Story Craft

Toolkit: Better writing through poetry + metaphor (bonus: a writing exercise)

Toolkit: Better writing through poetry + metaphor (bonus: a writing exercise)

In case you missed it, Nieman Reports, one of our sister publications, featured a few pieces recently on poetry and metaphor. The discipline and the device serve narrative’s need for…
July 5, 2013
Paige Williams
How'd you find that hijacker story, Brendan Koerner?

How’d you find that hijacker story, Brendan Koerner?

Brendan Koerner‘s new book, The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking, dropped last week to critical acclaim. It tells the story of a…
June 24, 2013
Paige Williams
Pamela Colloff and Tom Junod talk storytelling

Pamela Colloff and Tom Junod talk storytelling

At the recent City & Regional Magazine Association conference in Atlanta, Esquire’s Tom Junod and Texas Monthly’s Pamela Colloff interviewed each other for an audience of narrative lovers. Atlanta magazine's Tony Rehagen kindly…
June 6, 2013
Paige Williams
Best of Storyboard: the essence of story, in a short, haunting song (+ fried chicken)

Best of Storyboard: the essence of story, in a short, haunting song (+ fried chicken)

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…
June 3, 2013
Paige Williams
Professor Hersey: one student, the iconic author of 'Hiroshima,' and 6 timeless takeaways

Professor Hersey: one student, the iconic author of ‘Hiroshima,’ and 6 timeless takeaways

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…
May 30, 2013
Peter Richmond
Everything you need to know about storytelling in 5 minutes

Everything you need to know about storytelling in 5 minutes

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…
May 24, 2013
Tommy Tomlinson
Work the problem: Story regret

Work the problem: Story regret

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…
May 17, 2013
Paige Williams
"How'd you find that 'invisible army' story, Sarah Stillman?"

"How’d you find that ‘invisible army’ story, Sarah Stillman?"

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…
May 2, 2013
Paige Williams
"How'd you find that secret-compartments story, Brendan Koerner?"

"How’d you find that secret-compartments story, Brendan Koerner?"

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…
April 5, 2013
Paige Williams
Inside "Snow Fall," the New York Times multimedia storytelling sensation

Inside "Snow Fall," the New York Times multimedia storytelling sensation

“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…
March 29, 2013
Paige Williams