Writing With Precision: What Science Taught Me About Writing Memoir

I was trained to think like a scientist. As a pharmacologist and toxicologist, my work depends on clarity, evidence, and discipline. You ask a question, design a method, observe carefully, and draw conclusions that can withstand scrutiny. Every claim must be supported. Every variable must be considered. Ambiguity is not something you ignore—it is something you investigate.

(Forgiveness as Narrative Risk in Memoir.)

For most of my career, writing meant documenting results in a way that could be tested, repeated, and trusted. It was structured, precise, and intentionally restrained.

When I began writing my memoir, Harvesting Hope, I assumed the challenge would be emotional—revisiting difficult memories, translating experience into language, deciding what to share. What I did not expect was how much my scientific training would shape the way I approached the page or how much I would have to unlearn.

In science, the goal is completeness. You include all relevant data, account for every variable, and build a comprehensive case. In memoir, that instinct can work against you. Not every detail belongs on the page. Not every experience needs to be explained. The goal is not to document everything that happened. The goal is to reveal what matters.

Learning that distinction was one of the most important shifts in my writing process.

I found myself asking the same questions I used to ask in the lab but applying them differently. What is the signal here? What is noise? What does the reader actually need to understand this moment? What am I including because it is essential, and what am I including because I am afraid of being misunderstood?

In science, you defend against omission because omission can distort results.

In writing, you defend against excess because excess can dilute meaning. That tension forced me to become more intentional.

I grew up in rural Rwanda, in an environment where survival required focus. You learned quickly what mattered and what did not. When I later came to the United States, I entered a culture where language often prioritized efficiency over depth. People asked, “How are you?” as a greeting, not an invitation. The expected answer was simple: “I’m good.” For a long time, I learned to compress my experiences into that single phrase.

Writing required me to expand it.

But expansion does not mean saying everything. It means saying the right things with enough clarity that the reader can feel their weight. That is where scientific discipline became unexpectedly valuable. In both science and writing, precision matters. The difference is what you are trying to make precise.

In science, you are clarifying external phenomena. In memoir, you are clarifying internal truth. Both require honesty.

One of the most difficult habits to break was my instinct to over-explain. In my professional work, clarity often comes from adding context—defining goals, outlining potential mechanisms, anticipating questions. In memoir, too much explanation can distance the reader. It can feel like interpretation instead of experience. I had to learn to trust the moment, present a scene without immediately analyzing it, and allow deliberate pause to carry a more provocative meaning. That does not mean abandoning discipline. It means applying it differently. Instead of asking, “Have I explained this completely?” I began asking, “Have I shown this clearly?” Quite a distinction!

Another lesson science taught me is the importance of confronting inconvenient data. In research, you cannot ignore results that contradict your hypothesis. You investigate them, adjust, and most certainly refine your understanding. Writing requires the same integrity. It is easy to shape a story that presents you in a consistent, flattering light. It is much harder to include the moments that complicate that narrative including uncertainty, doubt, and inevitably decisions that did not lead where you expected. Those details often carry the most truth.

As I wrote, I had to resist the urge to smooth over complexity. My journey from Rwanda to the United States, from survival to science could easily be told as a straightforward progression. It was not. It was layered, uneven, and shaped by factors beyond my control. Honoring that reality required restraint and courage on steroids, I now see.

Writers often talk about “finding your voice.” For me, voice became clearer as I removed what was unnecessary. It was not something I invented; it was something I uncovered by stripping away assumptions—about what the story should sound like, what readers might expect, what I thought I needed to prove.

Scientific training reinforced that process. In both fields, clarity comes from eliminating distortion. In science, distortion comes from bias, poor design, or incomplete data. In writing, distortion comes from performance. When you write to impress, to justify, or to control perception, the work loses its grounding. When you write to understand, the work becomes more stable.

Another unexpected overlap between science and memoir is responsibility. In my field, the work I contribute can affect how therapies are developed and how patients are treated. Writing about real people, real places, and lived experience carries a different kind of responsibility, but it is no less important. The goal is not to expose everything, but to represent what you include with integrity, ensuring that what is on the page is both accurate and fair to the people involved, integrity, and feeling of the experience.

Science taught me how to ask questions. Amazingly, writing taught me which ones matter.

For writers navigating their own memoirs, especially those drawn from complex or layered experiences, a few principles helped me maintain that precision.

Writing this way did not make the process easier, but it made it more honest. Scientific training taught me to value accuracy, to question assumptions, and to refine conclusions. Applying those principles to memoir helped me tell a story that feels both personal and grounded. Precision, I learned, is ultimately a scientific virtue and a welcome narrative one.

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)