I'm infected with journalism-itis
I was trained to be a journalist, using those pillars of the profession such as the five W's, the inverted pyramid style and the effective use of quotes. I just used one journalism trait called for in The Associated Press style guide. That's the omission of the Oxford comma after "style". Many copy editors and not a few literary agents throw their hands up when they see the Oxford comma omitted, but that just accents the gap between two worlds.
My favorite task when I was a reporter was doing a feature story. I loved having the leeway to dive into events that shaped several people, or getting to know people who were just a tad off the standard line. The story I liked best as a young journalist was a feature on a photographer who worked along the Russian River near Guerneville, California. His business name was Tintype Gordon, and he took antique-looking photos of people, putting them in period dress so they looked like they stepped out of the 1880s. The best part of the story was Gordon's recounting of his past life as a mid-level manager with a major computer firm, and how he junked it all to work along the river and live on a quiet, tree-shrouded road south of Guerneville. He packed up all his tintype photography gear and headed to places where he could get more customers, and everything was done on a walk-up basis. I wrote about a 35-inch story, which was standard length for most newspaper feature stories.
I had my formula: solid opening paragraph or two, ranking facts in importance from truly noteworthy to merely supporting material, and cementing it all with good quotes properly placed. Those quotes were much like mortar a mason uses while building a wall.
Now take that formula and translate it to my current task of writing novels. If I were writing about Tintype Gordon for a novel about life along the Russian River, I would take time to note multiple details. I would start with Gordon standing on a Guerneville street, then talk about things such as his thick glasses and gray in his beard, his old-time looks with a vest and striped shirt, and maybe the way the sunlight reflected off his cuff links. I might take 15 inches to list those details, and not even get to a quote until I finished that section.
My problem in writing novels is that I revert to my journalistic training too often. I compress the story. What gets lost are rich details that make characters and settings come alive. I realize that as I go over my material and take into account the input of my beta readers. That is one of the two main problems with my current novel, the other being my injection of too many side issues so the story line doesn't have a consistent flow. Those areas will be corrected. Those corrections are what beta readers and revisions are all about. It's a challenging and often vexing part of the writing process, but it is so necessary to the production of a proper work.
(By the way, do you get the feeling I compressed that story to fit the blog format? Lol.)
My favorite task when I was a reporter was doing a feature story. I loved having the leeway to dive into events that shaped several people, or getting to know people who were just a tad off the standard line. The story I liked best as a young journalist was a feature on a photographer who worked along the Russian River near Guerneville, California. His business name was Tintype Gordon, and he took antique-looking photos of people, putting them in period dress so they looked like they stepped out of the 1880s. The best part of the story was Gordon's recounting of his past life as a mid-level manager with a major computer firm, and how he junked it all to work along the river and live on a quiet, tree-shrouded road south of Guerneville. He packed up all his tintype photography gear and headed to places where he could get more customers, and everything was done on a walk-up basis. I wrote about a 35-inch story, which was standard length for most newspaper feature stories.
I had my formula: solid opening paragraph or two, ranking facts in importance from truly noteworthy to merely supporting material, and cementing it all with good quotes properly placed. Those quotes were much like mortar a mason uses while building a wall.
Now take that formula and translate it to my current task of writing novels. If I were writing about Tintype Gordon for a novel about life along the Russian River, I would take time to note multiple details. I would start with Gordon standing on a Guerneville street, then talk about things such as his thick glasses and gray in his beard, his old-time looks with a vest and striped shirt, and maybe the way the sunlight reflected off his cuff links. I might take 15 inches to list those details, and not even get to a quote until I finished that section.
My problem in writing novels is that I revert to my journalistic training too often. I compress the story. What gets lost are rich details that make characters and settings come alive. I realize that as I go over my material and take into account the input of my beta readers. That is one of the two main problems with my current novel, the other being my injection of too many side issues so the story line doesn't have a consistent flow. Those areas will be corrected. Those corrections are what beta readers and revisions are all about. It's a challenging and often vexing part of the writing process, but it is so necessary to the production of a proper work.
(By the way, do you get the feeling I compressed that story to fit the blog format? Lol.)
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