Tom Whipple’s recent story in the Times of London about the reappearance of beavers in Devon, England, could have been a deeply serious science piece, laden with facts, numbers and jargon, except for the fact that it was Whipple who wrote it. The science editor at The Times, Whipple is known to readers for his lively and engaging writing. And so his story about the beavers was, yes, a deeply serious science piece, but one written in an inviting, entertaining way.
How did he do that?
TONE. Whipple respects the reader. He doesn’t over-explain. He lets readers in on the joke, when there is one. He writes as though he is writing to a friend. He surprises the readers with word choice and sentence structure.
STRUCTURE. In this piece, he moves from narrative to background/context to narrative seamlessly. The story is lively, the tone is warm and witty. “It’s beaver o’clock,” he writes, as a group of people wait for the beavers to emerge from their den. He uses the word “beavery,” which might not be a real word but which is perfect in this context. He brings in mythology:
Like the nearby Beast of Bodmin Moor, the beavers were spotted in Devon in fleeting glances, glimpsed in implausible sightings — and dismissed as otters.
VOICE. Whipple’s voice doesn’t change between narrative and background; it remains approachable and slightly humorous. He dares to make reference to beaver testicles, and to beavers’ cute button noses:
Conservation researchers don’t name their animals. That kind of sentimentality is discouraged, in what is a serious science. So Holden only occasionally calls him Gordon the Beaver, before hurriedly correcting himself.
HE CARES. As you will see in our conversation below and when you read the piece.
HE’S FUNNY. See jam / bread / sandwich metaphor below.
We reached out to Whipple about the decisions he made as he worked on this story. Our conversation has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Why did you write this story?
I like beavers!
In all seriousness, one of the great joys of my job is I get to go and see things. It would be entirely possible to do my work sitting in an office, but I would have a lot less fun — and I think readers would probably have a slightly less fun read. As a reporter on The Times it is a privilege that I can see something that is interesting, and then invite myself along to see it, and just have people rearrange their days to accommodate me. (Early on, I was given a very good bit of advice by a grizzled editor: “Always remember, it’s The Times they are talking to, not you.”)
The ostensible point of the piece was that we are now about 10 years on from the start of a formal reintroduction program of the beaver, and also that the conservation charities want to extend the program. Really, though, I wanted to see some beavers, to get out in my raincoat and wellington boots, and hopefully write a nice piece that people wanted to read. Beavers are charismatic animals, and people like to read about them.
How long did it take you from conception to publication?
I think it was a couple of months. It was difficult to coordinate times so there was some back and forth on email, but the reasons for the delay were logistical rather than editorial.
Did it change much during the editing process?
Not really. I wrote it and then it ran while I was on holiday. I think it was the last thing I sent before putting on my out-of-office message on email.
I read it on the beach on my app like everyone else and remember being annoyed about one change (probably unreasonably so). In the piece I had talked about how this beaver presence actually originated with a rogue release of beavers. They were already settled in the river — and this essentially forced the government’s hand. It changed the status quo so that the question wasn’t “do we introduce beavers” but “do we evict them?”
This felt a little analogous to the geopolitical situation, where armies or peoples create “facts on the ground.” So I described how “once there were beavery facts on the ground….” etc. But someone changed it to “beavery signs on the ground,” which made less sense and didn’t frame beavers as geopolitical actors. I probably became unduly fixated on this.
Why was it important for you to be there in person? What did you gain by being there that you might not have gleaned from reportage done by phone or email?
There were no facts in the piece that I couldn’t have got remotely. Probably, with some effort — perhaps watching clips on YouTube — I could have also got some color.
But I believe and hope that something more is gained by being there in person. There are things that people will tell you in the dusk, walking along a river, as the flies dance above the water and after a day spent together, that they won’t in 10 minutes on the phone. I have to think that seeing the dams and meeting the people makes a difference — because if it doesn’t, then I just spend my days in an office in London. And that’s not why I became a journalist.
How did you decide when to move from narrative to background and then back again?
It’s not something I consciously think about, but I suppose all pieces are a little like a meal. To work, you need the filling: worthy, fibrous stuff — the facts. But to actually ingest them, you need someone to have thought about how to make it palatable. So, to slightly mix my metaphors, it’s a sandwich. You have layers of facts, lightened by the jam of color. And, in this genuinely terrible metaphor that I’m nevertheless going to run with, you start with the jam, to draw people in. Then you give them a slice of bread that explains why they should spend their time reading it. Then some more jam so they don’t find it too chewy.
You need both. Everyone likes jam, but without the bread you’d just smear it all over your face. I start with how many facts I need to convey, then separate them with enough color to hopefully keep people reading.
Who do you see as your audience, and how do you tailor your reporting and writing to them? Or do you?
I always assume that my reader is someone who is intelligent but knows nothing. This is admittedly a more useful rubric when writing about quantum mechanics than beavers — which are relatively easy to understand — but it applies here, too. You assume that they will get your jokes, but you don’t assume they have a degree in conservation biology.
I like to think of them as an interested and curious friend. The worst thing you can do is assume your reader is like the people who put cross comments under articles. Then you write defensively and pompously, and you please no one.
Your story opens with this line: “The beavers keep us waiting.” You are putting us right there, in the action, with no prelude. Why did you choose this beginning?
I don’t completely know. I suppose that I’m conscious when starting articles in which I’ve been to see something that there’s a very cliché way of opening, where you try to describe the situation in overly purple prose. “Scoop” (a novel by Evelyn Waugh) parodied it very well with another watery mammal:
Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.
So the key is to sit back and think, “what actually happened” and “what did I actually think.” Also, thinking about it more, I suspect that that sentence construction instantly gives the beavers agency and anthropomorphises them — which is something scientists very much disapprove of, of course, but which journalists love!
Throughout the piece are graceful, sometimes amusing phrases and asides:
…it’s “beaver o’clock” …
Like the nearby Beast of Bodmin Moor, the beavers were spotted in Devon in fleeting glances, glimpsed in implausible sightings — and dismissed as otters.
Why did you choose to include humor in what is a serious, reported, science story?
I get suspicious of articles without humor, and of people who don’t joke. Even when writing about COVID-19, which I did a lot of, you can sneak in some humor. You shouldn’t force it. I don’t want to be like the boss in “The Office” (If I was like him, I suppose I’d be the last to realize it), but there’s almost always a place to think, “what’s funny here.” If there is something funny, you should put it in. Some of the best scientists in history were funny. Feynman, Crick, Einstein. Newton wasn’t funny, though; he was an arsehole.
There is no first person in this piece, although the opening line comes close. Yet you the narrator are very much a presence. Was this deliberate? And how did you do this?
Right when I started in journalism, writing on my student newspaper, I put myself into pieces a lot. Then I remember going to a talk by a proper journalist, who said if an article started with “I” he stopped reading. It made me feel like an idiot and I never forgot it.
Of course, he was wrong. There is absolutely a place for “I.” Sometimes things happen to you, and it becomes disingenuous to avoid the pronoun. There are few things sillier in journalism than when articles refer to “your reporter saw” or “told The Times” when they mean “I saw” and “told me” (having said that, I used that construction in an article this morning, where it just seemed more appropriate).
If a beaver had come and nibbled at me, I’d have put it in the piece in that form, and not said “a beaver nibbled The Times.” And, as you point out, I came close at the start — using “us.” In that case, it was pertinent to the story because the fact that a group of people, of which I happened to be one, had come to watch the beavers each night was proof of their popularity.
But I do think it’s a good idea to use yourself sparingly. I’m not what is interesting in this piece; the beaver is. This was appearing on the news pages of The Times. Frankly, I was pushing my luck already to get something this soft in there. If I’d also inserted myself into the story the editor might have raised an eyebrow, and stopped me having so much fun in future.
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Laurie Hertzel is the former book editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She now reviews books for several newspapers and teaches in the MFA in Narrative Nonfiction program at the University of Georgia.
