Scene, character, and detail are at the center of the narrative writer's craft, and Nieman Storyboard has reposted excerpts from three master writers and editors: Walt Harrington, Laurie Hertzel, and Rick Meyer. Writes Harrington: "Keep in mind the goal of having as few quotes as possible from people who are speaking to no one in the story except the reporter – in other words, the narrator. In fictional stories, subjects do not talk to the omniscient narrator."
Writers and writing
On the Huffington Post, David Hochman offers his advice for a successful freelance career, based on two decades in the business. Among his tips: Keep a notebook to jot down ideas, then use them in making pitches: "Edison held a world record 1,093 patents for inventions like the incandescent lightbulb, the phonograph and the Shake Weight for Men. Why him and not you? Probably because you don't write down every random idea you get and trust that it's worth pursuing."
"Every narrative journalist can point to a story or a book, or two, that changed their lives, and that made them want to tell true stories," Paige Williams writes on Nieman Storyboard. Williams surveys a half-dozen college writing teachers — Jacqui Banaszynski, Mark Bowden, Madeleine Blais, Rob Boynton, Jeff Sharlet and Rebecca Skloot — on the books, magazine articles and newspaper stories that they use when trying to inspire young and aspiring writers and themselves.
Interviewed in Guernica, the Pulitzer-winning MacArthur fellow says asking questions isn't the best way to report on people: "With questions, you ask them, and sometimes the person’s wondering, 'What is the right answer? What does she want? What does she think? Let me give her what she’s looking for.' Listening and observing often work much better [and] reveal much more about the complexity of someone than the answers that they give to questions about themselves."
Poynter's Roy Peter Clark has a big case of author envy when it comes to William Zinsser, whose classic outsells Clark's own. But he credits the old man with holding himself to his own high standards, and cites pages 10 and 11 of "On Writing Well" as evidence: "I’ve studied them until my eyes bleed ... There have never — I say never! — been two pages in a writing text as practical, persuasive and revealing as pages 10 and 11."
From Buzzfeed comes this collection of quotes from writers talking about writing. Jack Shepherd cites everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Elmore Leonard, and from Toni Morrison to Erica Jong. By way of introduction, Shepherd has this to say as well: "Writing is easy: All you have to do is start writing, finish writing, and make sure it's good. But here's some vastly more useful wisdom and advice from people who seriously know what the hell they're talking about."
Pulitzer-winning science writer Richard Rhodes gave a keynote at this year's Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb had this to say about what he calls verity: "It’s actually more challenging to write than fiction, because it adds to all the challenges of writing fiction a further challenge of building the elements of the real world. Elements with external reference. Fiction you can just make up."
Two golden oldies from Nieman Storyboard offer tips on story selection and landing assignments. Jim Collins tells writers to find stories that can advance their careers: "If you’re trying to break into a place that is a reach for you, or you’re trying to go to the next level, think of a story that nobody else can write with your perspective." Adrian Nicole LeBlanc talks about the importance of casting wide net in your search for story ideas.
Covering science and innovation policy with "creative nonfiction" methods will be the focus of two four-day workshops funded by the National Science Foundation and organized by Arizona State University, Curtis Brainard reports in Columbia Journalism Review. Co-director Lee Gutkind, who spoke at the fall 2005 NASW meeting in Pittsburgh, says the goal is to attract "emerging communicators" who will publish literary-style articles or essays on science in major outlets.
Dan Kois writes on Nieman Storyboard about an Adam Sternbergh story and its seductive headline "You Walk Wrong." Kois writes: "This piece wasn’t reported from a war zone. It doesn’t unearth any great scandal or free an innocent man from prison or unveil the side of a star we’ve never seen before ... While I love stories that do all those things, I also love a story that just makes me think about something simple in an entirely different way."