25 Things You Should Know About Plot

Posted inWriting
Chuck Wendig brings us an excellent blog post called 25 Things You Should Know About Plot. It's about ... well, I bet you've already figured that part out. Here's an excerpt: Let Characters Do They Heavy Lifting Characters will tell you your plot. Even better: let them run and they’ll goddamn give it to you on a platter. Certainly plot can happen from an external locus of control — but you’re not charting the extinction of the dinosaurs or the lifecycle of the slow loris. Plot is like Soylent Green: it’s made of people. Characters say things, do things, and…
Hurricane Sandy: How We Saw It

Hurricane Sandy: How We Saw It

Posted inWorks by Eric, Writing
When I was asked to engage in some first person journalism about being at the Jersey Shore for Hurricane Sandy, I was both excited to do it and a little hesitant. Excited because, like everyone at the Shore who experienced the storm firsthand, I wanted to share my experience with others. After all, that's what you DO when it comes to life-altering experienced. You talk about them (even if just with a few videos). But hesitant because, unlike so many people in my area, including friends and family, my family and I came through okay. Oh, we lost some cars…
Why journalists hate their life, redux

Why journalists hate their life, redux

Posted inRandom Musings, Rants, Uncategorized
A few days ago I shared why journalists hate life, namely, the sheer ineptitude of management that seems hellbent on driving papers to extinction, kicking employee morale in the face while doing it. This is an industry-wide problem that is killing newsroom after newsroom and making reporters, frankly, not really give a damn about their job anymore. Well, here's another story, courtesy of KC Confidential: The Kansas City Star has told reporters Karen Dillon and Dawn Bormann that one of them has to leave the paper, and they — not management — have to decide who goes. “Dillon has seniority,…
Are you a writer if no one reads you?

Are you a writer if no one reads you?

Posted inRandom Musings, Writing
The question seems ridiculous, doesn't it? If you write, you're a writer ... right? Isn't that how it works? But the fact is, whether they admit it or not, every writer has grappled with a variation of this question, subtle or otherwise. After all, we don't simply want to write, we want to be read. We want to be experienced. We want to be RECOGNIZED ... ... as a writer. And there's the crux. What separates "a writer" from someone else? When can Joe say it when Bob can't? The basic answer is that if you write you're a writer.…
Why journalists hate their life

Why journalists hate their life

Posted inRandom Musings, Rants, Uncategorized
It's no secret that the world of journalism is in flux. I spent over a decade in the world of newspapers, those fussy, papery things created by ink-stained wretches, and while I can't say I don't have an extreme fondness for those old relics -- I think they're wonderful, actually -- I can say that I don't have an extreme fondness for the visionless people who so often run news organizations. My friends still in the news business don't disagree. A good friend who is an investigative journalist with a fairly large regional daily has seen his office withering under…