Working Titlez

My colleague Geoff Schumacher recently presented a workshop on journalism for the Las Vegas Writers Conference. Included in his handouts was this essay about writing. I thought it deserved to be shared with other writers and lovers of writing, so I sought his permission to post it here.

“I write because I can’t do normal work like other people.”

Orhan Pamuk, winner of 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature

“Words on a page give the world coherence.”

Alberto Manguel, Into the Looking-Glass Wood: Essays on Books, Reading, and the World

Photo courtesy Scriatic (CC)

Writers write. If you’re a writer, you can’t help yourself. Putting words on paper, or onto a computer screen, is part of who you are. Writing helps us understand and give order to our chaotic lives and to a turbulent world.

Most writers want others to read their work. We want attention, validation, reassurance, fame. We want to be praised, questioned, challenged. We can’t help but write, but we like it better when our words are disseminated widely.

Despite our economic troubles, there never has been a better time to be a writer, because there never have been so many avenues to publication. Consider: You can set up a Facebook or Twitter page in about two minutes and start publishing your words to your friends and colleagues. Or you can set up a blog in about five minutes and start publishing for all the world to see.

These may seem like mundane forms of publishing, but I disagree. I have 255 friends on Facebook. If I write an essay and post it on my Facebook page, it is immediately available for perusal by 255 people who, because they know me, are likely to take a look at it. How would you have accomplished such an endeavor 30 years ago? If you wrote an essay and wanted to share it with your friends and colleagues, you would have had to make photocopies and either hand them out or put them in the mail to reach those 255 people. That’s a lot of copies, a lot of envelopes, a lot of addresses to track down and a lot of stamps. This process also would take a lot more time – days, maybe weeks.

Of course, we also would like to be compensated for our writing. We want our writing to be a money-making venture, not just an obsession or hobby. This complicates matters, but it’s not an unreasonable request. In order to be paid for writing, though, we must write something that a publication is willing to buy. This often means writing that is substantially different in style and substance from what we might post on Facebook or in a personal blog.

More often than not, what we’re talking about is journalism: facts, figures, interviews, research. We must be thorough, accurate. We must explore multiple perspectives. We must delve into subjects we might not otherwise care about. And then, once we’ve gathered the materials we need, we must organize all those facts, figures, quotes and multiple perspectives into a coherent and entertaining piece of writing.

It looks easy. It’s not.

But it’s also not brain surgery. Journalism is a craft that requires a set of skills that can be developed by most people who know how to read and to write a clear sentence.

The most important trait of a good journalist is curiosity. Successful journalists are innately curious about how things work. They follow a road to see where it leads. They ask lots of questions and genuinely want to know the answers. They aren’t afraid of talking to strangers. They aren’t satisfied with the conventional wisdom.

Successful journalists also are persistent. When they ask questions, they expect answers. They aren’t deterred by roadblocks. They know there is more than one way to get the information they seek.

Sometimes, journalism isn’t such a serious business. But writing a restaurant review or reporting on a ball game still demands the same skills needed to uncover the Watergate scandal.

4-27-09

Geoff Schumacher, a veteran journalist, is the director of community publications for Stephens Media. He is also the publisher of CityLife and Big Island Weekly. He has written two books, Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas and Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue (Stephens Press) and is working on two more. Schumacher was recently named editor of CityLife Books, a Stephens Press imprint. He writes a weekly column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For more information, see www.geoffschumacher.com.

“Oh, no!” You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your gut when the realization hits. You’ve just clicked “send” and you notice a glaring error. There’s no “unsend” button. No do-over. Jiminy Cricket, what to do?

A thoughtful essay from novelist John Updike appears in my AARP magazine this month. For those of you too young to find the world’s largest circulation publication in your mailboxes, you can read it here.

Updike observes, as an oft-published and lauded literary legend, that he is now of the age of confronting his greatest rival: his younger, nimbler self. “No mercy is extended by reviewers” but he also observes that likewise, none is extended to the rookie writer, either.

Updike, with deft command that defies the point, declares:

“With ominous frequency, I can’t think of the right word. I know there is a word; I can visualize the exact shape it occupies in the jigsaw puzzle of the English language. But the word itself, with its precise edges and unique tint of meaning, hangs on the misty rim of consciousness. Eventually, with shamefaced recourse to my well-thumbed thesaurus or to a germane encyclopedia article, I may pin the word down, only to discover it unfortunately rhymes with the adjoining word of the sentence. Meanwhile, I have lost the rhythm and syntax of the thought I was shaping up, and the paragraph has skidded off (like this one) in an unforeseen direction.”

Regardless, Updike retains the “giddy bliss” of creation and that his newest book, may also be the best.

Many of you know that I drive back and forth between Southern California and Las Vegas nearly weekly. Many nights across the dark and vast desert, I’m kept company with Paula B. and her guests, discussing all things related to writing. The Writing Show website has many resources with the weekly podcasts are my favorite. You can listen to the podcasts right from the website or you can download via iTunes as an .mp3 file. Check the archives and you’ll find a treasure chest of topics and fascinating interviewees. Paula is an adroit interviewer, and I know, since she just interviewed me.

Listen to Publishing Economics for a wide-ranging discussion on the process of publishing, who makes the money, how books get from the author’s mind to the bookstore shelves. Paula and I discuss what’s wrong with the book world these days and she even asked me what I’d change if I were Queen of Amazon.

When I was seven, I asked Santa Claus for a typewriter. A REAL typewriter, not a toy — on that point, I was very specific.

I remember feeling sure I needed a typewriter. I had no plan as to what I’d do with it. Oh, I’d “play secretary” and type letters or maybe write stories. Somehow, I had the notion, if I had a typewriter, that the words would just flow, unlike the laborious process of penciling block letters on lined newsprint or the faux-cursive I was experimenting with (real handwriting was not in the curriculum until the third grade).

My parents repeatedly asked me if a typewriter was what I REALLY wanted? I matter-of-factly assured them a typewriter was EXACTLY what I wanted and while Santa more commonly brought toys to good little boys and girls, I was confident he’d deliver on my request and was pretty sure I was on the “good” list.

Christmas morning, I awakened first. Tiptoeing down the hallway, my excitement bursting, I rounded the corner and there, under the tree, it sat. Atop its own black leather case was a REAL typewriter. Years later, I would learn that it was a military surplus training typewriter. The keys were different colors to teach learning typists which fingers to use. It also typed only capital letters. My dad paid $5 for it. He’d had quite a challenge finding an affordable real typewriter, just days before Christmas.

I sank to my knees and ran my fingers over the machine, holding my breath. A sheet of paper protruded. MERRY CHRISTMAS, CAROLYN. ENJOY YOUR TYPEWRITER. LOVE, SANTA. This was more than I could keep to myself. Rushing back down the hall, I shouted out, “Santa brought me a typewriter AND HE WROTE ME A LETTER!”

Later that morning, after presents had been opened, pictures taken and breakfast eaten, Mom showed me how to roll a fresh sheet in my beloved typewriter and I was ready to begin. I stared at the white sheet of paper. Frozen. I could not think of a single thing to type.

Writer’s block at seven.

Puzzled by grammar rules you never thought were important in the fifth grade? Wonder whether the preface comes before or after the introduction? Forgotten when numerals are spelled out? Fortunately, there’s a rule book . . . for all those pesky questions that can slow down the most productive writing session.

Hyphenation rules are many!

The Chicago Manual of Style is the “Bible” of all questions book-related.

• It will tell you the proper sequence for front matter elements.
• It will tell you when to cap and where to italicize.
• It will tell you how to hyphenate Italian and when to use the pinyin spelling of Chinese place names.
• It will tell you when it is Coast Guard and when it is coast guard.
• It will tell you whether it is whoever or whomever, contagious or infectious, hanger or hangar.

Every author needs a Chicago by their side and should refer to it often. Retails for $55, usually discounted on Amazon. You can also sign up for a FREE 30 day trial at www.ChicagoManulOfStyle.org. It costs $30 a year for access and you can bookmark electronic pages. Sign up, too, for the Q&A email and periodically you’ll get editing questions with answers from the editors.

The dramatic scenes are what keeps us reading a great book, eagerly turning the pages, oblivious to what may be going on around us. Let’s admit it, most phenomenal books are a series of dramatic scenes, some big, some small, strung together with some connecting “stuff” inbetween. Not relegated to “action” stories, dramatic scenes are the meaty parts of everything from romantic comedy to high angst. Stephens Press author Maralys Wills knows of what she speaks — as an author of twelve published titles in multiple genres AND a 20+ years college teacher of novel writing, she knows her way around a dramatic scene. Maralys offers an article on the Downloads page that analyzes the art of writing the dramatic scene. Even if you don’t write yourself, but enjoy the well-written story, you’ll find the structure behind the scenes fascinating. The newest Maralys Wills book, Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead: The Bumpy Road to Getting Published will be available in October. An adroit blending between the craft of writing and how one gets published, the book is an insider’s guide to authorhood.