Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Good writing: Examples and ideas on
writing well
Creating quiet corners in a noisy profession
A ritual, a phone to the ear, a stroll around the newsroom
can help center writer, improve stories
By Don Fry
All my best ideas pop into my mind in the shower, and I write my best
sentences in my head while driving. Good writers can draw their best stuff
from this kind of quiet zone, and coaching editors can teach it and use
it too.
(Actually this column idea occurred to me while driving to a hotel one
night, and I composed that lead in the shower the next morning.)
Reporters tend to frazzle themselves chasing facts and quotes, and they
need ways to slow things down so they can think. Slowing down speeds them
up overall.
For example, Sam Stanton covered agriculture for The Sacramento (Calif.)
Bee, which involved long drives back to the office to write. He would plan
his story in the car by asking himself questions, and then just steer "until
the lead formed on the windshield."
California Zen has nothing to do with this technique. The secret lies
in shedding distractions so you can see larger patterns. And the chief
distractions are fear of failure and drowning in detail, the two hallmarks
of the daily reporter. (And the daily editor.)
Quiet zones range from simple to complex, and can involve space as well
as time. Richard Aregood, editorial page editor at The Star Ledger in Newark,
N.J., slowly circles the newsroom as he composes a piece. Colleagues quip
that they know Richard’s about to type when he passes the water cooler.
One deputy editorial chief wears a red baseball cap when she wants total
seclusion to think, which she does right in the middle of her six demanding,
noisy writers, who temporarily respect her privacy, and then deluge her
when she takes the cap off.
Some writers create a quiet zone by wrapping themselves in cigarette
smoke. I wonder if our new regulations about having to leave the building
to smoke have made the zone more effective. (I doubt it.)
Court reporters can think during recesses and bench conferences. City
council reporters can jot down ideas while the mayor gives awards to Cub
Scouts. Interviewers can plan in waiting rooms, after they’ve surveyed
the walls for topic and atmosphere tips, of course. Even in busy newsrooms,
you can create a quiet zone simply by holding the phone to your head and
moving your lips; no one will interrupt you.
Coaching editors can use this zone by teaching it to frantic reporters,
even by entering the zone with them. The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News,
for example, has a walking track beside its building, and editors and reporters
escape the newsroom to think together in motion. Even walking down a hall
with a reporter can free the mind, both minds. Some newspapers have set
up a coaching room, just big enough for two people, and slightly isolated.
Coaching editors tend to move around among their staffers, but different
geographies help at different times in the reporter’s writing process.
For example, I find that coaching works better away from the writers’ desks
before they start typing, because it unties them from the distraction of
their notebooks. After they’ve typed, I sit beside them so we can discuss
the text on their screens.
Good coaching involves raising the reporter’s thinking above the morass
of detail to see the larger patterns and the structure of the story. Key
questions get you there:
What’s the story about?
What happened?
What do readers need to know?
How will this change people’s lives?
What strikes you about all this?
Editors need the quiet zone as much as their reporters. If they escape
distractions by talking to you, you have to escape distractions to talk
to them.
Fry, an affiliate of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, is
an independent writing coach in St. Petersburg, Fla. Call him at 813/866-3460.
