Jack Hart

About Jack Hart

Writer, editor and author Jack Hart

Jack Hart served as managing editor, training editor, and writing coach at The Oregonian. During his quarter-century there, he edited four Pulitzer Prize finalists, including winners in explanatory journalism and feature writing. He also edited a portion of the work recognized with the 2001 Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service and the 2006 breaking-news Pulitzer. He is the author of “Wordcraft: The Complete Guide to Clear, Powerful Writing,” (published earlier as “A Writer’s Coach”), and “Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction.”

Building Character: A Checklist

By Story Craft October 15, 2004

Newspaper folks talk a lot about getting people into stories. But all too often that means trotting out direct quotes from a variety of sources. True characterization taps an array of techniques that novelists … Read more

The Comedy of Life

By Story Craft January 1, 1999

The doctor at the Army base had a young corporal as his assistant to keep track of the paperwork. The young man was curious about the doctor’s affairs. He was always asking questions and one morning said, “In … Read more

Building Character in Three Dimensions

By Story Craft January 1, 1998

We’ve heard it to the point of numbness: “Get people into your stories. Tell it in human terms.” Who’s to argue? Yup, human beings are more interesting than paper creeping through a bureaucracy. Yup, real human experiences bring abstractions to … Read more

The Art of the Short Story

By Story Craft January 1, 1997

“It wasn’t by accident,” wrote Hemingway, “that the Gettysburg Address was short.” His 1932 letter to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, went on to lament every writer’s tendency to write too long, drifting beyond the story’s natural focus. He … Read more