of sports. The most talked-about doping agents are anabolic steroids, but there are many more.

Red blood cells

Blood doping is prohibited in many sports

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, we were testing samples night after night. We never knew what would happen next. Any sample could contain a drug. Reporting it would get the athlete punished.

After we did find a drug in a sample, we spent hours double checking, asking ourselves, “How can we be sure that the test result is correct?” Lots of what if exercises and discussions.

Drawing of a molecule of EPO.

EPO is a blood-booster drug prohibited in sport.

That night, ideas were flying around like sparks between four of us. The rush of excitement made me leap off my chair and pace all over the room, feeling ready to burst. I was thrilled—as a scientist and as a writer. That’s when I thought, “Some day, I will write this story for young readers.”

So I did! I wrote an article, “The Night Olympic Team.” Cricket magazine published it first, then The School Magazine in Australia and YES Mag, the Canadian science magazine for young readers.

To grow the article into a book, I interviewed the key players. I wrote about their childhoods, career paths, and role in the Olympic story. I inserted each player’s details after the first time he or she appeared in the book manuscript. This took me a year and a half.

And just as I was finally getting this longer version done, a doubt surfaced in my mind. This doubt turned out to be a good question.

Which would be better? A longer book including key players’ profiles or a shorter book without them?

This was the most important decision I faced while writing the book.

The longer book would let readers dig deeper. The shorter book would be quicker and easier to read. My writing buddies, as well as famous author Caroline Arnold all agreed that a shorter book would appeal to more readers.

I decided to shorten the book. I couldn’t simply go back to the article version, which filled only five magazine pages. A book needed some details about the key players’ roles and background. After spending a year and a half writing the long version, it took me only two weeks to shorten it.

How exactly did I do it? I spread the pages on the floor and crossed out the characters’ profiles with a big marker. Then I entered the changes in my Word file and reprinted it. The next day, I read what I got. It felt like reading the bare bones of the story, like sitting down for a meal but being served only the bones of a fish. I had cut way too much. What to do? Add bits and pieces back in one by one, or start over?

I started all over. This time I cut more gingerly, down to half of the original length. Then I split the story into nine chapters.

Next came the most fun part: writing the transitions between chapters! Each chapter ends at a place that leaves readers wanting to know what happens next. Each chapter then has a fact box packed with extra info. I needed to make sure that when readers turned the page and began to read the next chapter, they would know where they were in the story. Writers must figuratively take readers by the hand and never let go, so they don’t get lost. The first sentence of chapters 2 to 9 takes care of that. Those sentences were the last thing I wrote. Perhaps it was the most fun because it was quick and easy. Perhaps it was because the book was finally done, done, done!

And that’s the version that was published with minor changes.

This post is adapted from part of an interview of mine by Beckie Weinheimer, author of the novel, Converting Kate.

Caroline Hatton and Beckie Weinheimer

LINKS

• Book writers often cut big chunks out of manuscripts to shape their books. Those parts can become short stories or articles in magazines, chapters in new books, or blog posts. Three profiles that I cut from The Night Olympic Team are posted at this blog, to show glimpses of the childhoods and career paths of key players in the book: click here, here or here to read them.

• For a “glimpse” at how my editor and I came up with the book subtitle, "Fighting to Keep Drugs Out of the Games," click here.

• For a ton of links about science writing, scroll down to LINKS AND MORE after you click here.

Guess who this girl grew up to be in my book, The Night Olympic Team

Readers of my science book, The Night Olympic Team, ask me for glimpses of the childhood and career path of key players in the book. Here's another one. .


Doesn't she look like she was born to play? .

Her science career started with a bang! At age twelve, she and a friend combined all of the glassware and products from their two chemistry sets, then heated the flasks to make something happen. Multicolor products started racing around. Bubbles overflowed. Then... BOOM! It splattered stinky brown ooze everywhere. Both girls let out a gasp and a giggle. There were no casualties, except for the kitchen, which had to be repainted. The girls got in big trouble for their recklessness. They could have been injured or even killed. .

As a kid growing up in France, she loved to read about biology to learn how living things work. She went to medical school to learn how the numan body can get out of whack and get sick, and how to fix it. skip line . .She signed up to do a research project. She was scared, because everything was new to her, but she did O.K. and she liked working in a lab. By the time she became a doctor, she had published her first scientific article in an international journal. skip line. . She never became the kind of doctor who sees patients. Instead, she did research. Her task was always to make a lab test work. But in truth, "All the science work I've ever done was to satisfy my hunger for play," she says. "I love to play computer sleuthing games, to figure out whodunit in crime novels, and recently I developed a passion for genealogy [that's family tree science], which is detective work into the past." . . WHO IS SHE? . .

* Caroline Hatton (that's me, your blogger), scientist (I help test athletes for prohibited performance-enhancing drugs) and author of The Night Olympic Team? . . * Francoise Lasne [pronounced fran-swahz lahn], scientist, who perfected a test to find prohibited drugs in athletes' samples? . . IF YOU GUESSED FRANCOISE LASNE, YOU WERE RIGHT! . . She's a scientist who catches sports cheaaters nd defends honest athletes who compete drug-free. Read about her work in the book, The Night Olympic Team. She is the current Director of the French national anti-doping laboratory (AFLD Departement des analyses). .
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Guess who this kid grew up to be in my book, The Night Olympic Team

Readers of my science book, The Night Olympic Team, ask me for glimpses of the childhood of key players in the book. Here's another one.
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He grew up in the jungle, deep in the wilds of West Africa, running free with his playmates. Where he lived, way out in Liberia and far from any city, there weren't any schools.
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"My mother taught me to read and write, that was it," he recalls. I always liked reading. I read whatever was available, from books to Reader's Digest, anything that came by."
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As the son of missionaries from Sweden who built leper colonies, Swedish was his first language. He also spoke the local, African dialects with his friends, and picked up pidgin English--a regional jargon.
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Where he grew up there was no television, no radio, no newspapers. Only books. He found out about ongoing world events by reading about them in Reader's Digest two years later.
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Except for his parents, people around him looked nothing like him. They were black. "Most people around me, very nice people, whom I liked very much, were illiterate rice farmers." Considering that he's become a big shot on the international scene in his profession, he muses, "I had to have an idea at some point that perhaps I would go to school."
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He did eventually go to school, but not until age thirteen! His parents sent him to America where he went to high school in Monrovia, a suburb near Los Angeles.
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Was it hard to go to school and speak English? "I don't remember that it was," he says. "I think I probably talked a bit funny to the other kids. But people were very nice and very welcoming."
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After high school, he went to college at Harvard, then to Yale to study what he does now. He had settled in Paris, France, to practice his profession, when he became involved in The Night Olympic Team story.
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WHICH ONE OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM IS HE?
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In order of appearance:
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Jeff Gorzek, scientist, who tests athletes' samples for prohibited drugs?
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Don Catlin, scientist and lab director, whose team found a prohibited drug in athletes' samples? The drug was a blood-booster medicine invented to treat medical patients, not to help healthy athletes cheat by boosting their endurance!
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Steve Elliott, scientist, who invented the medicine?
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Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee?
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Jan Paulsson, lawyer?
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Zac Douglas, lawyer?
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IF YOU GUESSED JAN PAULSSON, YOU WERE RIGHT!
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As a lawyer, Jan works on cases based on science, so he needs a pretty deep understanding of the science. It is not rare for people to have noth science and law degrees.
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Jan says that going to law school leads to lots of choices of things to work on. Examples include sports, medicine, the environment, and specialties without science.
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He adds, "People who are good lawyers have it in their genes." He claims that you can observe children and predict which ones could become good lawyers. "They argue about things. They'll say, 'Oh yes, I know you told me not to eat all the cookies, but that was on a Tuesday and today's Wednesday and I didn't realize that it was every day.' You find children who naturally see the world that way." Was Jan like that as a kid? Absolutely!

Guess who this kid grew up to be in my book, The Night Olympic Team

Readers of my science book, The Night Olympic Team, ask me for glimpses of the childhood and career path of the key players in the book. Here's one.
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They could not keep him from tinkering forever. When he was in third grade, he walked past their hobby shop on the way to school. What he wanted was not model airplanes, but the vials lined up on a shelf, full of colorful stuff: salts, minerals, chemicals. He knew they would make for great experiment. He asked the shop people "how to make something cool happen--catch on fire, maybe blow up?" But instead of helping him, they refused to sell vials to him. Imagine that!
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Despite this setback, he grew up to be a scientist who would use recombinant DNA technology (a way to cut and paste DNA) to invent a supermedicine. While in college at the University of California at Irvine, he fell in love with DNA. He thought, "Cool! That's what I want to do. Work on that."
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He started doing research for the professor who had inspired him. He earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences, then a doctoral degree in molecular biology and biochemistry. For years afterwards, he studied how DNA programs a cell's life and death.
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He went to work for a company which uses biotechnology (one kind of DNA science) to discover medicines to improve people's lives. He started to do research on a protein that's a natural hormone in the body. Soon the company began selling as a medicine an artificial version of the hormone.
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Then there was no need to do research on it any more, right? Wrong! Our mystery man explains why his company continued to study the medicine: "Here we market this wonder drug--we simply must know all about it, understand everything about it."

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Working on this medicine year after year, he could picture every bit of it in his sleep. Studies showed that the more sugars on the molecule, the better it worked. Logically, our mystery man set out to put as many sugars as he could fit on the molecule, and began creating new versions of the medicine.

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Some said, "It won't work." Their thinking was that nature had improved this hormone for millenia. Nature had already made the hormone the best it could be. How could humans possibly make it better?

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Our mystery man said, "How do you know unless you try?"

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For a kid not allowed to tinker with colored powders, he was having some fun now. He made hundreds of new versions.

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He worked on the project after hours, on the side, because it was not a "sanctioned" (official) project. His company already made the wonder medicine of all ages. What could top that? Why bother to try? Especially he, who was already a successful scientist by any measure imaginable--working at a world-famous company, published, respected. But he was determined. His enthusiasm got others interested in helping him. They also stayed after hours, testing each new version. Some didn't work, but some worked better, one of them especially.

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He had succeeded at what some said was impossible. He had created a supermedicine that lasted longer in the body.

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How had a human mproved upon something that nature had already improved over millenia? Nature refined the hormone to be made whenever the body needs it. The difference with its use as a medicine is that patients get shots. Fewer shots are possible because the benefits last longer--and that makes life easier for the patient. Not bad for a medicine that Steve was not supposed to work on officially.

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From his lab freezer, he pulls out a white plastic tray packed with vials--his very own grownup collection. "Mutants," he says, his voice resonating with pride. In the palm of one hand, he holds the fruits of years of labor.

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By trailblazing where nature had no plans to go, he made something cool happen for millions of patients.
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WHICH ONE OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM IS HE?
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In order of appearance:
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Jeff Gorzek, scientist, who tests athletes' samples for prohibited drugs?
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Don Catlin, scientist and lab director, whose team found a prohibited drug in athletes' samples? The drug was a blood-booster medicine invented to treat medical patients, not to help healthy athletes cheat by boosting their endurance!
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Steve Elliott, scientist, who invented the medicine?
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Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee?
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Jan Paulsson, lawyer?
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Zac Douglas, lawyer?
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IF YOU GUESSED STEVE ELLIOTT, YOU WERE RIGHT!
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Steve is a Scientific Director at Amgen, a therapeutics company in Thousand Oaks, California. He worked on EPO, the body's natural blood-boosting hormone. He led the team that invented NESP (also called Aranesp or darbepoetin alfa), a longer-lasting version of EPO. He plays a key role in The Night Olympic Team.
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MORE ABOUT STEVE
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Steve loves to play golf... before going to work.

Follow a science writer and editor crafting a book subtitle – a STEM career glimpse

by me, your blogger, Caroline Hatton
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If you love words and science, you can live happily ever after as a science writer.
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Science can transport me into whole new worlds. So can reading. But when I write, I have the power to take readers into another world.
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Capturing science book ideas

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Most science writers are scientists who love writing (like me) or writers who love science.
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Science writers must be capable of learning about at least one area of science, and they must write well enough to make it clear and infect readers with passion.
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I have two science degrees: a pharmacist degree and a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy, a doctoral degree) in Chemistry. As a scientist, I help test athletes for performance-enhancing drugs that are prohibited in sports because using them is cheating, it can be dangerous to health, and it's contrary to the spirit of sport.
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While working at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I was on the team of scientists that caught three athletes on a prohibited drug. They had won a total of eight medals. We scientists helped officials and lawyers determine that the right thing was for the athletes to return all their medals, so they could be awarded to the rightful winners.
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I'll never forget the night, the instant when the thought flashed through my mind, "Some day, I will write this story for children."
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So I did!
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My article, "The Night Olympic Team," got published in Cricket in the United States, then in The School Magazine in Australia and YES Mag, a children's science magazine in Canada (under the title, "Finding Gold for Canada").
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I spent two years growing the article into a book. When I submitted my book manuscript to editors, the title was The Night Olympic Team and the subtitle was Inside a Drug Scandal.
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For nonfiction books, I like when the title is intriguing and the subtitle crystal clear. That way, the title grabs me and makes me itch with curiosity. But the subtitle had better tell me exactly what the book is about.
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The Night Olympic Team is a title that I had tried to use since the Fall of 2000. My longtime boss, beloved friend and a pioneer of drug testing in sports, Dr. Don Catlin at the UCLA Olympic Lab where I worked, had just come home from the Summer Olympics in Sydney. He had been asked to write a report for a campus newspaper, UCLA Today.
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As his ghost writer, I often created drafts for him--internal university memos, manuscripts for scientists, lawyers or lay readers, international correspondence, and proposed protocols and policies for drug testing in sports. My words jumpstarted his thinking. Can you imagine how much more you could get done if someone drafted your homework for you?
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Sometimes Don Catlin signed the letters I printed for him. Other times he threw out all my words and ideas, and wrote his own piece. Between these extremes, we spent many hours and days of our lives revising, debating, bickering, arguing, or avoiding one another, all for the sake of helping one another and fighting for The Cause--against drugs in sports--to protect the athletes' freedom to compete without taking drugs.
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For UCLA Today, the report I drafted for Don in 2000 began like this:
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The night Olympic team
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The [N]th Olympic Summer Games are over down under. Beneath the exuberance, fanfare and cheer there were discordant notes every time athletes got caught with performance-enhancing drugs in their urine--but we heard so much about positive tests only because the multinational Olympic team at the Sydney laboratory did such a good job finding drugs. The scientists deserve medals, yet the only gold they got came in specimen bottles in the middle of the night.
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When Don read that last sentence, he humphed, "Gross. No one's going to print anything like it." Although he never submitted my draft for publication, eight years later (in 2008), my book was published with something very much like it on the first page. :-)
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As for the subtitle, Inside a Drug Scandal, one Friday afternoon in 2007, three months before my book manuscript was to be declared final and sent to the printer, my editor extraordinaire (that's a French word that means that he's a star), Andy Boyles at Boyds Mills Press, e-mailed me about it.
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His concern was the suggestion that the book might be about "the *latest* drug scandal, whatever that might be years down the road." Prospective buyers night think, "Oh, I just read about that in the Times. No need to buy this book."
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Andy wanted the subtitle to indicate that the book is not only about one scandal, but also about the general effort to quash the use of drugs in sports. He had spent time trying to come up with ideas and shared a long list of possibilities, including:
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THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM
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The lab that fights drugs in sports
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Keeping drugs out of the Games
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Fighting drugs in sports
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The following Monday afternoon, I replied by e-mail:
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How about
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THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM
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fighting to free sports from drugs
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or
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the untold story of a drug scandal
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Andy sent three new ideas, one of which, "Fighting for Drug-Free Games," he acknowledged to be a bit of a tongue-twister. His e-mail ended with "???"
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To avoid missing any possibility, I wrote keywords on paper slips and shuffled them, reading the permutations aloud until I got this:
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Then I went to peck on my keyboard:

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THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM

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Fighting to Keep Drugs Out of the Games

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I liked the ring of it all. It rolled off my tongue easily with no risk of tripping and with a nice, strong beat.

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I clicked "Send."

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The phone rang. It was Andy. He wanted to make sure I could live with it.

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Yes!

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My book had a title and a subtitle. It was becoming real.

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This was a milestone in the life of my book, itself a milestone in my life. And it was only the eight-word subtitle of a 6,000-word book! The rest... is another story.

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ABOUT ME, CAROLINE HATTON

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When I'm not working, I love to make miniatures, quilt, hike, backpack, ride horses, or cross-country ski.
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LINKS AND MORE

* Follow a science writer...

...shaping a book.

...using a motivation trick (telling a friend).

...using a motivation trick (keeping a Hope Journal).

...using a motivation trick (finishing projects before starting new ones)

* Read more about The Night Olympic Team.

* Read a paragraph-long description of science writing careers at the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center.

* For an overview, read "Science Careers: Science Writer" at ScienceBuddies.org.
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* For another overview, read "A Guide to Careers in Science Writing" by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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* For a brief overview and paragraph-long profiles of the contributors to the Computing Life website, read "Writing Life" by Emily Carson.

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* For a thrill, read an article and brief summaries about the winners of the science journalism awards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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* Read fascinating notes about how award-winning author Caroline Arnold got ideas for her books, such as Global Warming and the Dinosaurs, and about her experiences researching and writing them. She is the author of 150 children's books inspired by her love of nature and by her travels. Many of her books have received awards as science books.

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* Find out how author Sneed B. Collard III researches some of his science books for older younsters.
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* Read about how I do research for science writing, in this interview of mine by another author, Vicki Leon:

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- part 1 about interviewing experts... with more or less success!

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- part 2 about fact-checking

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- part 3 about weaving together the scientist's adventures in life and the science

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* Read a terrific interview of astronomer, teacher, and science writer Alan Hirshfeld (part 1 and part 2) by Vicki Leon.

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* Get some tips for adult, professional beginners.

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* For clear, strong advice to help you become a better science writer, read Chapter 15, "Science and Technology," in the book by William Zinsser, On Writing Well - The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. It's one of my favorite chapters in one of my favorite books about writing.

* Read about a job broader than just writing, in the article "Science Communication as a Press Officer" by Christine Pulliam, who has a Master's degree in astronomy.

* For an overview of a related career, Technical Writer, read the ScienceBuddies.org page.

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Updated March 29, 2012.

About me

My name is Caroline Hatton. I’m a scientist and an author of books for young readers.

As a sports anti-doping scientist, I help test athletes for prohibited performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids. I became qualified to do this by earning a pharmacist degree from the Université de Paris and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and going to work at the UCLA Olympic Lab when the 1984 Olympics came to Los Angeles. I loved running the lab, which became the biggest of its kind, for more than a decade. I also worked at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 and Salt Lake City in 2002.

A book I wrote for young people, The Night Olympic Team, takes readers behind the scenes at the Olympics to see how scientists do their work.

I hope you enjoy my blog. If you have any comments or questions for me, please feel free to e-mail me anytime. I would like to hear from you and do what I can to help shed light on careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Back to blog

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SELECTED VIDEOS

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* My "Writing Tip of the Day" for non-fiction writers, at Tina Nichols Coury's blog.

* My science lesson on TV, "Be an Olympic detective"

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- first 10 minutes

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- next 10 minutes

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- last 10 minutes

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* Introduction to sports doping control: this informational video was made by Agilent Technologies in 2004 for distribution to the media before the Athens Olympics. Stuart Cram (who worked for Agilent at the time) and I (a consultant to the UCLA Olympic Lab at the time) appear in it.

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SELECTED INTERVIEWS

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* by the School Library Journal, about doping in sports

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* by Bonnie O'Brian, for California Readers

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* by author Tina Nichols Coury

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* by author Terry Pierce

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* by historical detective and author Vicki Leon, about research for science writing:

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- part 1 about interviewing experts... with more or less success!

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- part 2 about fact-checking

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- part 3 about weaving together the scientist's adventures in life and the science

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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

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* Werner TC, Hatton CK. Performance-enhancing drugs in sports: how chemists catch users. Journal of Chemical Education 88, 34-40, 2011.

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* Hatton CK. We're winning the fight against drugs in sports, The Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 2010, page 34.

* Hatton CK. The Night Olympic Team. Boyds Mills Press, 2008. (science nonfiction story for ages 10-110)
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* Hatton CK. CIR foils cheaters, Drug Free Sport Insight, newsletter of The National Center for Drug-Free Sport, Inc. First quarter 2005, page 3.

* Hatton CK. Surprise Moon. Bebop Books, 2004. (an easy-to-read book for ages 5 and up, also available in Spanish)

* Hatton CK. A Pet for Grandma. Seedling Publications, 2004. (an easy-to-read book for ages 5 and up)
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* Catlin DH, Hatton CK. Designer drug find sounds alarm. UCLA Today, December 9, 2003.

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* Aguilera R, Hatton CK, Catlin DH. Detection of epitestosterone doping by isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Clinical Chemistry 48, 29-36, 2002.

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* Hatton CK. "Plant pals". Highlights for Children June 2002. (a craft activity)

* Hatton CK. "Stacking Bears." Highlights for Children Feb. 2001. (a craft activity)

* Hatton CK. Véro and Philippe. Front Street/Cricket Books, 2001. (a chapter book for ages 8 and up).

* Hatton CK. Where Is My Puppy? Bebop Books, 2004. (an easy-to-read book for ages 5 and up, also available in Spanish)

* Aguilera R, Chapman TE, Starcevic B, Hatton CK, Catlin DH. Performance characteristics of a carbon isotope ratio method for detecting doping with testosterone based on urine diols: controls and athletes with elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratios. Clinical Chemistry 47, 292-300, 2001.

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* Hatton CK. "Panda Card." Highlights for Children Nov. 2000. (a craft activity)

* Catlin DH, Leder BZ, Ahrens B, Starcevic B, Hatton CK, Green GA, Finkelstein JS. Trace contamination of over-the-counter androstenedione and positive urine test results for a nandrolone metabolite. Journal of the American Medical Association 284, 2618-21, 2000.

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* Catlin DH, Hatton CK, Starcevic SH. Issues in detecting abuse of xenobiotic anabolic steroids and testosterone by analysis of athletes' urine. Clinical Chemistry 43, 1280-8, 1997.

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* Catlin DH, Kammerer RC, Hatton CK, Sekera MH, Merdink JL. Analytical chemistry at the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad in Los Angeles, 1984. Clinical Chemistry 33, 319-27, 1987.

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Back to blog

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Updated February 2, 2012