Chip's Writing Lessons #57
IN THIS ISSUE
Writers Speak | Stuart Dybek on the magic in craft
Interview | 4 Questions with John Sutter
Craft Lesson | What postcards can teach writers, guest post by Jacqui Banaszynski
A Writer’s Mind to Savor | “12 Minutes and a Life” Mitchell S. Stephens, an annotation, Nieman Storyboard
Tip of the Week | To tape or not to tape
“There’s magic in craft. Craft makes us better than we are, smarter, wiser, sharpens observation into vision, quickens reflexes, allowing an intellectual activity to be more blessedly instinctive. The practice of the craft of any art is so allied with not simply the expression of imagination but the very experience of imagination as to become indistinguishable from imagination.”
— Stuart Dybek
INTERVIEW | 4 QUESTIONS WITH JOHN SUTTER
John Sutter/Photo by Edythe McNamee
John D. Sutter is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Salt Lake City. His work has won the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, the IRE Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Peabody Award and has received two EMMY nominations — one for new approaches to documentary and the other for environmental reporting. With support from the National Geographic Society, MIT and others, he is directing “BASELINE,” a pioneering documentary series that aims to tell the story of the climate crisis beyond a lifetime. At CNN, where Sutter was a senior investigative reporter, producer and columnist, he created and directed several award-winning projects, including “Two Degrees,” “Vanishing” and “Change the List.” He currently is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and is a former Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He also is a visiting instructor at The Poynter Institute.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned as a writer?
I’ve learned to call people back, to follow up, to visit a second and third or fourth time. When I first started writing I unknowingly (and now, embarrassingly) operated in a sort of Story Vacuum mode. I’d swoop in, gather up the story … and then leave. I didn’t follow up often. I didn’t have time to. Or thought that. It was always on to the next thing — right away. I’ve learned that a) I don’t like being the Story Vacuum guy. It feels wrong. And b) you find far better, truer stories — stories you didn’t know are there — when you spend time with people. When your interactions are more reciprocal, more like a relationship, less extractive. This is part of the sentiment behind the documentary I’m working on now (called BASELINE), which is following four communities between now and the year 2050. That’s ... an extreme case. But I’ve learned that following-up more consistently can be a quick-and-easy thing to add to your writing practice. It’s kind, it’s human, and it helps us get closer to hidden truths. Or that’s my hope.
What has been the biggest surprise of your writing life?
That it’s not over. I got laid off from a newspaper in 2008, not long after I was out of college, and I thought I needed to find another line of work. I applied to other lines of work. The truth is that my writing life needed to morph and change from there — away from a just-print mindset and toward podcasts and film and multimedia production. It’s surprised me that all of these very different-seeming things are really just extensions of a core writing practice.
If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be and why?
Diver! I was a springboard diver when I was younger/fitter (once upon a time, a video clip of me diving, horribly, was the top YouTube hit for “painful belly flop”!) and I think a lot about that leap-of-faith moment that occurs when you start walking down the diving board. Not when you jump. Before that. When you decide to start walking. That act of stepping into the unknown feels a lot like the start of the writing journey for me. I want it to be practiced — it usually doesn’t end in a belly flop, hopefully — but I don’t want to know how things will turn out. That’s the fun. It’s always moderately terrifying. You always learn something.
What’s the best piece of writing advice anyone ever gave you?
Jan Winburn edited my stories at CNN for the better part of a decade, and one of the many things I love about her is that she always answers the phone when you’re the field. Like, always. I called her once from a drought story in the Texas Panhandle. It hadn’t rained there what seemed like forever, and I was going to spend the day with a rancher who was giving up on the business and selling his herd. And then, that morning, it started raining. Not a lot. But enough that the guy decided to hold out hope and keep the cattle. The human part of me was like: Cattle! Rain! Generational business continues! Yay! The CNN-just-flew-me-out-here-to-tell-a-drought-story part of me was like: *#@!. So at some point I went to the car and called Jan, kinda flipping out about how Mother Nature had decided to rain on my drought story. She was calm, per always, and delivered the simplest and best possible advice: Write the rain story.
GUEST CRAFT LESSON | WHAT POSTCARDS CAN TEACH WRITERS BY JACQUI BANASZYNSKI
Postcards have always held a special place in my life. If I were a collector, postcards would be high on my list. Not for the initial image, but for the act of sending and receiving, and the magic of storytelling involved in that action.
When I send students off into the world or reporters on assignment, the one thing I ask is that they send me a postcard. I’m always delighted when one follows through. I love seeing the images they choose, being introduced to their handwriting (a rare thing these days) and being enchanted by the mini-story they’ve chosen to tell me.
Because that’s another huge value of postcards. They are the perfect venue for practicing the craft—and purpose—of storytelling.
For years, when I traveled, I would send at least one postcard a day. I’d usually write at day’s end, perhaps at a bistro over a glass of wine, or maybe mid-afternoon over a coffee. My goal was not to say “Hey! I’m at the Parthenon!” But to instead share a moment or scene or experience from that day. To tell a story.
The ritual of putting pen to paper caused me to slow down and reflect on my day. To enter that mental/emotional story space that writers occupy.
Knowing I would write reminded me to report ~ to pay closer attention to the world as I moved through it. It caused me to be on alert to the little dramas that played out around me ~ to note the particular blue of the African dusk, the disorientation that came from staring at the stars in the southern hemisphere, how a table of Romanians kept guard over their too-drunk friend. (And yes, to find a post office and a stamp.)
Knowing the writing space was limited—maybe a 2×2 inch square—took the pressure off. The blank page/screen can seem endless and intimidating. A 2×2-inch postcard square? Hardly.
The reality of that space limit helped me focus. Verbs had to be active. Descriptions spare. Detours eliminated.
Writing on paper instead of the computer meant I had to accept my first draft and then let it go. No do-overs. (In daily news parlance, hit the SEND button!)
Knowing I would be writing to someone I cared about me made me care about what I wrote. It became an investment in a personal connection. I wanted them to see what I saw, to feel some of what I felt, to wonder a bit at my wonderment.
And that means I had to draw on the craft tools that writers employ to create story magic: scene, description, action, metaphor, dialog, sensory detail, tension, emotion.
All in a 2×2-inch square.
I carried this practice forward to classes and workshops. I once had students write a postcard a day for a month. Another time I had workshop writers pick someone they wanted to thank ~ maybe an inspiring teacher or the editor who gave them a chance or the brother who paid their rent one desperate month in college (Thank you, Jeff.) ~ and send that person a postcard. Capture their relationship and gratitude in a 2×2-inch square.
Of late I have transferred some of this practice to Facebook. When I’m overseas, I make it a mission to post a true story each day ~ what I think of as a nano-narrative. It still teaches me what, as writers, we all need to learn, relearn and practice:
Pay attention to the world around you. Slow down. Open yourself to experience. See with your eyes, your mind and your heart.
Find the center of a story. Develop a moment, a character, a scene, an experience.
Choose words that are vivid and precise, evocative and metaphorical.
Lower your standards and learn the value of Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Draft.” Quit thinking at some point and write.
Write—deeply and personally—to someone you care about. Then learn to care about everyone who might read your writing.
Here are two of my nano-narratives from trips as evidence of all of the above. They are far from perfect. Just little stories.
Romanian Retrospective 14 (10.15.2012) Breakfast in Socodor, far western Transylvania. This was served the morning after a huge welcome dinner the night before. All made at Simina Mistreanu’s mother’s village farm or that of the neighbors. The tomatoes were picked that morning, served with the dew still on them and sweet as apples. Cheese and bread were delivered fresh by neighbors. Large plate of fat-back served with enthusiasm, but I said my health insurance would be cancelled if I indulged.
CHINA DISPATCH 9 (July 11, 2009) ~ I was prayed awake by chanting. Drifted over to the Daci Monastery next to the hotel, paid 3 yuan (45 cents) and entered an oasis of peace. Hundreds of women had shed shoes and purses, donned brown robes from a common laundry basket, and wound round and round the temple through a maze of prayer cushions, chanting in a low, meditative melody as an elderly monk rang a small brass bell to keep time.
Jacqui Banaszynski retired as the endowed Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, is editor at Nieman Storyboard, and a faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for “AIDS in the Heartland,” a series about a gay farm couple facing AIDS, and was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for her account of the sub-Saharan famine.
A WRITER’S MIND TO SAVOR | “12 MINUTES AND A LIFE,” AN ANNOTATION, BY MITCHELL S. STEPHENS, NIEMAN STORYBOARD
Last week in this space, I recommended “12 minutes and a Life,” a Runner’s World story by Mitchell S. Stephens that recounted the short life and lynching Ahmaud Arbrery, who died in 2020 running while black in Brunswick, Ga. In June, the piece won a Pulitzer and National Magazine Award for feature writing. But it’s the Storyboard annotation of his prize-winning story, the product of a long interview with Stephens I had with the writer, that I want to point you to now. In just three weeks of non-stop work, Stephens reported and wrote the story, which was published just four months after three white men were charged with murdering Arbery. It’s an object lesson in narrative magazine journalism; one that combines traditional journalism, forensic presentation, and Black English to tell the story. We talked, about the culture and evolution of language, braided structure, and why Stephens put himself in the narrative.
The annotation offers extraordinary insight into how an innovative writer and scholar works and thinks in ways that expand the possibilities of narrative nonfiction. One of which is that a 6,000 word masterpiece doesn’t always require a year to produce. I learned a ton; about reporting, writing, linguistics, diction, Black culture, and story structure from our conversation. I think you will, too.
P.S. After our conversation, I devoured Mitchell’s debut novel, The Residue Years,” and a memoir, “Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family.” They are both raw, gutsy and acutely personal portrayals of the blight of poverty, crack addiction and dealing and the world of pimping out women for prostitution amid the small Black population in Portland, Ore. I can’t recommend them more enthusiastically.
TIP OF THE WEEK | TO TAPE OR NOT TO TAPE
There are two types of journalists: ones who rely solely on what they record during interviews and observations in a notebook. and those who use audio recorders to capture their findings. The scribblers, among them celebrated writers, like Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas French, who wisely studying shorthand in high school.
The advent of audio recorders, having reached its apogee with the record function of cell phones, has consigned the term “tape” to the dustbin of electronic history. But the practice and jargon is embedded in journalistic culture. Just look at the images of surrounding Congressional leaders, extending phones, like beggar bowls.
A perennial debate centers on which method is best.
As a southpaw with execrable penmanship and clumsy, inaccurate typing chops, I had no other option than to record my interviews. The downside was long hours of transcription, a chore offset by the interviewing lessons I learned as I heard myself stomping on a source’s answer. Despite my flaws, in 22 years as a newspaper reporter, no one ever accused me of misquoting or taking their comments out of context.
Today, every journalist carries a voice recorder in their phone. They recognize the risk of garbling or truncating a quote increases with a notebook, which usually has gaps in conversation unless you’re a shorthand whiz. There’s another important argument for a recorder, one famed columnist and author Mitch Albom described to me:
“Without a...recorder, you really can’t capture the full emotional breadth of what people are saying to you. When you’re talking to a family, a grieving family, the way they say things, sometimes even a small little sentence, or the way their voice trails off, is very important to recreate the mood and the spirit,” Albom told me. I don’t trust my penmanship to try to get it down. I find it sometimes a little bit disrespectful. The physical act of jotting down what they’re saying as they’re crying is a bit cruel.” Albom also kept a notebook at hand as backup and to jot down details and because, he said, “I don’t trust technology.”
The bottom line capping this analog vs digital debate: It’s a draw. Keep your phone charged and never leave home without a notepad and pen.
BEFORE YOU GO
Please spread the word to sign up for Chip’s Writing Lessons.
Browse the newsletter archive. To reach earlier issues, scroll to the end of the archive page, where you will find arrows that help you scroll back and forth between them.
Question? Comment? Suggestion? Email me at chipscan@gmail.com, or send a reply to this newsletter.
May the writing go well, and may you be well.
Nulla dies sine linea / Never a day without a line
Black Lives Matter.