This is a brief collection of advice and clarifications I gathered from the readings:
1. Narrative Journalism is creative, not falsified
2. Get to know real-life characters through research, trust, and building relationships.
3. See the world as they see it.
4. Slide in facts without being harsh – Precise writing allows for it; sloppy writing does not.
5. Hang around people.
6. The language must suit the occasion. You don’t “hype up” in the wake of tragedy. You underwrite, letting the events speak for themselves.
7. Time is the crucial ingredient for the nonfiction writer.
8. Read. Read good nonfiction books.
9. Interview them in their world, on their turf.
10. You have to get people to let their hair down when you’re around, to be willing to forget about you as a reporter, and to say things.
11. Shut up and let the subject talk.
12. Tell the story with a lot of dialogue.
13. If you give too much, you spoil it.
14. Resist narrow definitions.
15. Voice advances the feeling of something created, sculpted, authored by a particular spirit.
16. “Intimate Voice” = informal, frank, human, ironic, wry, puzzled, judgmental, even self-mocking.
The most important concept I took from these readings was "voice." This scares me a bit. Its much simpler for me to write academically, regurgitating and analyzing other's opinions without revealing my own doubts and judgement of their validity. I'm worried because I don't really know what my voice sounds like, or what I want it to sound like. Everytime I call my voicemail and hear myself talk before entering my password I wince. Is that really what I sound like?
Over spring break I read Frank McCourt's memoir of growing up in extreme poverty in Limerick, Ireland: Angela's Ashes. His voice reflects his age throughout the book, as well as cultural conflict, inner battles, self-mockery and more. Its not "correctly" written; he uses truncated or run-on sentences freely, much like a ten year old would. He describes the outside world using the dialogue of his thoughts that string together a collection of short stories. He gives you just enough that you can formulate the rest of the story yourself, resisting narrow definitions. He lets the story tell itself - instead of harshly shoving poverty, sickness and cruelty in your face, he allows you to deduce the reality yourself. Its a beautiful book and his voice is the reason why. (Also perhaps the reason it won a Pulitzer?)
The transitions in Angela's Ashes, or lack there of in some cases, are also used in a different but effective way. Much like parts of "The Open World," McCourt lets one piece of the story fizzle to an end, often with questions unanswered, and then starts into the next paragraph on a completely different topic. One minute he'll be twelve years old going about his daily duties, and in the next paragraph it will be two years later, with no warning to the reader about the coming transition. This encourages me that its ok to leave things out. They don't need to know everything. No one is going to stop reading "The Open World" because they're not told the details of how he got from his hotel to old Delhi without a rickshaw or a guide. He didn't feel the information was necessary, and chances are we would have stopped reading if he had included it because it was boring and not eventful enough to be an integral part of the story. This goes along with the "If you give too much, you spoil it" idea from above, which after reading Angela's Ashes and "The Open World," I completely agree with.
4 comments:
I like your list, you obviously get what elements are key in good Literary Journalism...I also share problems finding my voice in some pieces, but you've done a really good job examining how others use voice in the pieces that you have read and have begun to explore how they use voice (and I could totally hear your voice in that). I also agree with you that it is important not to throw your point in the face of your reader, I think it's great that you are conscious of that as we head into our first assignment.
Great thoughts, Kim! Wonderful observations about Angela's Ashes, too, although I'd encourage you to look a bit deeper than the old "the writer lets the story tell itself." Everything that is included or left out and the way it is treated in terms of style was a deliberate choice. You'll be making those choices, too.
On voice:
Don't worry about it right now. Self consciousness won't help. The beauty of using a journalistic form is you get to focus on capturing other people's voices. When you can do that well, you're almost there! Where your writing diverges from those captured voices, your own voice will emerge.
Just let it happen!
Angela's Ashes is a really good example to use. I've read it a couple of times... I agree with Marin, though, I think McCourt does more than let the story speak for itself. Every element he uses, every detail, every image, every sentence fragment, helps that story to emerge.
The story was always there, and the larger aspects of it (poverty, culture) were always woven into it. However, that balance of being able to bring it forward and present it to the reader with more subtlety than the "ye old sledgehammer approach" that we've all been subjected to at some point, emerges from the well honed writing techniques that he uses. :)
I'm glad you liked this book as well... I really enjoyed it the first time I was exposed to it. It's blatantly honest, haha!
"8. Read. Read good nonfiction books."
Don't forget about your old friend, the fiction book, especially the children's story.
As a journalist, you have to tell compelling stories simply yet with meaning. Children authors do this too, though they get to be creative and false. And they hide meaning in their stories like a parent covering vegetables in chocolate so the kids will eat them.
I'd make a bad parent right now. Anyway, I use some of my favorite children's books -- The Phantom Tollbooth and the Chronicles of Narnia series -- to better my story-telling skills.
But you have put a good list together.
(By the way, this is Aaron, a former student of Marin's. Marin invited me to participate in the class blog. I am political science grad now playing journalist as a career.)
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