LJ Digital

Structures of Storytelling: “The Nine”

Two-time Pulitzer Prize feature-writing finalist, Richard E. Meyer (we’ll call him Rick), first taught me about “The 9” as a narrative storytelling device. It helps you visualize the parts of a story. To read examples of Rick’s stories that use “The 9,” check out his gripping narratives, “Julia Understands Everything” and “When the Shooting Stops.”

We spoke with Rick this week about “The 9,” and he told us:

“It’s a structure. What you do is you lay out the story chronologically in an absolute timeline. Then you pick the most interesting stuff, the cliffhanging part of the story. Hopefully it’s no more than a third of the way down the timeline. And you write that first. And that’s the intro.”

Rick continued:

“And so the timeline is a straight stick and you’re going a third of the way down the stick and that’s the part you want to be the intro. You pull that over to one side and now you’ve got to loop back to the beginning of the story – you get to the part you’ve already written; you have to make reference to it, write something to deal with it – maybe you do it in greater detail, like ‘it was at this point, that he fell off the cliff.’ You’ve already dealt with the cliff falling in the intro.

So imagine you’ve got the straight stick going down, and a third of the way down you’ve pulled that cliffhanger part out of the stick and set it aside. And you draw a loop from place you pulled it out to where it is now. Then, you have to go clear back to beginning of story and write down to point where you pulled out the cliffhanger, and write chronologically. Now you’ve got a loop. You’ve drawn a 9.”

Rick told me he first got the idea about calling it “The 9,” after reading the William L. Howarth’s introduction to the John McPhee Reader.

In the book, Howarth describes McPhee’s storytelling process like this:

“While its structure is forming, or when he senses how the story may end, McPhee often writes out a first draft of ‘the lead,’ a term journalists use to describe openings. In newspaper writing the lead is usually a single-sentence paragraph, designed to impart the classic who-what-where particulars of a story. In McPhee’s work the lead is longer (fifteen hundred to two thousand words), more dramatic, yet rather more oblique. It establishes a mood, a setting, and perhaps some main characters or events, but not in order to put the story in a nutshell of even to hint at its full dimensions….

The action begins in medias res and continues without flashbacks or helpful exposition for several pages. When readers finally hit a backward loop, they already have a subliminal sense of who-what-where, and fulfilling this expectancy becomes McPhee’s primary challenge in planning the rest of his story.”

“In medias res,” says Rick Meyer, “Well, that’s the fancy high-dollar term for it. For folks like me, it’s called a 9.”

                                                — Erika Hayasaki

Narratives in a Digital Age

Reading Assignments: For Monday, we will be reading “After Friday Night Lights,” by Buzz Bissinger, along with “Three Cups of Deceit,” by Jon Krakauer.

Next week we’ll continue our discussions about some of Byliner’s stories, its business model, and also some of the larger ethical and moral issues that all literary journalists face when practicing narrative nonfiction. Which lines simply cannot be crossed?

From Amazon blurb:

Nearly twenty-five years ago, H. G. (Buzz) Bissinger, then a young reporter for the “Philadelphia Inquirer,” moved to Odessa, Texas, family in tow, to follow the fortunes of the 1988 Permian High School football team. He hoped to write a celebratory treatment of a team and a town. The result: “Friday Night Lights,” a bestselling American classic that spawned the popular film as well as the series, considered by many one of the best on television. 

The original book’s most compelling character was James “Boobie” Miles, and his experience in Odessa was, as Bissinger puts it in his daringly honest sequel “After Friday Night Lights,” “a symbol of everything that was wrong with high school football.” The complex friendship between subject and author has deepened over the years, and is, Bissinger writes, “the most lasting legacy of “Friday Night Lights,” or at least the legacy I care about most.”

Heading into the 1988 season, Miles looked like a star-in-the-making, a sure bet to ascend to college and the NFL. Abandoned by his mother, beaten by his dad, he had scraped through a rough upbringing, but it appeared that success on the field was soon to redeem his pain. Then, in a meaningless preseason scrimmage, Boobie blew out his knee. By midseason he was off the team, no longer needed by his coaches, who had found themselves a new running back.

“After Friday Night Lights”—an original 45-page story written to be read in a single sitting—follows Boobie through the dark years he suffered after his injury right up to a present that is imbued with a new kind of hope. It is the indelible portrait of the oddest of enduring friendships: that of a writer and his subject, a “neurotic Jew” and a West Texas oil-field worker, a white man raised in privilege and a black man brought up in poverty and violence, and a father and his “fourth son.” Their story encompasses the realities of race and class in America. And reveals with heartbreaking accuracy how men rise again after their dreams are broken.

Amazon review:

Greg Mortenson is the bestselling author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, a tireless advocate for improved education in impoverished areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the founder of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), a non-profit that builds schools in these areas. He’s also, according to Jon Krakauer, not all that he appears to be.

Krakauer is himself a bestselling author (Into the Wild, Into Thin Air), with a well-deserved reputation for penetrating nonfiction. Motivated by his own humanitarian concerns, and having donated considerable sums to CAI, Krakauer now applies his investigative skills to the unmasking of what he calls the “image of Mortenson that has been created for public consumption… an artifact born of fantasy, audacity, and an apparently insatiable hunger for esteem.” Did Mortenson discover the village that inspired his crusade while wandering lost down K2? Was he abducted and held for eight days by the Taliban? Has he built all the schools that he has claimed? Tempered by Krakauer’s fairly giving CAI credit where it’s due,Three Cups of Deceit mounts an extensive, passionate exploration into these questions. —Jason Kirk

Narratives in a Digital Age

Narrative journalist Adam Hochschild’s advice on “Reconstructing Scenes,” from Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writer’s Guide.

This week we read Byliner’s Lifeboat No. 8, a story that unfolded 100 years ago and relied almost completely on reconstructed scenes. 

Adam Hochschild, who is the author of seven books, including King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains, is a master at writing historical nonfiction narrative. In Telling True Stories, Hochschild emphasizes how important it is for narrative journalists write in scenes, just as novelists and screenwriters do.

“…because life unfolds in scenes. We can render two types of scenes: those we observed, and those we must reconstruct from what others observed.”

Strong scenes, whether observed or reconstructed by the author, must include several key elements:

Here is a condensed version of his list of essential elements:

1. Accuracy. All details must be completely accurate. Either you saw the ghost come down the corridor, or you must have an eyewitness account of it, if not several.

2. Atmosphere. For your readers to experience the scene, you must do more than describe how things looked. Sounds, smells, temperature, and even the textures of objects are all important.

3. Dialogue. The people in your scenes must talk to one another and interact with one another, or the narrative will feel lifeless…Dialogue is how we get to know people, fall in love, tell someone off — in short, do everything that matters in life…Sometimes you can achieve the dramatic effect of dialogue by quoting people’s letters. You can get a complete record of legislative sessions or trials — often sources of high drama — going back two hundred years.

4. Emotion. You must know what people were feeling about the events depicted in your scenes. If you were there, how did you feel about what you saw? When you interview participants about an event, you must ask them what happened and how they felt at the time.

Hochschild’s books have relied on documents and newspapers, personal experiences, memoirs, and biographies, portraits, advertisements from the times, visits to sites/observations, historic records of journalistic descriptions of scenes.

“Whenever you vividly reconstruct a scene you weren’t present for, you want to be sure that readers know you’re not making anything up.” 

He adds:

“If your writing includes a lot of vivid detail and the book reads like a novel, readers may assume that you’re inventing things. It’s important to show that you aren’t, that every crucial detail — especially every quote — has a source.”

Note: Hochschild will be giving a talk at the UC Irvine campus on Tuesday, May 22. 

Narratives in a Digital Age

“My Life in Books”

This week, LJ Digital features essays from writers and readers, discussing stories about books that impacted their lives.      

My Ten-Year Relationship with Harry Potter

By Alex Chan

My affair with books did not begin with love at first sight. Basically, I hated reading. As a five-year-old, I was very impatient in learning how to read. My Mom forced the infamous “Hooked on Phonics” onto me and had me read their “Beginner’s” books every night before I went to sleep. I stuttered through every word, trying to connect the consonant and vowel sounds and somehow turn them into real sentences.

“Thuh-thuh… guh-gurl wih-ih with the vee-oh lin?” I spat out in short breaths.

“Almost, sweetheart. It’s ‘The girl with the VI-olin,’. Not vee-olin,” my Mom said.

My parents and even my teachers thought that I might have had some sort of condition because of how long it was taking me to read. Maybe ADD or even Dyslexia. Although I was young, I think I always knew it was never because reading was hard to learn. It was because I was never reading anything that I was passionate about. I was so reluctant in reading the training books with no plot or adventure that it stalled the whole learning process. At an age where creativity and imagination is at its prime, would a bland book about a girl and her violin really catch my attention? Apparently, it didn’t meet my standards.

Once I hit the third grade, a certain teacher introduced a book to me that had the exact magic I was looking for. I honestly never heard of it before and it’s unbelievable to think that it has now become the first installment of a beloved series. My third grade teacher, Mr. Lawler, put the book in my small hands. I looked at the cover: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. Turning to the first chapter, I saw a picture of a baby with a scar on his forehead. I was still no good with words, but visuals were a universal language. I knew this must have been the main character, Harry Potter. But how did he get his scar? Why does it say The Boy Who Lived below the picture? Hooray! I was able read the title of the first chapter! But I needed to know more.

(*photo credit)

Thus, began my ten-year relationship with Harry Potter. I finished the first book in no time. Mr. Lawler even read the second one during Read-Aloud time after I yammered on and on about how much I loved the first. After learning how to read, my mind could finally wander through the pages and create a world that could never exist in reality. I could fight a troll in a castle or ride a dragon through the skies by simply opening a book. Reading became my absolute favorite subject in school. Little did I know that my love for books would eventually lead me to my career – being a writer.  

I knew I wanted to become a writer when I became a good reader. My passion for books sparked the creativity I needed to write an essay in Mr. Lawler’s class. Each essay we wrote had four categories to be graded on: Content, Organization, Voice and Punctuation. The categories were graded on a scale of one to five, five being the best. To this day, I can’t remember what I wrote my essay on, but I remember it being the first assignment I had ever on gotten all fives on. I remember standing up on my chair and fist pumping both arms once I got my essay grade back. I remember Mr. Lawler asking me to sit back down because we were still in the middle of class. I remember him smiling afterwards because he knew how much this had meant to me.

The day Mr. Lawler gave me that book was the day he opened all the doors for me. It took me down a path that transformed me into a scholar, a poet, a singer and, above all, a writer. To this day, I am still in love with words and using words to create something meaningful. To some, Harry Potter may be just a story, but what readers have gained from the books is invaluable. I stood behind Harry and his friends in their fight against evil from the age of nine to nineteen.

Growing up with these books, I saw that good can conquer evil, love can overcome hate, and hope will always outshine doubt. These lessons were all instilled in me through reading. It was so hard to say goodbye after the story ended, but our adventures will always live within the words on the pages. After my ten-year relationship with Harry Potter was over, I realized the power that words can have. I was inspired to give off the same effect through my words. I want it to be my turn in making a difference, which is why I write.  

Years from now, if I ever earn the honor of having one of my stories published I hope with all my heart that it lies peacefully on sheets of paper rather than the glare of a computer screen. Although Ken Auletta’s data from his article “Publish or Perish” reveals that E-book sales have increased by a “hundred and seventy-seven percent,” I still find opening a book a more satisfying way of reading. I think back to the moment Mr. Lawler placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in my hands. I remember the book looking so simple, but having so much to offer in all its pages. I loved watching the amount of pages shrink as I read on because it meant I was going somewhere within the story.

If he had handed me a tablet instead of a book, I don’t know if it would have had the same effect on me as the book did. In this day and age, technology is trying to integrate multiple applications into one device.

There’s talk of including apps such as an online comments section, a map showing where characters are, a program where characters text you and much more. In other words, there will be more room for multitasking and less for your imagination to be a part of the story. In a book, there is nothing but pages. No other distractions. One needs simplicity to have room for creativity. I mean, how would Harry Potter feel if you were downloading an app in the middle of his quidditch game?

Narratives in a Digital Age

“My Life in Books”

This week, LJ Digital features essays from writers and readers, discussing stories about books that impacted their lives.

OCD and British Accents

By Dora Saltzman

My dad has terrible obsessive-compulsive disorder. He doesn’t count how many times he turns door handles or wash his hands hundreds of times a day. He’s more of a neat freak. And because I have the pleasure of inheriting his DNA, both good and bad, I’m a bit of an anti-hoarder too. We both like to keep things as clutter-free as possible, and although I have no idea what my mom is hiding in her garage, she probably doesn’t either. As a result of all this, I have no history or recollection of what my first book was or what bedtime story I liked to be read (I suppose I could ask, but that will definitely result in a twenty-minute long story about something else from my childhood).

Because my dad is my best friend, it is not uncommon for me to associate most of my childhood memories with him. But this is no exception. When I think back to an early experience with a book, I think of the times that my dad would let me read to him out loud. It didn’t matter the book, although we had our favorites (or favorite, but I’ll get to that). We would sit for hours: he would listen and ask questions, and I would read. Eventually, I decided I would start to do voices for each character, always making sure the voice matched their personality and background: a Southern accent for someone from Nashville, a British accent for someone from England, etc.

When I was in 4^th grade, the infamous Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling came out. I had been reading to my dad for a couple of years now, and when my teacher decided to read the book to our class, I was skeptical. I was never a fan of fantasy books, but I ended up falling in love with it. The only problem was that the teacher did the voices terribly! So later that week my dad and I bought the book, I gradually learned to differentiate my British accents (not easy unless you’re from England), and we finished the book before my teacher did. We loved having each other to keep up with the story lines, not to mention another activity to do with one another.

(Image from blog.carriebastyr.com)

We made it through the first five books; the last ones were published while I was in college and between the distance, my homework load, and loss of interest, it hasn’t happened yet (I’ll admit that I started reading the sixth one on my own but it just wasn’t the same). But we do own the books, so who knows?

(Image from bis-ny.org)

As we discuss the closure of bookstores, I’m extra thankful that my dad decided to make sure I owned the series, even after I lost interest in reading them. If e-books become the dominant means of reading, will buying a hard copy of Harry Potter even be possible? If so, how much would that even cost? I can’t imagine how ridiculous it would be to see kids walking around with iPads.. which I’m sure they’re already doing I’m just removed from that age group. I can’t even imagine what reading an e-book would have been like when I was a kid: my teacher would have called us around a circle and read us Harry Potter from an e-Reader? My dad and I would have sat on a sofa with our iPad? Maybe this could pass for some books and for older readers, but for a kid, for books that are supposed to transform you to a different place, getting rid of those pieces of paper just aren’t an option.