Story Craft

In praise of the sentence

In praise of the sentence

The first chapter of How to Write a Sentence (and How to Read One), by Stanley Fish, begins with this paragraph:In her book The Writing Life (1989), Annie Dillard tells the story of a…
April 25, 2014
Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

Writing the Book: Profiling the Sabine River

My story might interest other small-timers with big ambitions. Believe it or not, a four-part series in a local newspaper launched my career as an author. My first book, Running…
April 22, 2014
Wes Ferguson
Narrative flashback: Kelly, Kirn, Guillermoprieto, Woo, Kaminer, Krulwich and Hart talk storytelling's future and form

Narrative flashback: Kelly, Kirn, Guillermoprieto, Woo, Kaminer, Krulwich and Hart talk storytelling’s future and form

Storyboard isn’t the only Nieman Foundation publication with a rich craft archive. Our venerable sister magazine Nieman Reports maintains a trove of material on narrative and storytelling, and we’ll be…
April 10, 2014
Paige Williams
'It's not about the cameras, it's about how you see the world' — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

‘It’s not about the cameras, it’s about how you see the world’ — and 49 other tips and inspirations from the BU narrative conference

Fifty takeouts from some of the speakers at last weekend’s Boston University conference on narrative, culled from the Twitter feeds of Lauren Alexander, Alletta Cooper, Cat Cowan, Jessica DuLong, John…
April 8, 2014
Paige Williams
Writing the book: Neil Swidey on 'Trapped Under the Sea'

Writing the book: Neil Swidey on ‘Trapped Under the Sea’

I love inspirational quotes from august authors as much as the next writer. But the quote I thought about the most during the long years when I was writing my…
April 3, 2014
Neil Swidey
Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

Want to write great narrative? Study screenwriting.

“That’s all fine,’’ the L.A. film executive said briskly, “but who’s the antagonist?’’Cut to: Me, author of a soon-to-be published biography of the 1940s/’50s wrestler and pop culture figure who…
March 14, 2014
John Capouya
Writing the book: Ben Montgomery on Grandma Gatewood's Walk

Writing the book: Ben Montgomery on Grandma Gatewood’s Walk

One night in January 2013, deep into the writing of Grandma Gatewood's Walk, I found myself alone at the keyboard, crying. Weeping, really.Thinking back, the storm of depression and anxiety…
March 4, 2014
Ben Montgomery
Watch Kurt Vonnegut demystify story structure with a fairy tale and a piece of chalk

Watch Kurt Vonnegut demystify story structure with a fairy tale and a piece of chalk

A couple of years ago, in a Storyboard piece on John McPhee‘s gorgeously built Encounters with the Archdruid, the acclaimed author Adam Hochschild wrote about narrative structure: A few years ago…
February 28, 2014
Paige Williams
The Bread Loaf files: Ted Conover, Cheryl Strayed, Richard Bausch and Robert Frost on craft, dedication, discipline, poetry and what to ban from your bookshelf

The Bread Loaf files: Ted Conover, Cheryl Strayed, Richard Bausch and Robert Frost on craft, dedication, discipline, poetry and what to ban from your bookshelf

This week’s theme: semi-obscure archives that might prove valuable to your narrative storytelling. On Tuesday, we highlighted Mark Berkey-Gerard‘s posts on multimedia narrative, which he warehouses at his classroom-based website, Campfire Journalism. Today,…
February 27, 2014
Paige Williams
How to interview, structure, choose your medium, edit for sound, identify the story arc and more

How to interview, structure, choose your medium, edit for sound, identify the story arc and more

The new student of multimedia narrative may want to bookmark an archive on digital storytelling by Mark Berkey-Gerard, who teaches online journalism at Rowan University, in New Jersey. A Columbia…
February 25, 2014
Paige Williams