Story Craft

Shop Class: A science freelancer opens herself to the syntax of traditional Indian dance — and the possibilities of free writing

Somewhere in the early pages of “Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process,” John McPhee gives a nod to daily news reporters. The author and New Yorker writer was explaining…

Every journalist has an unfinished novel or a screenplay tucked in their desk drawer or hard drive. Of course, that’s not true in every case, but there’s no doubt a…

Come the close of any calendar year, and look-back pieces are as common as failed New Year resolutions. At the close of a decade — even more.So when one rises…

Defining a writer’s “voice” has always stumped me. It came up again recently, when a journalism professor put me on speaker phone with her class of college freshmen, who had…

Hang out at a journalism workshop, anywhere in the world, and inevitably the subject comes up: We’re being asked to produce more and more, in less and less time.It was…

If there were no Robert Caro, he could not easily be invented. Consider the job description: Commit your career to exhaustive research into the lives of two legendarily powerful men,…

I fall to pieces every time I hear a recording of Patsy Cline singing “Crazy” or “Sweet Dreams” — or “I Fall to Pieces” — and it’s not just because…

My mother’s reverence for education, a solid grounding in middle-school grammar, and a long career in old-school journalism has chiseled me into one of those people who honors language, and…

Advice to a blocked writer from others who have suffered the same