Wednesday Writing Tip: Lessons from High School Journalism Class

Sometimes you receive advice that seems so simple that it sounds silly. It can take years to realize just how smart simple can be.

The King of Simple Advice is, “Write what you know.” That was the last thing I wanted to do when I started out. Just like you, I’m smarter than most people, so I can write about anything I wish and it’ll be perfect. Right?

Wrong.

I once picked up a mystery in which our hero worked as a newspaper reporter. I cringed through the first chapter, and by the middle of the second chapter, I’d tossed the book aside for good. The author didn’t know how newspapers worked or what reporters actually did. She guessed. Badly.

I’ve been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers for more than thirty-five years now. If she couldn’t get the day-to-day details of my own job right, how could I trust her to craft a story that was going to make sense?

Write what you don’t know and you’ll drive away readers who do.

Here’s a goofy piece of advice I learned in high school journalism: The formula for writing a feature story is, “Start someplace, go somewhere, and stop.”

I can’t remember who said it—not even my friend Mr. Google has found it for me—but I’ve never forgotten the quote. It works for writing novels too.

“Start someplace.” In the middle of the action would be an excellent place, but if you never begin, you’ll never write a book. Too many would-be authors get so tangled up in their thoughts about how to start their story that they never do.

“Go somewhere.” Why are you writing this story? What’s its purpose? What’s the point? Go there.

But “go somewhere” also speaks of not knowing the precise route this road to adventure will take. What if you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen in your story? Very few authors do. They start someplace to find out where the story and its characters in it will take them. Enjoy the surprises of the journey.

“Stop.” Somewhere along the way, you’ll realize that you’ve arrived. So stop. Now it’s time for the real writing—which is going back over everything several times to rewrite and polish—and maybe change the somewhere you go and the place where you stop. That’s okay. You’re still starting somewhere, going someplace, and will be stopping again.

One of my favorite mystery writers once said that she knows roughly what each story is about. She knows what the crime is. She knows where the story begins, and who will be revealed to have done it at the end. But all those pages in the middle—no clue. She has start somewhere to discover all the places she will go before she gets to the stop.

That’s a big part of the fun of writing. Simply put, we write to find out what happens.

Now it’s time for me to stop. And for you to start somewhere…