Notes From A Writing Coach

Two excellent books for writers

This is a great month for writers. Out this month: two marvelous books, from two of the country’s most eminent writing coaches, Jack Hart and Roy Peter Clark.

I mentioned Mr. Hart’s book, A Writer’s Coach, in the last column. It deserves more than a mention. Mr. Hart has coached writers for years at The Oregonian newspaper, and for part of that time he produced a newsletter called Second Takes for the paper’s staff and freeloaders like me who were lucky enough to get on the mailing list. It was the best newsletter on writing I’ve ever seen. I only wish I had the full collection of issues.

Mr. Hart has taken much of the best advice from Second Takes and put it into A Writer’s Coach. You will find wisdom on every page. Here’s a sample:

Snake Rule No. 1: Direct quotations must appear as separate paragraphs.
Where’d this one come from? True, we create a separate paragraph for the words of each speaker in a dialogue. But what does that have to do with direct quotes?
For the record, no rule dictates that you set off each direct quotation as a separate paragraph. Do so if you want, for emphasis. But if the quote flows naturally from the preceding introductory material, you’d be well advised to leave it in the same paragraph, like this:
Brady leaned into the bar, cranked his head to the right, and spied the bartender twelve stools down. “Bring me a beer and shot,” he bellowed. “I’m not a patient man.”

Hallelujah!

As Mr. Hart says, no rule—none—requires a separate graf for each quote. But most of the newspaper writers and editors I know act as if such a rule existed. Some editors reflexively swing their trusty little copy hatchets and split a dandy paragraph just to get the quote out.

Roy Peter Clark is vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in Florida. He published a series of columns, “Fifty Writing Tools,” on Poynter’s Web site, then gathered them into his book. It is Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.

Even if you read the columns on the Web site (they are no longer there) and downloaded them, you will want to get the book.
Mr. Clark makes learning not only painless for the reader but also fun. His book is aptly titled: He gives writers tools to use and play with, not stuffy rules to confine them.

Here’s a paragraph I like:

To understand the difference between a good adverb and a bad adverb, consider these two sentences: “She smiled happily" and “She smiled sadly.” Which one works best? The first seems weak because “smiled” contains the meaning of “happily.” On the other hand, “sadly” changes the meaning.

These books are for writers of every sort, not just journalists.
Every writer I know could profit from them.

Writing before you have a lead

Any number of news writers have convinced themselves that they can’t write unless they have their lead. As long as they labor under that conviction, they handicap themselves.

They struggle and sweat to come up with that perfectly polished first sentence. They waste time and effort that would be better spent getting on with the story—or in planning the story. In many cases, they neglect the planning and con themselves into believing that the story will fall into place once they have the lead.

The lead is important, indeed, vital, but it should be a worry you can deal with later. It shouldn’t be a yawning pit keeping you from beginning to write.

In his splendid new book, A Writer’s Coach, Jack Hart suggests a good method for dealing with the lead barrier. Write a theme statement, he says, and simply start writing from the theme.

It is excellent advice. You should write a theme statement—one sentence giving the gist of the story or article—in any case. Sometimes you will find that the unadorned theme sentence makes a perfectly serviceable lead. Sometimes you will come up with a better lead later. Either way, the theme statement has served its purpose.

Unless you are truly a rare exception, you can teach yourself to write without having the lead. You can learn to see a story or article in parts and start at any part. To do that, though, you must learn to plan the writing. The plan need not be elaborate—a simple list may do.

Once you free yourself from the belief that you can’t write without a lead, you will be a more versatile and more supple writer.

Think of how a movie is made. The director shoots the movie in scenes, but the scenes are not necessarily in sequence. The opening scene may be shot at any point in the process. After the shooting is done, the scenes are put together in the proper sequence to tell a story.

You can do the same thing in writing.

For reporters, especially, the ability to write part of the story has practical benefits. For example, when I was a city editor of a newspaper, I planned election-day coverage to be as painless as possible. I assigned stories to reporters and gave them deadlines and lengths. And I required them to write the bulk of their stories in advance.

Election night can be chaotic. Reporters want to wait till the last minute to get the latest news, but they must meet deadline. It makes no sense for a reporter who has a midnight deadline to wait until 11:45 to start writing his entire story. If he has most of it already written, it is easy to put a top on the piece and send it to the desk.

The material written in advance can include a recap of the campaign, background material on the candidates, a review of the issues, and more. Almost all of this can be cut as necessary if the reporter gets lucky and has time to write fresh material. If he has to go right down to the wire, though, having most of a story in hand relieves him of a lot of pressure.

With an election, you can anticipate the possible outcomes. Someone will emerge as the leader. Or the race will be too tight to call at press time. Or the vote counting may be fouled up and no one has a clue. Whatever the case, you can sum it up in minutes and stick a short top on your prepared story. You can always write a better story for the next edition or the following day’s paper.

Many other situations also call for writing before you know your lead. If you’re covering a major trial, for example, you should start writing your story while the jury is still out. It would be silly to wait until the verdict came in to start.

Sports stories, of course, are obvious candidates for writing before you know what the lead will be.

Writing coach Steve Buttry, who is now director of tailored programs at the American Press Institute, takes the idea a step further. Steve says you should start writing from the beginning, when the story is still at the idea stage, and continue to write in bits in spare moments as you are gathering your material. You might, for example, write a couple of paragraphs after you interview someone. Steve makes good sense. You can read his article here.

The benefits of writing as you report are several. You will save time, because some of the writing will be done earlier. The writing will help you clarify your thinking, pointing you to what else you need for your story.

And it will help you get rid of the crippling notion that you can’t write until you have a lead and everything is all tied up in pretty ribbon.