Chip’s Writing Lessons #39
IN THIS ISSUE
Writers Speak | Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Risk of Ideas Dying
Interview | 4 Questions with Jan Winburn
Writing to Savor | “A Desperate Rescue: A Father’s Heartbreaking Attempt to Save His Family from a Raging Fire”
Writing to Savor #2 | “Reporting Beyond the First Headlines”
Tip of the Week | Take a Break
WRITERS SPEAK
“You have to live with the notion of, If I don’t write this, no one’s going to write it. If I die, this idea dies with me.”
— Lin-Manuel Miranda
INTERVIEW | DO NO HARM: 4 QUESTIONS WITH JAN WINBURN
Jan Winburn
Jan Winburn is a fan of artful storytelling, kickass reporting and the powerful melding of the two. She spent more than four decades working in newsrooms as a narrative editor, writing coach and investigative editor and now teaches in the University of Georgia’s MFA program in Narrative Nonfiction. She edited Lisa Pollak’s 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning story for Feature Writing, and the Dart Society recognized Winburn’s career work with its 2009 Mimi Award, given to editors “who encourage journalistic excellence.” Her writers have won many of the top prizes in journalism, including a Peabody Award, a Murrow, The Livingston Award for Young Journalists, the Ernie Pyle Award, the Al Neuharth Award for investigative journalism, the John Jay College Award for criminal justice reporting, the Wilbur Award for Religion Coverage, and the Batten Medal for Public Service. She led reporting teams at CNN, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hartford Courant and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Missouri. She is the author/editor of “Shop Talk and War Stories: Journalists Examine Their Profession” and co-editor of two e-books, “Secrets of Prize-Winning Journalism 2013” and 2014.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned as an editor?
First, do no harm. What I mean by that is with every story I read as an editor, I want to first find something to like. Even the novice writer, or the experienced one struggling through a bad patch, will produce at least one thing that sings — a riveting passage, revealing description or unforgettable snatch of dialogue. I want to begin our conversation by talking about that high point in the writing (or reporting) before sharing more critical thoughts. It breaks the ice, and it also says, this is what works, I want more of that. I’m not talking about being disingenuous. I’m talking about trying to call upon my most generous self. That often creates in the writer an openness to hearing more, even if it’s critical.
What has been the most important surprise of your editing life?
That I would get to live vicariously through my writers, that they would let me into their processes so completely and willingly share their adventures. I am grateful for the amazing journeys they have taken me on.
If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as an editor, what would it be?
What I aspire to be is a magician whose contribution to the storytelling is invisible to the reader and regarded by the writer as a welcome act of wizardry.
What’s the best piece of editing advice anyone gave you?
Lary Bloom, who I worked for at Northeast Magazine at the Hartford Courant, once said to me: “Don’t be the editor of the greatest unpublished work.” What that meant was take a risk to like something, to champion it and polish it and then publish it. You’ll never face criticism for the manuscripts you turn down; no one will see them. As an editor, you have to open yourself to scrutiny for what you choose to publish, and then stand behind it. That’s your job!
(Lary, by the way, was the legendary one-time editor of Tropic Magazine at the Miami Herald before founding Northeast, in the heyday of Sunday newspaper magazines.)
WRITING TO SAVOR
“A desperate rescue: A father’s heartbreaking attempt to save his family from a raging fire”
“Chris Tofte blew past the blockade, his green Jeep Cherokee aimed for the bowels of the raging Beachie Creek Fire.
It was around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, and he was desperately searching for his wife, son and mother-in-law. The family lived 4½ miles up North Fork Road SE, about 10 minutes from Lyons and 30 minutes from Salem.
Halfway there, the road flanked by walls of fire and fallen trees, he stopped for a man whose arm was badly burned. The man wanted a ride but didn’t get in when he found out Chris was headed deeper into the wildfire.
Chris agreed to pick him up on the way down, but the man wondered out loud whether he’d make it.
Back in the Jeep, struggling to navigate a road once so familiar but now shrouded by smoke-filled darkness, Chris almost ran over what looked like a bikini-clad woman on the road. Once he was closer, he realized she was wearing underwear. Her hair was singed, her mouth looked almost black, and her bare feet were severely burned.
He impatiently tried to help her into his car, explaining how he needed to find his wife and son, feeling like she was resisting.
Finally, she spoke. ‘I am your wife.’
He felt like he was going to pass out. He thought he would start crying. Instead, he said something turned off in him. He didn’t feel anything.
Once they were in the car and he got turned around, which was tricky with the borrowed trailer in tow, he sped down the road. As he approached the blockade, he honked the horn to get the attention of nearby paramedics.
While Angela was being tended to, he tried to ask about Wyatt.
Their 13-year-old son was missing.”
Tales of horror and heroism abound in the coverage of the fires that have devastated Washington state and Oregon. One story in particular grabbed my attention. Capi Lynn of the Salem Statesman-Journal reconstructed the hellish experience of a man desperately searching for his family, who went missing in the flames of the fast-moving Beachie Creek Fire. The dramatic lead is masterful, driven by vivid action verbs, unforgettable details and a heart-stopping snippet of dialogue. I won’t give away the ending, but the entire story is worth studying. Favorite bits:
Chris Tofte blew past the blockade, his green Jeep Cherokee aimed for the bowels of the raging Beachie Creek Fire.
Chris almost ran over what looked like a bikini-clad woman on the road. Once he was closer, he realized she was wearing underwear. Her hair was singed, her mouth looked almost black, and her bare feet were severely burned.
Finally, she spoke. “I am your wife.”
WRITING TO SAVOR #2
“Reporting beyond the first headlines”
A month after 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two men and wounded a third during a night of August protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white officer, Washington Post reporters Robert Klemko and Greg Jaffe returned to the scene. Their story is a masterful and tragic narrative that goes behind the headlines to dispel myths about the victims and upend the conservative commentary that they were antifa foot soldiers bent on destruction. This week, Nieman Storyboard published my annotated interview with the journalists. Look for the echoes of “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien’s legendary story about the totemic objects soldiers carried during the Vietnam War.
TIP OF THE WEEK | TAKE A BREAK
Every writer hits a wall sometimes — moment or hours, even days when the words won’t come. The natural impulse is to keep banging away, but there’s a more useful approach: Recharge your batteries by doing something else. Away from the keyboard, your subconscious won’t stop working on the problem, and there’s a good chance it will solve of its own accord.
I was inspired to compile an admittedly incomplete list of ways to refresh and return to creativity by a recent tweet from Pamela Collolff, an award-winning writer for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine: “A good writing lesson: I struggled for days with a narrative problem that I couldn’t figure out, no matter how many hours I stared at the computer. Then I went for a long swim…and mid-swim, the answer came to me. So sometimes it helps to step away from the screen.”
Take a walk.
Take a nap.
Have a cup of coffee.
Brew a pot of tea.
Crochet.
Knit.
Shower.
Soak in a hot bath.
Go for a swim
Go for a run.
Stop in the middle of a sentence.
Read something somebody else wrote.
Read a poem.
Write with a pen.
Paint.
Start something new.
Print out your story and mark it up.
Read it aloud.
Ask someone to read it to you.
Get off social media.
Turn off the TV.
Listen to music.
Walk the dog.
Play with the cat.
Play with the kids.
Journal.
Freewrite.
I encourage you to add your own breaks to the list.
BEFORE YOU GO
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May the writing go well, and may you be well.
Nulla dies sine linea / Never a day without a line
Black Lives Matter.