Chip's Writing Lessons #103
Newsletter
In this issue:
Writers Speak | Show, don’t tell, in screenwriting - Robert Towne, R.I.P.
4 Questions with William C. Rempel
Craft Lesson | Tell Me An Article, Daddy
Recommended reading | Murder by Suicide by Larry Welborn
WRITERS SPEAK
“I think movies best communicate whatever I have to say and show; or to put it another way, when what you want to show is what you have to say, you are pretty much stuck with movies as a way of saying it.”
- Robert Towne, R.I.P.
4 QUESTIONS WITH WILLIAM C. REMPEL
William C. Rempel is a best-selling author and award-winning investigative journalist who reported for the Los Angeles Times for 36 years. His journalism has been recognized with numerous honors, including an Overseas Press Club Award and a Gerald Loeb Award. He was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. His major investigations include original reporting on international terrorism and drug cartels, the Clinton White House, Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal, conflicts of interest in the Las Vegas judiciary, and exposés on public safety failures ranging from aviation disasters to environmental calamities. His books include Delusions of a Dictator – The Mind of Marcos as Revealed in His Secret Diaries; At the Devil’s Table – The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel; The Gambler – How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History; and the forthcoming Scarred, collaborating as the ghostwriter on this memoir of an abused child who later murdered his abuser. It’s scheduled for publication by Atria next summer.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned as a writer?
I’ve learned that, as hard as I try, the reporter-me is seldom able to satisfy the writer-me, who invariably demands more – more facts, more insights, more color, always more details, details, details. Unfortunately, since research and reporting are often the most challenging and enjoyable part of getting the story, stopping to write can very easily be put off “just a little longer.” That’s why my 40-year relationship with newspaper deadlines can be best described as “fraught.” I’ve found that book projects, on the other hand, allow for more extended – even constant – research, which serves the writer-me as much as it delights the reporter-me.
What was the biggest surprise in your writing life?
It wasn’t something I picked up in any of my journalism classes. And it wasn’t a skill required for Los Angeles Times employment. Instead, it was discovering along the way just how important basic sales skills would be in every aspect of an investigative reporter’s life – whether dealing with reluctant news sources or selling editors on story projects. In fact, if I wrote a memoir, it would probably be titled: “My Most Important Journalism Skills I Learned from a Vacuum Cleaner Salesman.”
To be clear, I couldn’t sell a vacuum cleaner to save my life. But I’ve always been an advocate of the public’s right to know the truth and a great believer in my own commitment to deliver the facts with accuracy and fairness. It’s no small matter to persuade strangers to trust you with their careers, their reputations, even their lives. So, thanks to my door-to-door salesman dad, who taught me a whole lot about character, persistence and how to win friends and influence people.
If you had to choose a metaphor to describe yourself as a writer, what would it be?
Call me a movie camera – preferably the revealing lenses of a filmmaker like David Lean. When you watch his best movies, frame by frame, you SEE the story with or without sound through action, mood, and setting. Include key dialogue, and those frames show so much detail without exposition, conveying character, emotion and motivation. The same can be true of the written word. The readers, too, can SEE the story. Especially if the writer has enough details … details … details.
What is the best writing advice anyone ever gave you?
It is a natural fact that journalists as a group, and investigative reporters in particular, tend to fall in love with their facts. Sometimes to the point that they want to remind their readers how certain details may show up later in the story in a surprising or deeply meaningful way. It’s called foreshadowing – a literary or journalistic way of saying on the page what in conversation might sound like “Pssst! Watch how important this turns out to be later!!”
The terrific journalist (New York Times) and author (Blood Sport and DisneyWar) James B. Stewart critiqued a collection of Los Angeles Times stories a couple of decades ago that included one of mine. He caught me foreshadowing and suggested that I trust readers and reward those paying attention with the thrill of discovery. He helped me see how that would make my readers feel smarter and consider me a better writer. I can only wonder if that tip to winning and influencing readers was inspired by a salesman in James B. Stewart’s family, too
CRAFT LESSON | TELL ME AN ARTICLE, DADDY
Erika Toh, a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, considered Japan’s newspaper of record, called the other day to talk about the importance of narrative. It was a rich exchange that had me digging out “Tell Me An Article, Daddy, a chapter of my book, 33 Ways Not To Screw Up Your Journalism. I’ve posted it here before, but it’s worth repeating.
Story.
It’s a word that echoes in newsrooms every day.
“Great story today.”
“Where’s that story? You’re 30 minutes late!”
“Boss, I need another day/week/month to finish that story.”
“Sheesh, how the heck did that story get on the front page? (This always refers to another journalist’s work.)
And the old standby: “Story at 11.”
We call them stories, but most of what appears in print, online and broadcast are articles or reports, says writing teacher Jack Hart.
Here’s an example from the Guardian about the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Fierce fighting broke out in Kyiv as Russian forces tried to push their way towards the city centre from multiple directions in the early hours of Saturday, and as the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, bluntly rejected a US offer to evacuate him from the country’s capital.
Articles present information about an accident, a public meeting, a speech, a contested presidential election, or even a war. They’re a convenient way to convey information in a clear, concise, accurate fashion.
But please, let’s not confuse them with stories.
A story features characters rather than sources and communicates experience through the five senses and a few others: place, time and, most of all, drama.
A story has a beginning that grabs a reader’s attention, a middle that keeps the reader engaged and an ending that lingers. Scenes peppered with dialogue and a distinct narrative voice drive the action.
Here’s how Mitchell S. Jackson opened “Twelve Seconds and a Life,” his Runner’s World story about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, by three white men in 2020 while jogging through their suburban Georgia neighborhood.
Imagine young Ahmaud “Maud” Arbery, a junior varsity scatback turned undersized varsity linebacker on a practice field of the Brunswick High Pirates. The head coach has divided the squad into offense and defense and has his offense running the plays of their next opponent. The coach, as is his habit, has been taunting his defense. “Y’all ain’t ready,” he says. “You can’t stop us,” he says. “What y’all gone do?” The next play, Maud, all 5 feet 10 inches and 165 pounds of him, bursts between blockers and—BOOM!—lays a hit that makes the sound of cars crashing, that echoes across the field and into the stands, that just might reach the locker room. It’s a feat that teenage Maud also intends as a message to his coaches, his teammates, and all else that ain’t hitherto hipped: Don’t test my heart. Some of those teammates smash their fist to their mouth and oooh. Others slap one another’s pads and point. An assistant coach winces and runs to the aid of the tackled teammate. And the head coach, well, he trumpets his whistle. “Why’d you hit him like that?” he hollers. “Save that for Friday. Let’s see you do that on Friday.”
Jackson’s story won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize and a National Magazine Award for feature writing.
Journalists must be able to write articles and stories. Each has their own challenges. Articles compress events and focus on newsworthy elements. Stories connect us with the universals of the human condition. They matter because they transport us to different worlds that reveal the personal and emotional realities behind the news. Articles have their place but, late at night, your child will never say, “I can’t sleep. Tell me an article, Daddy!”
No, they beg to be lulled into slumber by a story.
Instead, in much of news writing, we provide few, if any, of these.
Instead of settings, we give readers an address.
Instead of characters, we give people stick figures: “Goldilocks, 7, of 5624 Sylvan Way.”
Instead of suspense, we give away the ending at the beginning using the inverted pyramid, the form that presents newsworthy elements in descending order and peters out at the end.
The challenge for today’s journalists is to write stories, as Joel Rawson, former editor of the Providence Journal, described it, that reveal the “joys and costs of being human.”
STORYTELLING TIPS
• Newspapers are full of stories waiting to be told. Police briefs, classified ads, obituaries, the last two paragraphs of a city council brief; all may hold the promise of a dramatic story. Mine your paper for story ideas.
• Find the extraordinary in the ordinary stuff of life: graduations, reunions, burials, buying a car, putting Mom in a nursing home, or the day Dad comes to live with his children.
• Change your point of view. Write the city council story through the eyes of the Asian-American woman who asks for better police protection in her neighborhood.
• Look for ways to drop storytelling features in your daily articles: a description, a scene, a snatch of dialogue.
RECOMMENDED READING | MURDER BY SUICIDE: A REPORTER UNRAVELS A CASE OF RAPE, BETRAYAL AND LIES BY LARRY WELBORN
There have been very few books in my life that I couldn’t put down except to sleep and eat. But that’s what happened when my friend and colleague Larry Welborn sent me an advance copy of his true-crime book, Murder by Suicide. The case centers on the murder of Linda Cummings, who was 27 when she was found in her Santa Monica, California, apartment, hanging in the nude from a clothesline cord. The authorities declared Cummings’ death a suicide, despite several signs that someone had murdered her. The year was 1974. Welborn was a newly promoted courthouse reporter for the Orange County Register when he took a call from a stranger three months after Linda’s death. “Someone killed her,” Sylvia Broadway, the young woman’s stepmother, said, sobbing. “But nobody cares.”
Welborn did. For the next 46 years, he pursued the case. His investigation led to the arrest of a suspect decades later. He was acquitted, but Welborn’s tenacity paid off with one important development that brought comfort to the family: The cause of death was changed from suicide to homicide. It was a conclusion that Welborn had fought for after decades of research, interviewing and masterful use of public records. The Notes section at the end of the book itself is a master class in investigative reporting. A miscarriage of justice and a journalist’s obsession to learn the truth make for a riveting must-read story.