Search results for “so you want to write a book”

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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

The Music of Narrative: Songs from great literary journalism

A story without sound lies too dead on the page. Imagine “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster,” by Jon Franklin, without the pop … pop … pop of the operating-room sensors. Or Tom…
April 17, 2014
'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
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
"Why's this so good?" No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

“Why’s this so good?” No. 90: George Plimpton and Sidd Finch

Twenty-nine years ago today, Sports Illustrated ran George Plimpton’s "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch," about a mysterious, unknown major league pitching recruit who threw a fastball at jet speed. Published…
April 1, 2014
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

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
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
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

“Why’s this so good?” – The badass women edition

From the “Why’s this so good?” archives, a handful of great reads about, or by, brilliant, brave, inspiring women, featuring Joan Didion, Rita Dove, Calvin Trillin, Julia Barton, Edna Buchanan,…
February 18, 2014