|
Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University |  | Creators: Mark Kramer, Wendy Call
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $8.33
as of 9/8/2010 04:19 CDT details
You Save: $7.67 (48%)
Seller: TextbookOutlet
Rating:  reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 317
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0452287553
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.43
EAN: 9780452287556
ASIN: 0452287553
Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780452287556 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Inspiring stories and practical advice from Americas most respected journalists The countrys most prominent journalists and nonfiction authors gather each year at Harvards Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism. Telling True Stories presents their best advicecovering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including:
Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story
Gay Talese on writing about private lives
Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles
Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters
Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth
Dozens of Pulitzer Prizewinning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and more . . . The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Stories will show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Fantastic and inspirational August 20, 2010
Wily Dog (Evergreen, CO USA)
I learned of this book through a "textbook sale" and it's been a continuing education treasure. I ordered it just before vacation and it arrived the day before I left, so I had the great fortune of sinking blissfully into the essays, some humorous, all passionate, about narrative journalism. Don't skip the intro, where the editors define the genre by all its names: literary journalism, narrative/creative non-fiction, etc. They get the labels out of the way so we all know what we're talking about.
Then prepare to be inspired, educated, and guided by the pros. Every aspect of "the story" is covered here, from managing relationships with editors and subjects to--above all--getting to the emotional heart of the story. I am not a journalist but something of a memoirist and this book is inspiring me to do more researched, investigative work. I feel like I have a master's course on my bookshelf, but these writers are so good, you sometimes feel as if you sitting and talking shop with them over drinks.
Kudos to the editors for pulling the best work out of these former conference presentations, too. It's no mean feat to transpose the oral presentation to a piece that runs well on paper. Just an excellent book any writer can use for years to come.
Great resource June 17, 2010
Midge Raymond (Seattle, WA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I find myself turning to this book over and over again, as both a teacher and a writer. From interviewing to ethics, from story structure to editing, this book provides a wealth of information from today's top writers and editors, neatly organized and presented. It's an essential reference for anyone writing/teaching nonfiction.
Ninety-One Nuggets for Narrative Journalists March 8, 2010
John M. Ford (near DC, MD USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Archilochus tells us that "[t]he fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing." Conventional wisdom is that the hedgehog's big-vision approach always wins the day. But this book convinces us that the narrative journalist is a different animal. These writers are foxes, crafting their success from little tips, tricks and bits of wisdom gathered along the way. Such morsels need to be shared in the same snippety fashion, not force-fitted into some grand unified theory of good writing. This book gets it right.
Mark Kramer and Wendy Call have assembled 91 chapters of advice about writing from 51 working authors and editors. This advice is backed up by the contributors' hard-won experience and by a generous bibliography of books and web sites that contain exemplary writings and yet more writing advice. It is presented in the easily-digestible form of brief chapters that focus on one or two aspects of reporting and writing. Kramer and Call briefly introduce each of the book's nine sections then stand aside so we can hear the contributors' voices. Readers will differ in what helps them the most--there is much to choose from.
Five contributions that I found particularly valuable:
Mark Kramer speaks as a writer in "Reporting for Narrative: Ten Tips." He describes how to balance background research between the extremes of too little and too much.
Isabel Wilkerson's "Interviewing: Accelerated Intimacy" teaches how to establish rapport with sources and hear their stories--while maintaining enough distance to report them.
Roy Peter Clark's "Ladder of Abstraction" shows how to describe concrete details of people's lives, connect them to larger themes, and avoid the deadly region of "middle abstraction" that alienates readers.
Jack Hart's "Narrative Distance" illustrates how to psychologically "place" the viewpoint of a story's narrator--and shift this perspective to guide the reader through a story.
Susan Orlean's "On Voice" describes the self-analysis and authenticity necessary to each writer's unique verbal style. Its development cannot be rushed--or faked.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who writes to an audience and wants to do it better. It is dead-on-target for you if you work in narrative journalism. If you do not, there are still lessons to improve your writing. Kramer and Call remind us that "[w]riting well is difficult, even excruciating, and demands courage, patience, humility, erudition, savvy, stubbornness, wisdom, and aesthetic sense--all summoned at your lonely desk." I like writing at my lonely desk--and I like having this book so I don't have to learn everything the hard way.
Great wisdom from great writers February 7, 2010
Mallie Kim (Washington, DC)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book provides various perspectives on what it takes to find a meaningful story, report well on topics, structure a story, edit, and more. The perspectives come from writers who are masters at their crafts - and each one does things a bit differently, so this book does not put you in a box!
 Extremely helpful January 15, 2010
wordsandmusic (Vancouver, Canada)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As several other reviewers have noted, this collection offers very useful, nut-and-bolts discussions of how to write great non-fiction. As a working writer, I found the sections on structure, editing and "building quality" the most relevant and useful. The editors have done a fine job of making sure that ALL the articles are clear, specific and practical. I also appreciated that this volume didn't waste space providing exercises or "questions to consider."
My only reservation about the book is that it's often (but not always) aimed specifically (and solely) at journalists writing article length pieces about contemporary subjects. I would have liked to see more about longer form non-fiction such as biography and history - two instances where there are often no living witnesses.
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. | |
