Jack Hart - Story Craft: Second Edition

The Craft of Research

Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald

The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking

Brooke Borel

Writing Fiction

Janet Burroway, with Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Ned Stuckey-French

Writing Abroad

Peter Chilson and Joanne B. Mulcahy

Immersion

Ted Conover

The Architecture of Story

Will Dunne

The Business of Being a Writer

Jane Friedman

Legal Writing in Plain English

Bryan A. Garner

The Art of Creative Research

Philip Gerard

What Editors Do

Peter Ginna, editor

Wordcraft

Jack Hart

Developmental Editing

Scott Norton

The Subversive Copy Editor

Carol Fisher Saller

Going Public

Arlene Stein and Jessie Daniels

The Writers Diet

Helen Sword

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

Kate L. Turabian

Jack Hart

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO AND LONDON

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2011, 2021 by Jack Hart

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73692-1 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73708-9 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226737089.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hart, Jack, 1946 author.

Title: Storycraft : the complete guide to writing narrative nonfiction / Jack Hart.

Other titles: Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing.

Description: Second edition. | Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Series: Chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020037073 | ISBN 9780226736921 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226737089 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Creative nonfictionAuthorship. | Reportage literatureAuthorship. | Authorship.

Classification: LCC PN3377.5.R45 H37 2021 | DDC 808.02dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037073

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To the extraordinary writers

who worked with me to discover

the craft of narrative.

Nearly forty years ago a police reporter walked into my Northwest Magazine office and pitched a story. A drunk driver had killed a young mother, and the reporter had dutifully written a routine news brief. But the womans death haunted him. What tricks of fate had led her to the improbable place and time of her death? What kind of life had she left behind? And what of the man who killed her? Was he just another drunk, or did unsuspected humanity lurk behind the stereotype? Surely, the story went beyond the two column inches our newspaper had buried on page B6, plugging the space above an ad for dental insurance.

So Tom Hallman came to the Oregonians Sunday magazine, where I was the newly minted editor, and sold me on a true story. The version wed publish would have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Strong internal structure would regulate pace and create dramatic tension. Instead of sources, it would have characters. Instead of topics, it would have scenes. It would be scrupulously accurate, but it would reveal truths beyond the reach of an ordinary news report.

Collision Course, the five-thousand-word narrative that resulted, was unlike any journalism Tom or I had ever produced. The way readers responded to it was new to us, too. They called or wrote to tell us how riveting the story had been. They had been lost in it, instructed by it, moved by it. And they wanted more.

That story launched a lifelong love affair with narrative nonfiction.

The timing was perfect. Our experiment with true-life storytelling caught a wave of rising interest in stories drawn from reality. Book-length works of reported nonfiction such as John McPhees Coming into the Country and Tracy Kidders The Soul of a New Machine made regular appearances on the best-seller lists. Tony Lukass Common Ground, a meticulously reported account of forced racial integration in Boston, was about to win a Pulitzer Prize. The trend reached way beyond books. Over the next few years, nonfiction storytelling would explode in major American newspapers and magazines, narrative nonfiction would acquire star status on radio, and the documentary would assume new prominence in film. Eventually, the internet would change the way nonfiction writers worked and push the form in exciting directions. The podcast would marry the newest medium, the internet, with one of the oldest, radio, and find an enthusiastic new audience.

We rode the narrative nonfiction wave through my years at Northwest, using the form to explore topics ranging from logging to heart transplants to genetic engineering. The magazines readership soared, making it one of the best-read parts of the Sunday paper. So when I became the Oregonians writing coach, I used the skills Id developed during a dozen years as a full-time university professor to teach narrative theory to the rest of the Oregonians writers and editors.

They were stunningly successful at putting theory into practice. Oregonian narratives won national awards for stories on religion, business, music, crime, sports, and just about any other subject you can imagine. Rich Read worked with me on an international business story that won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. Tom Hallman and I joined forces again on a story that won a Pulitzer for feature writing. Michelle Roberts worked with me on a narrative submitted as part of the package that won the Pulitzer for breaking news. Rich Read and Julie Sullivan, another writer who worked with me one-on-one for years, served as part of an Amanda Bennett team that won the 2001 Pulitzer Gold Medal, the highest honor in American journalism.

I remained the writing coach even after I became a managing editor. As the logical spokesman for the papers writing program, I appeared at national conventions for everybody from newspaper editors and journalism professors to food writers, investigative reporters, travel writers, wine writers, and garden writers. I wrote a column for Editor & Publisher magazine and produced a monthly instructional newsletter that circulated nationwide. I continued to teach occasional university classes on writing, and each year my focus shifted more toward nonfiction narrative. Every speech, workshop, class, and article forced me to think more deeply about what attracted readers to true stories about real people.

But my most valuable education came from working with scores of writers on hundreds of stories. Producing for publication, often on tight deadline, gave me a practical grounding in story that the worlds best graduate school couldnt possibly match. When I finally retired, I figured it was time to pass along the most useful lessons Id learned.