Reading Response: Week 4

In this reading of Telling True Stories, I began to see the advantages of compiling a book of many author's writing insights instead of one single author. As a beginning narrative journalist, I appreciate reading about their similar and contrasting writing processes and opinions of their field. For example, in the section "To Tape or Not to Tape", one writer swears against taping while another says the profession was much harder before it came along. Later, Malcolm Gladwell says he doesn't write profiles of people because he doesn't think we're truly capable of describing a person's core; that he prefers to write profiles about ideas rather than the person. After reading a whole chapter on the beauty of discovering and accurately representing a person, that came as a shock. It was a good shock though, because now I have this idea in my head that I should be looking at how a person is a gateway to larger issues in society, like Gladwell says. Isabel Wilkerson agrees, stating that "It is important to honor the people who allow themselves to be representatives of something larger in our society" (33).

Then Mark Kramer argues that access is everything to a narrative. Our goal is what he describes as felt life; we must take the right steps to reach that level of informal comprehension of the subject. That means sometimes living as the subject does, following them around, keeping tabs on worthwhile events in their schedule. Imagine sending yourself to prison as a corrections officer for ten months like Ted Conover. But Louise Kiernan warns us to know when not to be around, when not to push for intimate access. Sometimes packing off has its rewards later on.

The other areas that stood out to me in this reading had to do with the perspective that writers enter situations with, and how narratives can take a creative turn depending on the angle the writer chooses to write from. Tomas Tizon explains how in 2004 Vanity Fair profiled activist Tomothy Treadwell who was killed by a bear, but the magazine writes part of the story from the point of view of the bear. I would probably never consider something like that. On a (I think) similar note, Victor Merina warns that journalists reporting across cultures, especially their own culture, must learn enough about that place, but understand that even if you're reporting your own culture and believe you know the history, other perspectives and views may emerge that alter that course of the piece. He calls this "unlearning" the culture, which paves the way for other, unthought-of topics to surface.