The haunted “third of June” cannot pass without calling out Tommy Tomlinson‘s classic piece on the essence of story, via Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” Tomlinson, a onetime Pulitzer finalist who now writes for Sports … Read more
In good fiction, the reader absorbing a compelling narrative never notices the writer as intermediary. In nonfiction, that translator’s presence is inevitable. Since the former is the ideal relationship with the reader, the more you can bring that non-point of view to nonfiction narrative, the better. In other words, as a writer, no matter what the hell you’re writing, do your best to kill your ego, even if those are mutually exclusive ideals. (i.e.: He could have told the story of the effect of that atomic bomb on an innocent city by telling us what he found when he went over there, and it would have been a good piece. Instead he gave the story over to the six survivors, and it earned a place in immortality.) Read more
I spoke to the Public Relations Society of America’s Charlotte chapter on Wednesday, May 22, 2013. They’re a good group. Sometimes I speak off the top of my head at this sort of thing, but this time … Read more
Our “Work the problem” series continues with a psychological situation that every writer faces: How do you make peace with stories you wish you’d done differently? Fielding this one is Esquire legend Tom Junod, … Read more
Sarah Stillman’s “The Invisible Army” (The New Yorker, June 2011) told the stunning and deeply reported tale of the 70,000 “third-country nationals” who work on U.S. military bases in war zones: … Read more
Brendan Koerner’s recent Wired piece about Alfred Anaya, a “genius at installing secret compartments in cars,” was nothing short of delicious as a piece of storytelling and discovery. Sure, someone’s out there fabricating automotive hidey-holes for smuggled drugs and other … Read more
“Snow Fall,” the widely celebrated New York Times multimedia narrative on a deadly avalanche in Washington State, won a Peabody this week (and would later win the Pulitzer) for being “a spectacular example of the potential of … Read more
Big buzz earlier this month when Michael Graff‘s story on the suicide of former University of Maryland basketball walk-on Earl Badu hit SB Nation‘s longform wing: You know the wish can’t come true, but people say it all the … Read more
Everybody’s read his latest? Great. WILMINGTON, N.C. — They are old men now, the doctor and the lawyer, ancient adversaries confronting each other one last time. The doctor shuffles into the courtroom, his feet in socks and slippers, his … Read more
Narrative isn’t synonymous with long-form work. A narrative journalist doesn’t need thousands of words or loads of reporting and writing time to tell a memorable story. For you hunter-gatherers of short-form models, consider: … Read more