Telling True Stories

1. Telling True Stories Highlights from this Nieman Foundation book for nonfiction writers

2. Key quotes from book • Adrian Nicole Leblanc • I have learned over the years that I must draft scenes immediately. I do it right after reporting – ideally, as I’m typing my notes. • I realize if I talk too much, it is because I am uncomfortable either with what the subject is trying to tell me or with the situation: the aggression of needing something form them.

3. Quotes on writing a profile • Jacqui Banaszysnski • The key to reporting for a profile is figuring out the questions. Interviews are crucial, and not just with the person being profiled. Who are the people around him or her? Who will reveal something about that person? Who knows the defining moments that shaped his or her life? • Ask people what they worry about most or who matters most to them or what makes them most afraid.

4. More on profiles • Ask questions that require descriptive answers. If a subject is reflecting upon a critical life event, ask what kind of day it was, what was the first thing he/she did upon waking, what did he eat for breakfast, how was the weather, what was he wearing? • Do not include descriptive details that serve no purpose. If it is not showing something important, it’s not essential. • Profile types: (p. 68) Cradle-to-Current Profile; Niche Profile; Paragraph Profile.

5. Before you begin a story • Think carefully about what will intrigue readers (p. 25) • After selecting your topic, secure good access. • Find the unfolding action that will provide the narrative line. • Find hints of character in the action. • Find the right scene details through careful sensory reporting. • Pinpoint your subjects’ emotional experience, not your own.

6. Before you being cont. • Rigorously research your story’s context. • Late in the drafting process, crystallize the point of your story. • Very late in the writing process, refine the difference between your views and your subject’s views. • Cherish the structural ideas and metaphors that come to you while you are reporting. (p. 28)

7. Every profile is an epic story • Things to consider from Tomas Alex Tizon: • Your subject is as complicated as you are. • Each person has a dark side. • Your subject carries a burden as heavy as yours. • Every good story, and every great profile, is a quest. • Somewhere in the tangle of the subject’s burden and the subject’s desire is your story.

8. On profiles • “Many profiles that are written about individuals ou to be about subcultures. The individual is a means to examine another world – the world in which that person lives. When we limit ourselves to the individual’s personality, we miss the opportunity to consider larger questions about society and subculture.” – Malcolm Gladwell

9. On writing good stories • Good writing is far too complex to get right in one draft or two or five. Good writers are most often plain ol’ writers who go the extra mile and then a few more. – Mark Kramer and Wendy Call • In nearly all stories, the characters go through some transformation. If it isn’t there, the reporter probably doesn’t have a story. – Jon Franklin • All stories have three layers. The top layer is what actually happens – the narrative. The next layer is how those events make the main character feel. There is another layer below the factual and the emotional. It is the rhythm of the piece and evokes the universal theme. – Jon Franklin

10. Types of narrative writing Summary narrative: • Emphasizes the abstract • Collapses time • Employs direct quotes • Organized topically • Omniscient point of view • Writer hovers above the scene • Deals with outcomes rather than process • Higher on the ladder of abstraction • Composed of digression, backstory, and an explication

11. Types of narrative writing cont. Dramatic narrative: (p. 112) - Emphasizes concrete detail - Readers experience action as if it were happening in real time - Employs dialogue, characters talking to one another - Organized scenically - Specific point of view - Clear narrative stance - Writer is inside the scene - Deals with process, gives specific description - Lower on the ladder of abstraction - Composed of the story’s main line of action

12. Story endings Your ending must: (p. 117) • Signal to the reader that the piece is over • Reinforce your central point • Resonate in your reader’s mind • Arrive on time A good ending can be: • A vividly drawn scene • A memorable anecdote that clarifies the main point of the story • A telling detail that symbolizes something larger than itself or suggests how the story might move forward • A compellingly crafted conclusion in which the writer addresses the reader and says, “This is my point.”

13. Adding quality to your work • All nonfiction writers are translators. The translator is the perfect journalist. The best journalism endeavors to convey an essential idea or story to an audience that knows very little about it, and that requires translation. To do this successfully, the writer must filter the idea through the prism of his eye, his mind and his writing style.” IlanStavans • Good, clean sentences are fundamental to a strong writer’s voice. Once you have achieved control over your sentences and paragraphs, you can torque a phrase into an unusual shape, offer a knowing side comment, leap forward and backward in time, digress from the main story line. Readers will gladly follow a voice they trust almost anywhere. Mark Kramer and Wendy Call

14. On descriptive details • New writers sometimes make the mistake of trying to create a character on the page by drawing on details of the person’s surroundings. Few readers would care that there’s a golf trophy in a subject’s office unless they also learn its significance. Description alone isn’t helpful. Information that explains motive goes into the piece. Everything else stays out. Jon Franklin

15. Reconstructing scenes Strong scenes, whether observed or reconstructed by the writer, must include these key elements (p. 132) • Accuracy (either you saw it or you interview eye witnesses) • Atmosphere (include sounds, smells, temperature and textures) • Dialogue (sometimes you can rely on letters or meeting minutes, people’s memories) • Emotion (how did subjects/witnesses feel at the time?)

16. Setting the scene • You write, “She had a mishap,” and readers feel nothing. If you write, “She stepped out into nothing and pitched downstairs,” readers feel it in their stomachs. You write, “She blinked in the bright light,” and we squint. Mark Kramer • The best scenes grow from fine-grained research.

17. Handling time • If readers suddenly don’t know whether a week or a year has passed, they stop reading. • Writers often convey the passage of time by invoking the physical world. Shadows move across the floor in a room; the morning sunlight comes through one window, by afternoon, through another window; the room grows dark. A story that occurs over several months or a year can include other markers: dry leaves falling, the opening of the baseball seasons. • Speeding and slowing time is just as important as marking it. (p. 139)