Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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National
Writers' Workshop
If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants.
- Sir Isaac Newton, 1675
Too few journalists appreciate Newton's idea of building upon past discoveries.
The emphasis on breaking news focuses attention on only the present. Yet
the same deadline pressure that forces journalists to live in the present
also creates the best reason to steal writing techniques: Reporters simply
don't have time to reinvent the wheel.
While the basic commitment of any nonfiction writer is to the unvarnished
truth, the language of the newsroom is fundamentally no different from
the language of Shakespeare: a story is a story is a story, whether spun
out of the fancies of a Gertrude Stein or the notebook of an experienced
reporter. And most of the devices and techniques needed by narrative journalists
can be taken or adapted from the classic masters of literature.
Our literary inheritance includes the craft of character and place description,
foreshadowing, symbol, mood, rhythm and pacing, story craft and plot; these
are also apparent in two modern nonfiction classics: Joan Didion's "Slouching
Toward Bethlehem" and Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff." The most directly
useful techniques come from the realists: John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Mark
Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In "To Kill a Mockingbird," for example, Harper Lee reveals the secret
of writing good description: It is a quality called movement. Movement
is obtained in part by making your words serve multiple purposes. In her
hands description does much more than just describe. It sets a scene, creates
mood, hints at character traits. If it is to move the story along, description
should always serve at least three purposes - but take no more space than
if it served only one.
From "To Kill a Mockingbird":
Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones;
she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and
twice as hard.
Not only does Harper Lee tell us something about Calpurnia's physical
appearance and personality, she tells us about the personality of the narrator.
Scout clearly had firsthand knowledge of the hardness of Calpurnia's hand.
Other devices can be found in works by the authors mentioned earlier.
The first chapter of Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon" explains how
journalists can reveal a character's inner personality by describing his
exterior actions. The opening of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" reveals
a way of using place description to set mood. Twain made his dialect readable
by using rhythm; his works provide an excellent example of using rhythm
and pacing to keep a story moving. Twain's work is also a great place to
learn how to write without falling into cliché.
For an excellent use of symbol, read chapter 3 of Steinbeck's "Grapes
of Wrath." His "Of Mice and Men" uses foreshadowing to build tension and
character; Jane Kramer used these same techniques in her nonfiction "The
Last Cowboy."
The journalist would be foolish to ignore this heritage. It obviously
applies to narrative nonfiction, but even inverted pyramid stories can
be improved through the use of literary techniques. Once you know where
to look for techniques, you'll find many, many ways to stand on the shoulders
of these literary giants.
Lynn Franklin is the moderator of Writer-L, an e-mail writing workshop.
