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Valuable journalistic advice arises from annual gathering of eminent writers

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jul/Aug 2007 by Weinberg, Steve

TELLING TRUE STORIES: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide From the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, editors Plume/Penguin Books

"Telling True Stories" probably will be classiI fled as a "writing" book on the store shelves, but it is actually something more. Any book about high-quality nonfiction writing must also include in-depth discussions about two other elements: information gathering (sometimes known by the less precise term "reporting") and thinking.

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Specifically, it's about how reporters and editors consider the appropriateness of the story concept; where to gather information along the documents trail and the people trail; how to organize the most relevant information into a compelling narrative with a beginning, middle and end; the arc that builds tension; and the resolution of that tension.

Tips spill from every chapter of the book, the result of an annual meeting of journalists at Harvard University. Those gathered discuss the process of producing compelling narrative nonfiction in magazines, newspapers, radio, cinema and books.

Putting all that wonderful information into book form is Mark Kramer, a practitioner of narrative nonfiction and organizer of the Harvard conference. Kramer, assisted by Wendy Call, a Seattle writer, distilled the wisdom from 5 1 conference speakers into a coherent primer (after reducing 600,000 transcribed words by about 80 percent).

Every page - and I mean every page - contains important wisdom for every journalist. "Telling True Stories" is the relatively rare guide that offers value to veteran journalists, to novices, to investigative journalists and to beat reporters.

Some of the contributors are famous journalists by any measure: Gay Tálese, Susan Orlean, Nora Ephron, Tom Wolfe, Tracy Kidder, Malcolm Gladwell and the recently deceased David Halberstam.

Many other contributors are mostly well known within the journalism realm or within a geographic section of the nation, if not by the general public. They include Katherine Boo, Roy Peter Clark, Jack Hart, Jacqui Banaszynski, Jon Franklin, Walt Harrington, Isabel Wilkerson, Jan Winburn, Adam Hochschild, Ted Conover, Anne Hull, Louise Kiernan, Cynthia Gorney, Melissa Fay Greene, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Debra Dickerson, Nick Lemann, Bruce DeSilva, Tom French, Alma Guillermoprieto, Sonia Nazario, Lisa Pollak, Tom Hallman and Samantha Power.

The book is divided into nine parts. One of those parts features narrative writing within specific genres - investigative, historical, first-person accounts, essays, columns, travel and profiles. For the most part, though, the techniques included are generic and can be adapted to any genre.

The section of the book devoted to further reading yields a first-rate bibliography, divided into already published titles on basic skills; the craft of writing; the art of writing; narrative nonfiction anthologies; full-length narrative nonfiction books; memoirs; personal essays; fiction and poetry.

Highlights of the book include:

* Katherine Boo, former Washington Post staff writer who now freelances, offering ways to improve what she calls "narrative investigative writing."

First, she says, "Remember that your story's villains are your guides as much as the story's victims." Boo's advice to cultivate the apparent villains early, rather than doing only a "closeout interview six hours before your story runs," goes against the grain of traditional investigative reporting, but is extremely important. The villains need to be presented in the same skillful, three-dimensional manner as the victims.

Second, Boo says, "Admit when you don't know. Admit the troubling things you do know." She elaborates: "Acknowledge that the heroic mother of your story is goldbricking at work. Don't omit that the grieving mother of the retarded man who died hadn't visited her son in 10 years. If you give your readers characters who are as complex and flawed as they truly are, your readers are more likely to trust you on matters more important than character - the true policy issue that your narrative elucidates."

* Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, freelance writer, discussing persistence in relation to her book "Random Family."

After reading a clip in Newsday about a young heroin dealer going to trial, LeBlanc obtained an assignment from Rolling Stone magazine to write about the case. She spent about three months at the courthouse during the trial, which ended in a conviction. LeBlanc wanted to know more information than the trial yielded, but the defendant would not consider talking until after a ruling on his appeal. Rolling Stone s editors would not wait, but LeBlanc remained in contact with the defendant and those around him.

"During my reporting, I had gotten to know the mothers and girlfriends of some of the co-defendants. I followed them. It was the beginning of a very long journey that culminated in my book," she says.

In that context, LeBlanc offers an anecdote worth remembering. As LeBlanc interviewed one of the drug dealer's girlfriends, the young woman said she had accepted that she was one of many, but fancied herself the main one. The girlfriend said that she would take care of her guy's needs even when her man was out with another woman. LeBlanc listened as the girlfriend described ironing his T-shirts and polishing his sneakers.

Valuable journalistic advice arises from annual gathering of eminent writers

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jul/Aug 2007 by Weinberg, Steve

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