A layman might describe a man as being dressed all in black. The image is vague, it gets the fact across, but not the feeling. It could have been written by anybody. Here"s what Updike did, again in a nonfiction work: He sits by the little clubhouse, in a golf cart, wearing black. He is Greek. Where, after all these years in America, does he buy black clothes? His hat is black. His shirt is black. His eyes, though a bit rheumy with age now, are black, as are his shoes and their laces. Small black points exist in his face, like scattered punctuation.
Markers that signal a person"s background can be as useful to writers of nonfiction as to novelists, though few think of markers as a matter of course. Writers of articles, features, and books are more likely to use markers than journalists preparing copy on the run. If reporters try to use markers consciously a few times, it can become a rewarding habit.
As an example of the use of markers in nonfiction, I"ve chosen excerpts from a frontpage story about the hapless treasurer of Orange County, California, Robert L. Citron, from the New York Times of December 11, 1994: He was the type to wear, along with patent leather shoes and belts, red polyester pants and a green blazer at Christmas, pastels at Easter, and orange and black on Halloween.
The license plate on Mr. Citron"s car is LOV USC; and, until it broke, the horn was programmed to play the school"s fight song.
These markers-there are more-fit the main point of the story, that the Orange County treasurer who managed and lost billions was not a sophisticated Wall Street type, but a homespun local with unsophisticated tastes. The story focuses on the Santa Ana Elks Club, where Citron came for lunch routinely, arriving at ten past noon and leaving at ten minutes before one. Even the dining room of the Elks Club is described with markers: The decor is heavy on Formica, Naugahyde and Styrofoam. On the tables, the only centerpieces are Keno coupons and bottles of Heinz Ketchup and McIlhenny"s Tabasco sauce.
These markers of Mr. Citron"s private time contrast with his role as "a sophisticated, aggressive and daring investor" whose "high returns ... made him not only a legend in financial circles nationwide but a hero to local politicians desperate to do more with less." Quick bites of television and the usual news stories told of Orange County"s financial disaster but did not capture the human drama of the man behind the collapse. The memorable account by reporter David Margolick that I am quoting ends with a comment from a man by the name of Fred Prendergast, "a regular at Mr. Citron"s table at the Elks": "To go to a man"s home Sunday afternoon, intrude in his personal life, and practically force him to resign, is the most cowardly thing a person could do," he said bitterly. "All they had to do was wait for eight o"clock in the morning, or seven in Bob"s case, and he"d have been right in his office, where he"s supposed to be. They treated him like an animal."
With the aid of markers and particularity, Margolick made Robert L. Citron visible the way photographs of the man do not and gave a news story a human face and the ring of tragedy. The nonfiction writer who becomes aware of the emotions elicited by cultural differences can use this power in representing people by well-chosen cla.s.s markers.
Often the writer"s job is to characterize public figures in depth. I"ve selected an example from a work of history, a cla.s.sic that has sold far more copies than many bestsellers.
Most people have at least an idea as to what Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, looked like. Paintings, and sculpture, seen in books and on TV, have carried the often romanticized image. Some photographs bring us closer to the truth. But a skilled writer can give us not only exact images but a sense of personality. In the following paragraph, both Lenin and his brother Alexander are characterized: Alexander"s face was long and brooding; his skin milky white; his hair, thick, turbulent, frizzy, deeply rooted, stood up in all directions from a line far down on his forehead. His eyes, set deep and on a strange angle in a k.n.o.bby, overhanging brow, seemed to turn their gaze inward. It was the strongly chiseled face of a dreamer, a saint, a devotee, an ascetic. But Vladimir"s head was shaped like an egg, and the thin fringe of reddish hair began to recede from the forehead before he was twenty, leaving him bald, like his father, in young manhood. His complexion was a blend of grayishness and full-bloodedness; his eyes tiny, twinkling, Mongoloid. His whole aspect, except in moments of intense thought or anger, was jovial, humorous, mischievous, self-confident, aggressive. Not knowing him, one might have taken him in later years for a hard-working kulak, a rising provincial official, a shrewd businessman. There was nothing in his build or appearance or temperament to suggest kinship with his brother Alexander.
The excerpt is from Bertram D. Wolfe"s Three Who Made a Revolution. One of the strengths in the description of Lenin is the evocation of what he looked like earlier and later. That"s a technique all writers can employ under appropriate circ.u.mstances. Note the liberties taken by the author. Alexander"s hair is turbulent. It is also deeply rooted (how could the author know?), which conveys its permanence as contrasted with Lenin"s baldness. Lenin is compared to three different types: a kulak (a well-off farmer), a provincial official, a businessman.
Is taking risks, as this author has, irresponsible in nonfiction? The dean of American literary critics of this century, Edmund Wilson, referred to the book from which this paragraph was taken as the "best book in its field in any language."
It"s worth taking risks. If it doesn"t work, it will be apparent when you revise.
What if the subject of an article or a book is well known to at least part of your audience, as would be the case with, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt? What can a nonfiction writer do that is fresh and new in characterization when dealing with someone whose history has been the object of intensive research by many writers? One interview, with Betsey Whitney, is the basis for the extraordinary first paragraph of Doris Kearns Goodwin"s book, No Ordinary Time: On nights filled with tension and concern, Franklin Roosevelt performed a ritual that helped him to fall asleep. He would close his eyes and imagine himself at Hyde Park as a boy, standing with his sled in the snow atop the steep hill that stretched from the south porch of his home to the wooded bluffs of the Hudson River far below. As he accelerated down the hill, he maneuvered each familiar curve with perfect skill until he reached the bottom, whereupon, pulling his sled behind him, he started slowly back up until he reached the top, where he would once more begin his descent. Again and again he replayed this remembered scene in his mind, obliterating his awareness of the shrunken legs beneath the sheets, undoing the knowledge that he would never climb a hill or even walk on his own power again. Thus liberating himself from his paralysis through an act of imaginative will, the president of the United States would fall asleep.
The evening of May 9, 1940, was one of these nights. At 11 p.m., as Roosevelt sat in his comfortable study on the second floor of the White House, the long-apprehended phone call had come ...
That paragraph, like much of the book, is filled with visual particularity and action. Goodwin"s book is worth studying for its technique in using research, all of it doc.u.mented, not only to characterize historical persons but to provide the reader with a rich experience.
Here is a checklist of questions you can ask yourself when characterizing: * Would the reader be able to identify the person you"re writing about if he was seen in a group of ten people?
* Have you done anything with the person"s eyes, the way they are used, to look at a person or to look away?
* Have you given the reader a sense of how that person feels through describing an action rather than by stating the person"s feelings?
* Does your person have a habit like tapping a finger, pointing eyegla.s.ses, laughing too loud, waving his hands in a particular way that would make him more visible?
* Is there anything individual about the gait or posture of the person?
* Can you lend resonance to your characterization by invoking other matters in which your person was involved?
* Has your person changed much? In a longer work, can you use that change?
Setting a scene goes hand in hand with characterization. Suppose someone described a scene from history this way: Mary Stuart came into the great hall, followed by her retinue. She climbed the steps to her chair, faced her audience, and smiled.
The reader gets the information, the facts, but not the essence of the occasion, and it is the essence that conveys truth. There is no reason why nonfiction writers cannot do as well as novelists in conveying a scene. Witness what historian Garrett Mattingly did in introducing Mary Stuart in The Armada: She entered through a little door at the side, and before they saw her was already in the great hall, walking towards the dais, six of her own people, two by two, behind her, oblivious of the stir and rustle as her audience craned forward, oblivious, apparently, of the officer on whose sleeve her hand rested, walking as quietly, thought one pious soul, as if she were going to her prayers. Only for a moment, as she mounted the steps and before she sank back into the black-draped chair, did she seem to need the supporting arm, and if her hands trembled before she locked them in her lap, no one saw. Then, as if acknowledging the plaudits of a mult.i.tude, though the hall was very still, she turned for the first time to face her audience and, some thought, she smiled.
How much Mattingly gets into part of one paragraph, all of it designed to make a scene he never saw real to the reader.
The difference between ordinary nonfiction and extraordinary writing, as in Mattingly, is often in the resonance: Against the black velvet of the chair and dais her figure, clad in black velvet, was almost lost. The gray winter daylight dulled the gleam of white hands, the glint of yellow gold in her kerchief and of red gold in the piled ma.s.ses of auburn hair beneath. But the audience could see clearly enough the delicate frill of white lace at her throat and above it, a white, heart-shaped petal against the blackness, the face with its great dark eyes and tiny, wistful mouth. This was she for whom Rizzio had died, and Darnley, the young fool, and Huntly, and Norfolk, and Babington and a thousand nameless men on the moors and gallows of the north. This was she whose legend had hung over England like a sword ever since she had galloped across its borders with her subjects in pursuit. This was the last captive princess of romance, the dowager queen of France, the exiled queen of Scotland, the heir to the English throne and (there must have been some among the silent witnesses who thought so, at this very moment, if she had rights) England"s lawful queen. This was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. For a moment she held all their eyes, then she sank back into the darkness of her chair and turned her grave inattention to her judges. She was satisfied that her audience would look at no one else.
Note how Mattingly conveys the strength of her presence in the last lines of that paragraph. He is characterizing a strong queen for whom many had died. Is he making things up? The writing-quite apart from Mattingly"s considerable reputation as a historian-convinces us that the author has feasted on every sc.r.a.p of eyewitness testimony and on paintings to convey that scene.
Lest you conclude that resonance is available only to the writer of history, here is a paragraph from James Baldwin"s essay about his father from his first published nonfiction book, Notes of a Native Son. Note how the drive to the graveyard blossoms into so much more: A few hours after my father"s funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker"s chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the third of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate gla.s.s.
The day of my father"s funeral had also been my nineteenth birthday. As we drove him to the graveyard, the spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred were all around us. It seemed to me that G.o.d himself had devised, to mark my father"s end, the most sustained and brutally dissonant of codas. And it seemed to me, too, that the violence which rose all about us as my father left the world had been devised as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son. I had declined to believe in that apocalypse which had been central to my father"s vision; very well, life seemed to be saying, here is something that will certainly pa.s.s for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along. I had inclined to be contemptuous of my father for the conditions of his life, for the conditions of our lives. When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in a new way, to be apprehensive about my own.
Are the techniques of plotting any use to the nonfiction writer?
All storytelling from the beginning of recorded time is based on somebody wanting something, facing obstacles, not getting it, trying to get it, trying to overcome obstacles, and finally getting or not getting what he wanted. What has interested listeners, readers, and viewers for centuries is available in the conscious use of desire in nonfiction.
In life we prefer an absence of conflict. In what we read, an absence of conflict means an absence of stimulation. Few things are as boring as listening to uncontested testimony in a courtroom. Few things are as interesting as a courtroom clash. If Marjorie and Richard lived happily ever after, the reader"s response is "So what?" In articles, newspaper stories, and books, the reader"s interest often flags because the writer did not keep in mind that dramatic conflict has been the basis of stories from the beginning of time.
Conflict does not have to involve violence. Conflict can be low key. It can exist by innuendo. What it takes is a mind-set when examining the cast of a prospective piece, whether it is to be an article or a scene in a book. Are there two people, two parties, two organizations, or two ent.i.ties of any kind that are in conflict? If the conflict might not be immediately apparent to the reader, can the writer provide some help by bringing the conflicting elements closer to each other and by highlighting the conflict, actual or potential?
Conflict can arise from a thwarted desire, but the desire must be planted. Here"s a simple before-and-after example: Terence McNiece, 14, was arraigned yesterday in Town Court for allegedly stealing a bicycle belonging to a neighbor.
Watch what happens when desire is added: According to the testimony of his mother, Terence McNiece wanted a bicycle more than anything in the world, but she couldn"t afford to buy him one. Terence, age 14, was arraigned yesterday in Town Court for allegedly stealing a bicycle belonging to a neighbor.
In the first part of the example, the information that a boy has been arrested for stealing a bicycle comes across as dispa.s.sionate fact. It"s rather blah. The revised version, in which we learn that the boy wanted a bicycle more than anything else in the world and that his mother couldn"t afford to buy him one, tugs at the reader"s emotions. What has been activated is the boy"s desire for the bike, which is more powerful than the act of stealing.
A news story or a nonfiction piece can move a reader more if the writer remembers that desire, wanting something important badly, can be a force.
The more important the objective, the bigger the conflict will seem to the reader if there are obstacles in the way of gratifying the want. The thing that"s wanted may not be possible. Nevertheless, the reader can have his emotions stimulated by that unrealistic and unattainable want.
When the writer has his material and is ready to begin writing, that"s the time to determine whether any of the people in the story he is about to write want something badly. Bringing that material up to the beginning could help touch a match to the reader"s emotions.
One of the best guides for planning nonfiction is the Actors Studio method for developing drama in plots that I described in Chapter 7. It involves giving each character in a scene a different tack. That technique can be adapted to nonfiction. In preparing to write any pa.s.sage or scene involving two people, if the writer focuses on their differing intentions (or "scripts"), he will immediately see the dramatic advantages of positioning their conflict in many kinds of adversarial situations in which conflict is inherent in the circ.u.mstances.
Doris Kearns Goodwin"s remarkable book No Ordinary Time focuses on the home front in World War II and on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. All couples in a relationship have differing scripts, but the Roosevelts are a dramatic example of the point. Eleanor was motivated by humanitarian causes, Franklin by politics. Their intentions clashed frequently, made more complex by their extramarital friendships. Yet as a public couple, especially as Franklin became governor and president, they were trapped in a crucible. (You will recall from Chapter 8 that crucible is an emotional or physical environment that bonds two people and that characters caught in a crucible won"t declare a truce. They"re in it till the end. Their motivation to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away.) The story of the Roosevelts, in expert hands, is as moving as the exemplary novels whose characters are trapped in a crucible.
Though the crucible is as applicable to confrontations of people as it is to fictional characters, I have never known a nonfiction writer who employed the idea consciously. Yet it has been used in countless histories and biographies, both of which invite scenes in which two adversaries are locked in a situation that holds them together more than anything that would drive them apart. Nonfiction writing would be more dramatic and tap the reader"s emotions more if the crucible were considered more often in the planning stage.
Suspense is a valuable technique for the writer who wants to make his reader keep turning pages. It occurs when the reader expects something to happen and it isn"t happening yet because the author is holding off. For instance, if a person has been characterized in an interesting way and the reader learns that the character is in danger, the reader wants to know how the person gets out of danger. If that information is withheld for a while, the reader will be left in suspense. If trouble is in the offing, the reader hopes that the person will find out in time to prevent the bad event from occurring. A variant occurs when the reader wants something to happen to a character and it isn"t happening yet.
Nonfiction writers do not think of suspense as a conscious method for enhancing reader interest in their work, though some writers use suspense instinctively. Let"s look at a simple example, from a newspaper story, of how suspense can be implanted: A bus carrying thirteen pa.s.sengers to Mount St. Vincent yesterday evening careened off the road into a gully. One of the pa.s.sengers, Henry Pazitocki, died before the ambulance reached the scene. Six other persons were hospitalized, two critically.
There is no element of suspense in that first paragraph. The story continues: Three of the pa.s.sengers with minor injuries told patrolman George Francese investigating the accident that the driver may have been drinking. A spokesperson for the Tri-State Bus Company denied those allegations.
Accusation and denial rendered, no suspense. Here"s how a writer conscious of the benefit of suspense might have written the same story: A bus carrying thirteen pa.s.sengers to Mount St. Vincent yesterday evening careened off the road into a gully. One of those pa.s.sengers never made it to Mount St. Vincent.
A spokesperson for the Tri-State Bus Company said, "The driver is a teetotaler. There is no evidence that he was drinking despite what some of the pa.s.sengers said. It was an accident."
The first sentence tells what happened to the bus. The second sentence arouses curiosity as to who was the pa.s.senger who didn"t make it. The purposeful repet.i.tion of "Mount St. Vincent" helps set up the suspense. The second paragraph doesn"t tell us who the person is. The switch to a different part of the story (the spokesperson for the bus company) heightens the suspense. The reader wants to know more. Another element of suspense is introduced: was the driver drunk or not? The last paragraph of the story reads: Patrolman George Francese, investigating the accident, said, "Three other pa.s.sengers with minor injuries complained that the driver appeared to have been drinking. Rosella Carew, who was sitting just behind Henry Pazitocki, the man who was killed, said, "I had doubts about getting on the bus when I saw the driver"s eyegla.s.ses in his lap and he didn"t even seem to know it." "
This method of handling the story not only provides conflict for reader interest, at the end it lets the reader draw his own conclusion.
The following true story demonstrates how suspense can be built and maintained in nonfiction through a consistent point of view in which the reader learns only what the narrator knows, and learns it when the narrator learns it: A friend of ours let us have the use of her condo in Florida during a period of icy weather in the east. It was a cozy place, fully equipped, with only one problem. The dishwasher disgorged water all over the kitchen floor.
My wife went down to the superintendent"s apartment-his name is Roger-and knocked on the door. He didn"t answer. This was Friday, could it be his day off?
I met Roger the first day we were there. He helped us with our luggage. I tried to tip him for helping us with the bags, but he waved the bills away. I guessed Roger to be in his late thirties, maybe a couple of years older. Later, from the window I watched him washing the cars of residents, which seemed to give him a lot of pleasure. No car wash in the world could do the job as meticulously as Roger did. I saw him doing small repairs around the place. Whenever I pa.s.sed him, I stopped to exchange a sentence or two. I think Roger was slightly r.e.t.a.r.ded, a nice man with a personality a lot more pleasant than most of the people around him who had all their marbles.
Come Sat.u.r.day morning, my wife went down to Roger"s apartment again. Still no answer. I thumbed through the Yellow Pages, and after four tries got a plumber who was working on Sat.u.r.days and who promised to show up in an hour. He showed up three hours later, did a quick fix on the dishwasher, but cautioned us that a pipe leading to the dishwasher needed replacing and urged us to tell the superintendent.
I didn"t see Roger around at all on Sat.u.r.day.
On Sunday I looked out of our second-story window and saw several policemen cl.u.s.tered around the door of Roger"s apartment. I hurried down and was intercepted by a neighbor.
"Roger"s dead," he said.
"Where?"
"In his apartment."
All I could think was, "He"s so young!" He seemed strong and healthy the way he hoisted our bags.
The policemen weren"t saying anything except that the body was still in the apartment and they were waiting for the coroner.
Hours later, from my window I saw the body bag being carried out. By the time I got downstairs, the police were gone.
Two days later I was about to drive out of the underground garage, when I saw Roger and a young girl moving stuff out of his apartment. I thought he was dead! Who was in the body bag?
I stopped the car and got out to tell Roger how glad I was he was alive and to find out what happened. The man had a stammer. I didn"t remember Roger stammering.
It turned out that the man was Roger"s twin brother, who"d come a distance, and with his daughter"s help was piling Roger"s belongings onto a pickup truck.
"Not the bed," the brother said, shaking his head.
From him I learned that Roger had suffered a silent heart attack, probably on Thursday night since he didn"t respond to my wife"s knock Friday morning. Because he must have felt very cold, Roger put one electric blanket under himself and another on top. He burned all day Friday, Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday.
"The funeral," the twin brother said, "will be closed casket."
If I had started to recount what had happened by saying, "The superintendent of the building I was staying in burned to death last weekend," I would have spoiled the story by telegraphing the outcome. That"s what we do in life. Our instinct is to give the conclusion first. As storytellers, we have to hold back by telling the story from a consistent point of view-in this case, mine-and showing what happened as I learned about it. I didn"t refer to Roger as "the superintendent." I called him by his name. I said a couple of things to humanize him. I particularized as often as possible. But most important, I stuck to one point of view. I didn"t say more than I found out at any time. I conveyed what I learned in the same order that I learned it, thus giving the entire story a consistent point of view.
In considering suspense, you might want to refer to the following checklist: the same paragraph?
* Can you convert any sentence to a question that will arouse curiosity rather than satisfy it?
In considering the creation of tension in nonfiction, let"s keep the difference between tension and suspense in mind. Suspense arouses a feeling of anxious uncertainty in the reader about what might happen, or a hope that something bad won"t happen. Tension usually involves the sudden onset of a feeling of stress, strain, or pressure. As I"ve pointed out earlier, we deplore suspense and tension in life and enjoy them in writing.
Tension can be created by the simple mention of a time or date. "It was four o"clock in the morning" creates tension because it"s an hour when most people are asleep. Therefore, anything that happens at four in the morning is in itself tension producing or could be. It"s the "could be" factor that creates tension in the reader because he expects tension as part of his experience.
Two authors whose books I edited, Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, collaborated on a number of nonfiction "disaster" books that were hugely successful. They specialized in moment-by-moment reconstructions of cataclysmic events in such books as The Day the World Ended, The San Francisco Earthquake, Shipwreck, and Voyage of the d.a.m.ned. Voyage was the story of the luxury liner St. Louis, one of the last ships to leave n.a.z.i Germany before World War II erupted. We know at the outset that the 937 pa.s.sengers, all Jews fleeing n.a.z.i Germany, are in danger. If Cuba does not let them in, the ship will return its human cargo to the n.a.z.is and many will die. The first chapter is headed Wednesday, May 3, 1939. That prewar date in itself is enough to put tension to work. The second chapter is headed Thursday, May 4, 1939. The tension increases. Therefore, each time a date appears, the reader"s pulse quickens. That"s tension at work.
Let"s examine how tension can be induced in a simple sequence. Here"s the way it was originally written: The suspect refused to obey the policeman"s order to come out of his automobile.
No tension. Now the same event as edited: The policeman ordered the suspect to come out of his automobile. The suspect didn"t move.
What creates the tension is separating the two parts of the action. The separation in the example is momentary. The continuation of tension over paragraphs and pages comes from stretching out a tense situation, often a confrontation between persons or groups. Let"s look at the cop and the suspect again: The policeman ordered the suspect to come out of his automobile. The suspect didn"t move. Bystanders reported that the officer then drew his gun and in a loud voice said, "Get out, now!" The suspect shook his head and stayed put.
You can see how stretching out a sequence of acts produces tension that the reader finds pleasurable. Short sentences and short paragraphs help increase tension. A common error is the writer"s temptation to rush to a conclusion. In life we savor good experiences and long for them to continue. The rush to end a good experience is counterproductive. The writer must discipline himself to hold back.
Dialogue is an area in which the interests of fiction writers and nonfiction writers diverge. For the novelist, dialogue provides immediacy to a scene and is a major contributor to the experience of fiction. For the writer of articles and books as well as journalism, dialogue is a danger unless one uses direct quotes that sound real and can be substantiated. Those are two quite different matters.
Recording what people actually say does not read well. It is frequently hesitant, wordy, repet.i.tive, and ultimately boring as court transcripts prove. The nonfiction writer has remedies.
If you quote anyone for more than three sentences, that"s a speech. Break it up with something visual. It needn"t be elaborate: Craig Marshall was the first to speak. "The issues-count on it-are threefold," he said. "In two sections of the village, tap water is the color of, call it mud. Been that way for thirty years and the inc.u.mbents have done nothing about it." Marshall coughed against his closed fist.
"Item two," he continued, "is the traffic nightmare from the sports complex. Anybody in this village has a heart attack when the traffic"s letting out can count on the ambulance getting to him in two or three hours." He looked pointedly at the mayor. "That"s a death sentence for somebody because as far as I can tell the Almighty hasn"t given this community an exemption from heart attacks."
The writer has broken up the quote with seemingly inconsequential things like a cough and looking at somebody. The first interruption humanizes the speaker and adds to the reality. The second-a glance at the mayor-invokes a suspicion of conflict by seeming to blame the mayor for the problems the speaker is talking about.
I saw the first draft, in which the speaker had two windy sentences that contributed absolutely nothing of importance and made the speaker sound like Dwight Eisenhower searching for the end of a sentence. The reporter left them out not to protect the reputation of Mr. Marshall but to prevent his copy from being boring. In reporting spoken words, it is not a writer"s obligation to reproduce all of the words as long as the speaker"s meaning is preserved.
Few people speak in complete and grammatical sentences. Moreover, perfectly formed sentences often come across to the reader as made up. In this instance, the reporter did a good job of catching the flavor of what was said. In quoting, the writer has to beware of cleaning up a speaker"s sentences.
In 1975, just thirty days before Jimmy Hoffa, icon of the Teamsters Union, disappeared from the face of the earth, he came to lunch, bringing along, at my suggestion, the man who was ghosting his autobiography. Hoffa"s material had been recorded on tape. The material as spoken by Hoffa was fascinating and colorful. That same material, with Hoffa"s rough language cleaned up and sentences straightened out, was unreal and boring. The purpose of the meeting was to insist that the writer restore Hoffa"s words, including the expletives and grammatical howlers. I wasn"t arguing for a verbatim transcript of the tapes but for a retention of their color, which I succeeded in getting, and which all writers who deal with the spoken words of others should strive for.
When you"re reporting the results of an interview, you will likely end up with too much quotation. You want to keep those parts that reveal the character of the speaker or that define subject matter. You want to preserve comments that are confrontational, colorful, or especially appropriate, and ditch the rest.
That brings us to the second matter. Never intentionally misquote. And never invent dialogue.
Invented dialogue is usually a highly visible sign of untrustworthy writing. A few writers of nonfiction commit the same errors as some historical novelists. They provide dialogue that would have been impossible for anyone to record. I know of cases in which books were rejected by editors because some piece of attributed dialogue was so apparently contrived that it cast doubt on the reliability of the author for facts that could not easily be confirmed.
Don"t tempt rejection by an editor or a lawsuit from a person quoted inaccurately. If you find yourself inventing dialogue, write a play, novel, or movie.
Guts: The Decisive Ingredient A long time ago I took an oath never to write anything inoffensive.
In working with literally hundreds of authors over a period of many years I concluded that the single characteristic that most makes a difference in the success of an article or nonfiction book is the author"s courage in revealing normally unspoken things about himself or his society. It takes guts to be a writer. A writer"s job is to tell the truth in an interesting way. The truth is that adultery, theft, hypocrisy, envy, and boredom are all sins practiced everywhere that human nature thrives.
What people who are not writers say to each other in everyday conversation is the speakable. What makes writing at its best interesting is the writer"s willingness to broach the unspeakable, to say things that people don"t ordinarily say. In fact, the best writers, those whose originality shines, tend to be those who are most outspoken.
Do shy men and women ever become superb writers? Yes, after overcoming their natural reluctance to say the things they think. Fig leaves have no place on either the bodies or the minds of the best writers. I like the way Red Smith put it: "There"s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."
On the issue of candor, is there something nonfiction writers can learn from novelists? Yes, there is hardly anything about the secret, sometimes mischievous, cruel, evil, outrageous, defiant, and glorious acts and thoughts of human beings that has not appeared in the novels of the last few decades. And there is little about the private acts of people that has escaped reporting-and not only in the sensational press. The novelist has it easier. He hides a little-just a little-under the presumption that he is making things up. We all know that the most truth-bearing parts of superior fiction aren"t "made up." They come from the novelist"s observation and understanding of human nature. The nonfiction writer who dares to dare is more exposed. The a.s.sumption of his readers is that he is writing fact. He may have to prove his a.s.sertions to an editor, or worse, to a court. He needs the courage of a soldier or firefighter because often the more he reveals that is interesting to his readers, the more exposed he is. Readers are curious about the inmost secrets of others. The subjects of factual writing-if they are not publicity seekers-don"t want anything embarra.s.sing on public display. It is no accident that some of the best nonfiction writing of the century has come from writers who are also experienced novelists.
Mary McCarthy, whose novels brought her fame, early on earned a reputation for keen observation and a sharp tongue for her critical writings. George Orwell"s nonfiction is far superior to his fiction and exceptionally outspoken. Critics have called him the best nonfiction writer of this century. V. S. Naipaul"s nonfiction, once sampled, will lead you quickly to conclude that he has the courage to see and say what, for instance, politicians almost never say. His nonfiction makes waves by being sharply observant and truthful in territory that frightens off lesser writers. Rebecca West, whom Time magazine called "indisputably the world"s No. 1 woman writer," started out as a novelist and six decades later was still writing fiction. However, her great reputation rests largely on her shrewd, brave, and intelligent factual writing. Most writers know Scott Fitzgerald"s The Great Gatsby but haven"t read his gutsy nonfiction in The Crack-Up.
Writers read writers, and if being outspoken is a problem for you, I suggest you immerse yourself in the work of the writers I"ve mentioned, and also try the work of contemporaries like Gore Vidal and Joan Didion, even if it"s just to sample how they deal with candor.
Vidal, who has never wanted for vitriol much less candor, begins one piece about Tennessee Williams by pa.s.sing the candor chalice to Williams, whom he quotes saying, "I particularly like New York on hot summer nights when all the ... uh, superfluous people are off the streets." Borrowing the candor of another has been useful to Joan Didion also. I quote from Goodbye to All That, a memoir of her pilgrimage to New York when she was twenty-three: I remember once, one cold bright December evening in New York, suggesting to a friend who complained of having been around too long that he come with me to a party where there could be, I a.s.sured him with the bright resourcefulness of twenty-three, "new faces." He laughed literally until he choked, and I had to roll down the taxi window and hit him on the back. "New faces," he said finally, "don"t tell me about new faces." It seemed that the last time he had gone to a party where he had been promised "new faces," there had been fifteen people in the room, and he had already slept with five of the women and owed money to all but two of the men.
Next let"s sample someone not as well known. Gayle Pemberton, a black writer with a Ph.D. from Harvard, wrote about the time she was going broke in Los Angeles on a temporary typist"s revenue, and signed up to work for a caterer on three successive weekends. What she later wrote about it made the experience worthwhile: Our caterer was one of a new breed of gourmet cooks who do all preparation and cooking at the client"s home-none of your cold-cut or warming-tray catering. As a result, her clients had a tendency to have loads of money and even more kitchen s.p.a.ce.
Usually her staff was not expected to serve the meal, but on this occasion we did. I was directed to wear stockings and black shoes and I was given a blue-patterned ap.r.o.n dress, with frills here and there, to wear. Clearly, my academic lady-banker pumps were out of the question, so I invested in a pair of trendy black sneakers-which cost me five dollars less than what I earned the entire time I worked for the caterer. Buying the sneakers was plainly excessive but I told myself they were a necessary expense. I was not looking forward to wearing the little French serving-girl uniform, though. Everything about it and me were wrong, but I had signed on and it would have been unseemly and downright hostile to jump ship.
One thing I liked about the caterer was her insistence that her crew not be treated as servants- that is, we worked for her and took orders from her, not from the clients, who might find ordering us around an emboldening and socially one-upping experience. She also preferred to use crystal and china she rented, keeping her employees and herself safe from a client"s rage in case a family heirloom should get broken. But on this occasion, her client insisted that we use his Baccarat crystal. We were all made particularly nervous by his tone. It was the same tone I heard from a mucky-muck at my studio typing job: cold, arrogant, a matter-of-fact "you are s.h.i.t" att.i.tude that is well known to nurses and secretaries.