Would you rather read a book by a journalist – or a writer?
By Kelly Nuxoll | 06.23.09
I’ve read a few books by journalists recently, and they have raised in my mind the question of whether journalists make good authors … and vice versa. Or, perhaps put less judgmentally, whether the craft of journalism lends itself to the craft of book writing.
It seems to me that journalists are at a disadvantage in that they have so much to tell. They’ve been there, seen it, heard it, watched it, interviewed it, read it. The desire to get the story out must be excruciating.
Yet, most of the books I think of that people love – “Gone with the Wind,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Harry Potter,” Steven King – don’t seem to work from a point of urgency. They start at a distant point – Ashley Wilkes’ barbecue; under the stairs – and wend slowly toward an excruciating conclusion. It’s a whole different experience of reading, and, I would think, writing.
To be fair, I’m comparing apples and oranges, nonfiction and fiction. And obviously many great writers jump back and forth between genres: George Orwell, Mark Twain, Hunter S. Thompson. But, I have to say, it’s Animal Farm I remember, not Homage to Catalonia.
The distinction between a writer and a journalist came up in a recent interview I did with Neil Sheehan, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter and a National Book Award winner. His books on the Vietnam War and the Cold War are among the most novelistic I’ve read by a journalist; yet, when I asked him what he considered himself, he answered confidently, “A journalist-turned-historian.”
“I’m not a writer,” he said. “I don’t have the turn of mind for it.”
I’d like to open up the comments on what readers perceive this “turn of mind” might be. The issue appears important to me as a book reviewer, because it establishes a yard stick as to how readers measure their experience. What do you expect from a book by a journalist as opposed to, well, a writer?
It also seems important because as the news business dries up, working three years on a book might be a better proposition than pumping out stories for a daily or weekly. Journalists have always been staples on the Barnes and Noble table. Will we see more of their faces on back covers in years to come?
At the same time, readers are increasingly taking in information in short, quick bursts (the entire tapestry of Iran can now be understood in sequences of 160 characters or less). Does this mean journalists, with their training in catchy leads and bottom-line-first writing, may come to establish the new golden mean for books, and what my mother calls the James Michener style of storytelling, in which no present-day action can be explained without starting at the dinosaurs, will become extinct?
Kelly Nuxoll is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.
Comments
2. Barry Wightman | 06.23.09
Good question, Marjorie. It strikes me that that “turn of mind” might have something to do with what Percy Bysshe Shelley was talking about when he said that there are two classes of mental action–reason and imagination. So perhaps journalists are all about reason and writers trade in imagination.
Maybe ‘writerly’ fiction is closer to the poetic imagination where the unknown is discovered and the familiar is made to seem unfamiliar–like Shelley said. And the music of language has a better chance of making it to that Barnes & Noble front table in a writer’s hands. If you want just the facts ma’am, you’re better off with a journalist. I don’t know what to say about Hemingway, who was both.
But then there’s the explosion of creative non-fiction out there–memoirs et al–which blurs the line. So I guess, as long as the scribbler knows how to write, er, good…we’re in okay shape.
3. Marilyn | 06.23.09
Great question!
I have read journalists’ attempts at novels, and it’s not the same experience as reading a writer-written novel.
Both can inform and entertain, but it seems to me that their approaches call forth different workings of the reader’s mind.
I’m not sure how to explain this, as I’m neither a journalist nor a writer, but for instance, when a writer is informing me, the way it’s done lets my thinking add more texture to the facts and urges me to take the experience further in imagination. When a journalist informs, though it may also entertain, the written facts speak more completely for themselves and don’t lend themselves to the kind of inner storytelling that can carry on in your head after you are through what has been written.
It’s not a matter of emotion, as either style can call forth strong and enduring emotion, but I really can’t, on the spur of the moment, think what it might be called.
I’m going to watch this space to see what others have to contribute, as I’ll be most interested to see if anyone can nail what I’m trying to say.
4. Marilyn | 06.23.09
HA!
Just read Ms Kehe’s review of The Walking People, and in it she says of the author “she allows us to journey with them”.
*That’s* what I’m talking about - that parallel experience that can happen to a reader when a good writer writes, but will never happen when a journalist writes.
5. Mary | 06.27.09
Hmm. I’m a literary translator and I’ve noticed that journalists want to tell a story,as do writers,but writers are usually in love with language and words the way poets are,journalists not so much.Writers reveal psychological truths or the inner world of characters through seemingly insignificant details,whereas journalist openly tell you about the character’s state of mind as well as the source of it.
Writers are often sensual and focus on describing colors,fragrances,textures oftentimes in detail. Journalists generally do not linger over such sensuality unless it has practical relevance to the story.Writers,however, like to create atmosphere that may appear to have no obvious or conscious bearing on their tale.Journalist describe surroundings only to place the scene in context.
Journalists can be good storytellers and provide excellent dialogue,but generally don’t indulge in poetic metaphors and similes the way writers do.
Both have a story to tell,but journalists tell a story the way a storyteller would, and usually for similar reasons;to entertain,instruct,or recount history.They tell you about events or people.Writers go further and make you live the event and know the people.
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1. Rob Crilly | 06.23.09
As a journalist currently writing a book on Darfur, I find this a fascinating question and one that I have pondered over the past few months.
For my money, the best book I have read on Sudan - and possibly Africa - is What is the What, Dave Eggers’ novelised story of a Lost Boy who made the trek from the war-torn south to Ethiopia and then to Kenya. It is an example of how brilliant, brilliant writing can capture the feel and smell and history of a place. It may not capture all the intricate politics but it just feels like the place I know. It captures something of a reality that many journalists miss even as they focus on facts.