The following comments are taken from a talk given by Oregonian reporter Tom Hallman on September 25, 2009, at the American Association of Sunday and Feature editors. Hallman won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for “The Boy Behind the Mask.”
For reporters, there has to be a change of attitude. Narrative was seen as being all about writing and having plenty of time to do stuff. Narrative reporters were seen as prima donnas. So for younger writers, they’re going to have to tell stories, to find stories that are going to be shorter…
The truth is that we turned out stories that were not worth 40, 60 or 90 inches, where the openings were about impressing other writers more than reaching the readers. But you cannot tell a scenic story in 15 inches. It’s going to require a different kind of narrative: The presence of a writer’s voice but without the heavy first person references. My feeling is unless you’ve witnessed a murder, you don’t need to be in the story. It will take a more disciplined approach to the story, the realization that some things are going to have to go by the wayside. You’re going to have to use quotes, whether you want to or not, to condense the story.
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Today we offer the second installment of a two-part look at narrative nonfiction from Granta’s summer issue. I spoke with author Mary Gaitskill about “Lost Cat,” her memoir on the disappearance of an adopted pet, and how she connected the loss to other events in her life.
On the topic of using the piece to examine her own motives, she says, “I think that one’s own motives are interesting. Everybody’s motives are interesting… True feeling is often hidden under superficial or more attractive feelings; selfish motives are often wound up with truly altruistic ones.”
She references the Grace Paley adage about fiction being a lie you tell to get to a bigger truth, and talks about the difference between writing fiction and nonfiction. Fiction, she says, “is a lie if you believe it literally. It’s a story that didn’t happen, but it illuminates the idea. I express myself much more plainly or directly with nonfiction. With fiction, I am largely speaking the language of metaphor, which people frequently mistake for literal communication.”
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Today the Online News Association wraps up its 2009 Conference in San Francisco. Thursday’s pre-conference video workshops from The Washington Post’s Chet Rhodes and Ford Fellow Richard Koci Hernandez sound particularly exciting, with sessions addressing when to use video (and … Read more
Excerpts from a September 2009 interview with Chris Jones on “The End of Mystery,” in which a team of investigators recovers bodies and determines the cause of a helicopter crash off … Read more
Excerpts from a September 2009 interview with Peter Griffin, deputy editor of Esquire, about an August story on a helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland: Can you talk a little about your role in Chris Jones’ “The … Read more
Excerpts from an August 2009 interview with Michael J. Mooney, reporter for Florida’s New Times, whose stories won a slot in the Best American Crime Reporting and Best American Sports Writing anthologies for 2009: When did you first get interested … Read more
Excerpts from a July 2009 interview with Steve Luxenberg on his memoir, which traces the discovery that his mother had an institutionalized sister whose existence she kept secret from her children for more than half a century: How long did you spend … Read more
