I really enjoyed these articles, in how they help visualize the writing process. Particularly with Rosenthal\u2019s article, I was reminded of the classic video of Kurt Vonnegut drawing story structures on a blackboard; I\u2019m continually reminded of the benefits forays into fiction-style provide. Drawing from other genres of writing, and thinking about journalism as the collision between narrative and informational, hopefully will inform my writing a little more. Great quote from George Saunders (which I\u2019m going to butcher) along the lines of \u201c you should write how you talk and think, so talk the way you want to write,\u201d which more generally I think applies to the idea that our output is founded in curation of our input. Reading varied writing that I appreciate is the best way to write how I’d like to. I also was interested in the way McPhee celebrated the theme-driven story narrative, in opposition to the chronological one; I wanted to read Preston\u2019s article analyzing its structure, so I broke it up and was happy to find it constantly disrupted chronology. It started in the present election, jumped back to 2021, moved forward, then jumped back to 2016 and moved forward, then jumped to the present, only for a brief encounter with Eisenhower in the far-past. I see how this structure works \u2013 and it works well for this analytical \/ opinion style article \u2013 but I\u2019m wondering whether I\u2019ll be able to do something thematic for my longform article. I was just writing out a layout, and I\u2019m wondering how to plan my article before getting the sources and interviews? Is that even a good idea, or should i just immerse and figure it out after? Hard to know how much to prepare without it interfering with my openness to change, in the moment of reporting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite really enjoying these articles, I\u2019m having a hard time immediately transferring them to my practice. One thing I got from the McPhee piece was how personal his process is \u2013 it feels very dependent on the kind of person you are. He talks about the personalized system that was created for him on Kedit; we now have so many different programs we could use, but choosing one is daunting. There\u2019s a turn towards online softwares, and I agree that they\u2019re helpful; transcription softwares especially save so much time, and google drive does a great job of keeping my information backed up and easily accessible. My immediate thoughts were 1) people are turning towards AI to help in their articles\u2026 I get that it\u2019s a helpful tool, but I worry that it\u2019ll take away creative potential and limit me, so I don\u2019t use it. It feels like journalism is dependent on work \u2013 the best articles are ones where you can tell how much time the author put into them, and that work is unavoidable. But do tools like AI help us cut out the unnecessary work, or just constrict our whole process? 2) on the opposite hand (!) I\u2019m still a huge proponent of paper and analog work. Maybe it\u2019s just because I can romanticize the article-creating process better when I imagine myself working with sprawled papers (and I think being able to romanticize your work process is one of the few ways of keeping yourself constantly engaged) but I really enjoy working with paper; I also just feel more personally connected to the work when I can hold it. Regardless, this is making me want to start printing everything I write to engage with it that way. Regardless of the actual process, I was really grateful for the way McPhee treats writing with a \u201ci\u2019ll do my best,\u201d mindset. Especially in a class of really dedicated students, I think we have to submit to the story\u2019s will. If the effort\u2019s been put in, it\u2019s been put in. Learning when to put the pen down, or close the computer, will probably make our final results better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I really enjoyed these articles, in how they help visualize the writing process. Particularly with Rosenthal\u2019s article, I was reminded of the classic video of Kurt Vonnegut drawing story structures on a blackboard; I\u2019m continually reminded of the benefits forays into fiction-style provide. Drawing from other genres of writing, and thinking about journalism as the<\/p>\n