Story Craft

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 4: plot

[This last installment in a four-part series on writing historical narratives focuses on the importance of plot in nonfiction storytelling. The series is based on a lecture given by Adam Hochschild…
April 11, 2011
Adam Hochschild
April Editors' Roundtable: GQ dives into the personal consequences of war

April Editors’ Roundtable: GQ dives into the personal consequences of war

Stop shopping for your Easter bonnet, and put down those 1040s – it's time for a new Editors' Roundtable! This session, our editors are looking at Michael Paterniti's “The Boy from…
April 6, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 3: character

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 3: character

[This third installment in a four-part series on writing historical narratives focuses on the importance of characters. The series is based on a lecture given by Adam Hochschild at Vanderbilt University…
April 5, 2011
Adam Hochschild

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 2: setting

[This second installment in a four-part series on writing historical narratives focuses on the importance of setting and scenes in nonfiction storytelling. The series is based on a lecture given by…
March 28, 2011
Adam Hochschild
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 1

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, part 1

[This four-part series on storytelling and historical narratives is based on a talk given at Vanderbilt University in February 2011.]Half a century ago, the novelist and physicist C.P. Snow wrote…
March 25, 2011
Adam Hochschild
March Editors' Roundtable: Mother Jones looks at rape in Haiti

March Editors’ Roundtable: Mother Jones looks at rape in Haiti

The narrative for discussion in the second installment of our Editors’  Roundtable is “Welcome to Haiti's Reconstruction Hell” by Mac McClelland. Appearing in Mother Jones earlier this year, the story was written after…
March 3, 2011
Andrea Pitzer

Time's David Von Drehle on narrating tragedy and the evolution of his Tucson story

Yesterday, we posted our first Editors’ Roundtable, in which a group of word wizards did their magic on a piece of narrative nonfiction. Our debut story for consideration was “The Real…
February 2, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
February Editors' Roundtable: Time magazine takes on the Tucson shootings

February Editors’ Roundtable: Time magazine takes on the Tucson shootings

The narrative selected for discussion by our first-ever Editors’  Roundtable is “The Real Lesson of the Tucson Tragedy” by David Von Drehle. Appearing in Time magazine five days after the shooting of…
February 1, 2011
Andrea Pitzer
Keeping it real: how round characters grow from the seeds of detail

Keeping it real: how round characters grow from the seeds of detail

When I first read the New Journalism manifestos by Tom Wolfe in the late 1970s, they changed forever my vision of narrative. In spite of my Ph.D. in English, I…
January 24, 2011
Roy Peter Clark
Michael Paterniti on storytelling (part 2): William Burroughs' final months, Mitterrand's last meal, and magical cheese

Michael Paterniti on storytelling (part 2): William Burroughs’ final months, Mitterrand’s last meal, and magical cheese

Today we bring you Part 2 of a discussion on narrative nonfiction with long-form storyteller Michael Paterniti. (If you just tuned in to the conversation, you might want to check…
November 30, 2010
Paige Williams