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Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction - by James B. Stewart, 1998
James B. Stewart proposes a more creative type of nonfiction that tells a compelling story, and his ideas have become the basics for many journalists today. Stewart’s ideas about nonfiction stem directly from his experience as a writer and editor of The Wall Street Journal’s lengthy page-1 feature stories, which explore subjects, as Stewart says, “in depth, with style, and often … with wit.” “Good writing,” Stewart says, “is rooted not in knowledge, but in curiosity.” Curiosity too, says Stewart, “is what make readers read the stories that result.” Using examples from his own writing (for the Journal, The New Yorker, and SmartMoney, and also from his books Blood Sport and Den of Thieves), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Stewart shows how to turn your curiosity into ideas, story proposals, and then the stories themselves. Each part of the writing process from cultivating sources, gathering information, writing the lead and the transition, structuring your piece, and then concluding it, is discussed with authority and demonstrated masterfully. Stewart also includes chapters on how to use (but not overuse) description, dialogue, anecdotes, humor, and pathos to strengthen your work.
Posted by beanybabe at 3:34 AM PST
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Taking Journalism Seriously: News and the Academy - by Barbie Zelizer, 2004
Taking Journalism Seriously argues that scholars have remained too entrenched within their own disciplinary areas resulting in isolated bodies of scholarship. This is the first book to critically survey journalism scholarship in one volume and organize it by disparate fields. The book reviews existing journalism research in such diverse fields as sociology, history, language studies, political science, and cultural analysis and dissects the most prevalent and understated research in each discipline. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students in advanced courses on Journalism and Journalism Studies. It will also be of interest to scholars, academics, and researchers in the fields of Journalism, Communication, Media Studies, Sociology, and Cultural Studies.
Posted by beanybabe at 10:07 PM PST
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The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, and the New Journalism Revolution - by Marc Weingarten, 2005
Marc Weingarten has interviewed many of the major players to provide a startling behind-the-scenes account of the rise and fall of the most revolutionary literary outpouring of the postwar era, set against the backdrop of some of the most turbulent�and significant�years in contemporary American life. These are the stories behind those stories, from Tom Wolfe’s white-suited adventures in the counterculture to Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-addled invention of gonzo to Michael Herr’s redefinition of war reporting in the hell of Vietnam. Weingarten also tells the deeper backstory, recounting the rich and surprising history of the editors and the magazines who made the movement possible, notably the three greatest editors of the era�Harold Hayes at Esquire, Clay Felker at New York, and Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone. And finally Weingarten takes us through the demise of the New Journalists, the result of a combination of hubris, miscalculation, and corporate menacing.
Posted by beanybabe at 10:02 PM PST
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Literary Journalism - by Norman Sims, Mark Kramer, 1995
Memoirs and personal essays, profiles, science and nature reportage, travel writing - literary journalists are working in all of these forms with artful styles and fresh approaches, and they make money with articles that are in high demand. In Literary Journalism, editors Norman Sims and Mark Kramer have collected the finest examples of literary journalism from both the masters of the genre who have been working for decades and the new voices freshly arrived on the national scene. From these examples you can learn what turns the ordinary essay into a literary work of art.
Posted by beanybabe at 9:40 PM PST
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The Fast Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal - by Stephen Blake Mettee, 2001
According to Stephen Mettee, a book proposal, like a woman’s skirt, should be “short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the subject.” The same could be said for a book about writing such a proposal. Mettee’s Fast-Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal, checks in at a mere 113 pages. He doesn’t hold your hand, because he presumes that you’ve tried to write a proposal before. But he provides a clear, concise, and workable solution to selling your nonfiction book. His idea of a book proposal is a 10-page to 50-page document consisting of a synopsis, a table of contents, a chapter-by-chapter outline, a few sample chapters, and supporting material. Mettee provides simple descriptions of each, as well as a sample query letter, a book proposal, and a contract. Since Mettee’s a publisher himself (at Quill Driver Books), the user feels confident following his lead when he recommends sending the proposal along with the query (giving the editor one less chance to say “no”) and making multiple submissions (even to publishers that claim not to accept them).
Posted by beanybabe at 9:24 PM PST
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