A classic start to a book

The first 90 words of Redmond O'Hanlon's 1996 travel book Congo Journey are superb:

     In her hut in Poto-Poto, the poor quarter of Brazzaville, the feticheuse, smiling at us, knelt on the floor, drew out a handful of cowrie shells from the cloth bag at her waist, and cast them across the raffia mat.

     Lary Shaffer and I, despite ourselves, leaned forward on our wooden stools, studying the meaningless pattern; the shells, obviously much handled, shone like old ivory in the glow of the paraffin lamp. The feticheuse stopped smiling.

     “One of you,” she said slowly in French, “is very ill, right now.”

I'm going to list the reasons why I think this works so well.

Firstly, before even reaching the end of the first sentence, we want to read on, if only to find out what a feticheuse is. Later, the reader discovers that a feticheuse is a shamaness; the word derives from the French for “fetish,” and fetishes loom large in the second half of the book.

Secondly, when we read “The feticheuse stops smiling...,” we know something is wrong. You want to find out what it is. Who is ill, and what's wrong with him?

Thirdly, the beginning of the book is sprinkled with clues that we're not in safe, familiar Western territory. The lady lives in a hut; there's a raffia map on the floor; the tools of her trade include cowrie shells; there's no electricity, just a paraffin lamp. Readers of travel books want the exotic, and O'Hanlon delivers the goods from the get go.

The message here is that you don't need to start your story at the very beginning. Find an engaging episode (“the hook”) that'll draw the reader in, and then backtrack if explanation/elaboration/elucidation is needed.

In my next post, I'll discuss a book where the author had the raw material for a great hook, but failed to use it where he should have.

The writer's mind-set

"The curse of being a songwriter is that you no longer listen to music, you deconstruct it. You take it apart to see why it succeeds or fails."

So says Ellis Paul, an American singer-songwriter born 1965. His thinking is exactly the same as many writers, including myself. Whatever we read, we're wondering what we can learn about the way it was written, and how we can use those tricks in our own writing.  

Three interviewing mistakes

Having posted some positive interviewing advice, I think it's time to talk about mistakes some writers make when talking to sources.

Don't ask questions that reveal your own opinions or biases.

It goes without saying that if you make your own views obvious, you could annoy the interviewee, who may react by ending the interview there and then. Alternatively, he or she may become defensive and answer your questions very guardedly. If you make it apparent you agree with the interviewee, he or she may forgo some of the elaboration you want for your article. Ideally, you want him or her to attempt to succinctly convince you.

Don't ask questions that assume a particular answer.

Even if you're certain the interviewee won't like the issue you're discussing, it's more neutral and so better to ask "How do you feel about this?" rather than, “Are you angered by this change?”

Don't ask two questions at the same time.

I once heard a fellow writer ask a person, "Do you think the building should be knocked down, and what should replace it?" That interviewee, fortunately, was able to digest both questions and answer them one at a time. However, if the person you're speaking to is tired, distracted - or not a native speaker of English - you may end up with something that doesn't properly represent his or her opinion, and isn't useful for your article. You should be especially careful of this if you know there's no opportunity to double-check the interviewee's answers.

Good interview questions II

In addition to questions tailored to the subject, always include a broad invitation to address issues not covered by my questions, such as:

Is there anything important we haven't covered? Have you had any experiences or developed any opinions that you haven't already told me about, but which you think are important?

Getting ideas for articles I

Museums are always stimulating places; every time I visit one, I come away with ideas for articles. In this newish museum, I discovered that Taiwan's first public bus service was launched in January 1913. Guess what subject I'll be pitching to editors shortly, as they begin to make plans for the end of this year and the beginning of next year?

It's said that anniversaries make for lazy journalists. It's true, in a way - but editors and readers seem to like anniversaries, so make a point of what happened in history 100 or even 500 years ago.

Grammar Girl offers lots of good advice

Wondering whether you should write affect or effect? Confused about capitalization? Unsure of the difference between palette, pallet and palate? A very useful website is Grammar Girl.

In case you're wondering, I'm not being paid for this plug!

Interviewees who ask to preview your article

An interviewee wants to see the article before publication. What should I do?

If the media outlet you're writing for has a specific policy about this, it's almost certainly that the article text should not be shown to anyone prior to publication.

On many occasions, however, I've emailed those parts of an interview I plan to use to the interviewee for his/her approval before sending the finished article to the editor. I do this to protect myself; I don't want to misquote someone, and I don't want to misrepresent a person's opinions when paraphrasing him/her. Also, many of the people I interview aren't native speakers of English, and they appreciate my offer to send them the quotes I want to use ahead of submission. I'm not the kind of investigative journalist who's trying to catch out bigots, criminals or corrupt politicians. (If you are that type of journalist, you should of course being giving your target an opportunity to respond to any allegations.)

I never send the entire article unless the interview subject has made it an explicit condition for agreeing to the interview. And if that's the case, I always warn them that the editor has the right to make changes up until the moment of printing.

If you're a balanced writer, you've nothing to fear from this process. I've never had an interview subject request more than very minor changes, nor have I ever had an editor reject a finished piece that has been reviewed by a source before submission.