No class tonight, Jan. 23, but .... read on

So I'm sick as a dog. Strep throat. No one else in house has it. So I'm fairly certain I caught it hanging out with some meth junkies for a story I'm working on. Alas. I guess I could've caught something worse. I could make it to class tonight, I am ambulatory but I'm a loopy and I have no voice. I would have to pantomime our discussions.

We will make up the lost class later this semester. But not all is lost -- in fact, only about one hour -- because I planned on us doing a reporting/writing assignment in class anyhow. 

And you all will still be doing that. 

How? Well, read on....

Look at the reading from last week ... The profiles of Vice President Biden and Lindsay Lohan and young Davion. Very different pieces. Yes. But they share some common traits.

Right from the start, they grab the reader by the lapels. Details! They thrust the reader into a moment in time. A scene. No fussing about. No clearing the throat. Just bam. In the moment!

(I've underlined the action)

From the Lohan story:

Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind of way. She’ll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads turn subtly as she slinks toward a table to meet a young producer and an old director. The actress’s mother, Dina Lohan, sits at the next table. Mom sweeps blond hair behind her ear and tries to eavesdrop. A few tables away, a distinguished-looking middle-aged man patiently waits for the actress. He has a stack of presents for her.Lohan sits down, smiles and skips the small talk.“Hi, how are you? I won’t play Cynthia. I want to play Tara, the lead.” Braxton Pope and Paul Schrader nod happily. They’d been tipped off by her agent that this was how it was going to go. They tell her that sounds like a great idea.

From the Biden story:

"Keep going straight here," Joe Biden says. We've been at this for hours, climbing in and out of the SUV to look at stuff, a water tower, a stone wall, the house where the most beautiful girl in the world lived, hoagies, Herman the German's gas station, Meyers-eats-tires tire shop, the house where another most beautiful girl in the world lived, and he's holding up better than the rest of us. He never winces, has no achy knees, no lower-back anything, neck, joints; for the guy rockin' the Ray-Ban aviators, 70 is the new 60. "Wait, there's Little Italy down there," he says, peering out the window. "A lot of great Italian restaurants. If there's anybody down there who doesn't vote for me, I haven't found them yet. But I will. I will.
"Okay, in the interest of time, we'll stop here. Let's get out here."

From the Davion story:

ST. PETERSBURG — As soon as they pulled into the church lot, Davion changed his mind."Miss! Hey, Miss!" he called to his caseworker, who was driving. "I don't want to do this anymore."In the back seat, he hugged the Bible someone had given him at the foster home. "You're going to be great," Connie Going said.Outside St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church, she straightened his tie. Like his too-big black suit, the white tie had been donated. It zipped up around the neck, which helped. No one had ever taught Davion, 15, how to tie one."Are you ready?" Going asked. Hanging his head, he followed her into the sanctuary.

DETAILS! ACTION! YOU CAN SEE PEOPLE MOVING! YOU CAN HEAR THEM TALKING! 

This is not something seen in most news stories. And it is a skill that is hard to develop. But it's a muscle, this scene-setting and vivid writing thing. You've got to exercise it. So that's what we're going to do.

This is called showing. Not telling. Most stories tell you something. This shows the reader. 

It's a leap of faith in some ways, trusting that the reader will understand what you're showing them.

Consider this scene from the great book "The Good Soldiers" by David Finkel, a nonfiction account of the Iraq War:

Every once in a while, a day would feel good in Iraq, and Sept. 22, 2007, seemed one of those days. The temperature was under 100 degrees. The sky was a dustless blue. The air stunk of neither sewage nor burning trash. The only smell was the chemical bouquet wafting from some portable latrines near where Petraeus paused to shake hands with a few soldiers before he walked into the little building, climbed a stairway cracked from explosions and sat in a high-backed chair that had been wiped to a shine.

COLORS! "Dustless blue" 

SMELLS! "Chemical bouqet" of latrines

ACTION! A general shaking hands and walking and climbing 

TELLING DETAILS! "a high-backed chair that had been wiped to a shine."

Don't tell the reader that Petraeus (the general, the war commander) is important. Show! And that detail about the chair shows the reader, right?

So remember:

-- Physical description of people in your stories. What do they look like? Eye color. Hair length. Curly? Bearded? Or just unshaven? Pretty? Streaks of gray in their hair? Tall like a basketball player? Or short enough to mistaken for an elementary school student from a distance? Do they look like Porky Pig or Ned Flanders or Justin Beiber's older brother? 

-- Dialogue. Don't get quotes. Capture people talking, the give and take of discussion. Even small things can tell the reader something about people. Someone who greets someone with "Hello" is different than someone who says "Hi" who is different than someone who says "Wassup?" who is different than someone who says nothing, only nods. 

-- Think in scenes. Look at the snippets from the stories above. Those are moments in time, scenes, grounded in details. 

-- Details. Details. Details. They matter.

And your assignment:

Instead of coming to class tonight -- no reason to! -- I want you to go somewhere and spend at least 30 minutes gathering details, writing it all down in your notebook, and then I want you to spend another 30 minutes typing it up and emailing it to me.

This is meant to be quick, rapid and intense. I want at least 200 words emailed to be by 6 pm Friday.

Don't agonize. Don't think too much. Don't let the blank page terrorize you. Just do it. I'm not worried about format or style or anything but seeing that you went out and tried.

The trick is this: Gathering enough details. Write down everything. The colors. The smells. The labels. The brands. The snippets of dialogue.

Some examples:

-- Go to a coffeeshop. Grab a table. And just soak it all in. Describe the couple sitting nearby. What are they wearing? What are they talking about? What book is he reading? How is flipping through the pages? Fast? Slow? Like he is reading for enjoyment or for class? The barista, is he flirty? How so? Does he smile extra wide at the women? What music is playing? Write it all down. 30 minutes. Set a timer and be done.

-- Go to a fast food restaurant. Watch people coming and going. Write it all down.

-- Go to a supermarket. People watch and write things down. (Don't be too obvious, but I bet everyone will just think you're an obsessive food lister.) The old lady bundled in furs against the cold, walking down the soup aisle, plucking three cans of Chicken Noodle, on sale, 3 for $1 into her shopping cart, which is full of cat food tins. (There's a story there, no?)

-- Hang out in a public restroom. Any place. Some place interesting. Yes, a restroom is weird. But sit in a stall for 30 minutes. What do you notice, what do you hear?

Due for next class: (in addition to turning in 200 words to me by 6pm Friday)

-- Read Chapter 2 in Feature Writing book.