What other writers can teach us, Imitation, reverberation and inspiration
When I was teaching writing — and I still say it — I taught that the best way to learn to write is by reading. Reading critically, noticing paragraphs that get the job done, how your favorite writers use verbs, all the useful techniques. A scene catches you? Go back and study it. Find out how it works.
I got a sense of the power of restraint from Hemingway, which is the smallest way to put it, because I got much more than that from him. I learned the power of simple language in English. He showed what a powerful instrument English is if you keep the language simple, if you don't use too many Latinate words. And from Faulkner I learned the exact opposite, that excess can be thrilling, that, "Don't hold yourself in. Don't rein yourself in. Go all the way. Go over the top. Overdo it." And between the two, it's almost as if you've now been given your parameters. This is the best of one extreme and this is the best of another. And somewhere between the two you may be able to find your style in time to come.
- Norman Mailer, 2004
More valuable than anything, perhaps, is simply paying attention to ordinary life in your community. Feature stories about ordinary people can bring together readers with a taste for good prose and writers with literary ambitions — to everyone’s benefit, including the newspaper itself. — Norman Sims
-Ekaterina Sedia
Anne Hull, 2003 narrative journalism conference
1. Reporting is the fundamental ingredient to eventually telling a story.
2. Think hard about the tension or tensions in the story. In other words, what is at stake? Will the cop stay sober, will the immigrants cross the border, will the candidate keep her promise, will the city make budget, will the soldier stay alive? This tension or question will be the rushing river beneath your story, and it will drive the reader on. Without this, stories are flat.
3. Forget about the Q&A model of reporting. This is about standing in the middle of a hurricane.
4. Watching is one of the most under-used tools in reporting. It involves silence.
5. Once David Finkel was doing a story on someone who didn't know how to read. Reporter and subject are sitting at a bus stop together. The bus comes along. Finkel starts to stand, but stops himself because he notices the woman is just sitting there. She can't read the route description on the bus. Our first impulse is to help and say, "Hey, our bus is here." But watching this woman miss her bus is a crucial part of her illiteracy.
6. Listening is a variation of watching. It requires silence.
7. Don't be afraid to feel something if moved: anger, fear, sadness. Stay open to your own reactions. Jot down what you are feeling.
8. In more traditional interviewing -- when you coordinate a time with someone and ask them questions -- there are innate boundaries. You open your notebook, you take notes, you close your notebook, interview over. Then all the good stuff happens: in the ride down the elevator with the person, or him driving you somewhere, or how a secretary greets him.
9. Quotes are overused in journalism.
10. Do what the locals do.
11. Know the ending you are working toward. The ending is the most neglected part of every story, when it's probably the most important element in the story. It's what you leave the reader with. It means everything.
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