The great thing about a Pitch Slam is that everyone benefits from courageous writers who conquer their nerves enough to pitch an idea, at a microphone, in front of a room full of their peers and a panel of editors from top publications. By any measure, the Pitch Slam at ScienceWriters2012 was crammed with outstanding pitches [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Elements-of-Craft’
Cramming for the Slam
Posted by Jeanne Erdmann on October 24th, 2012
Few tasks bring more stress and anxiety to freelancers than pitching a story, except coming face-to-face with an editor at a meeting and pitching a story on the spot — in front of an audience. With ScienceWriters2012 and the Pitch Slam in just a few days, we decided to help freelancers prepare by offering up [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft 
Tags: Ask TON, Elements-of-Craft, Erdmann, Ferber, Maher, McKenna, Pitches, Pitching, ScienceWriters 
2 Comments »Like being there: How science writers use sensory detail
Posted by Jyoti Madhusoodanan on October 17th, 2012
“At this time of year, with new growth laying a haze of green over the wet fields, the farm country around this small town smells faintly but distinctly of manure. It’s a rich, warm aroma, appropriate to the place that bills itself on road signs as “Canada’s foremost cattle county.” But follow the dip in [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Elements-of-Craft, Guest Contributor, Madhusoodanan, Narrative, Reporting, Sensory Detail 1 Comment »Sharpening ideas: From topic to story
Posted by Dan Ferber on July 11th, 2012
George Johnson wanted to write about new developments in cancer research for the New York Times. But he needed to find a story that would let him to do it. So last year Johnson, a regular contributor to the Times’ science section who’s writing a book about cancer, cut a deal with his editor. He’d [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Characters, Elements-of-Craft, Ferber, Guest Contributor, Narrative, Pitching, Story Development, Structure 4 Comments »Making the leap from news to books: Critical questions
Posted by Charles Choi on May 30th, 2012
Authors of science books often begin as writers of science news. As a science journalist who is looking to write a book, I’ve become very curious as to how other science journalists made the leap forward. I suspected that the questions that go into books might be different from those that drive newspaper and magazine [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Blum, Books, Choi, Dobbs, Elements-of-Craft, Guest Contributor, Hutson, Koerth-Baker, McKenna, Narrative, Reporting, Zimmer 5 Comments »Pitching errors: How not to pitch
Posted by Laura Helmuth on January 4th, 2012
Writing a good pitch is really tough. Writing a bad one is easy. Editors see the same mistakes over and over again, even from good writers. A few weeks ago, seven editors from a variety of publications participated in a round-table discussion, in a series of group emails, about how NOT to pitch. I started [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Elements-of-Craft, Guest Contributor, Helmuth, Pitching 24 Comments »Lost and found: How great nonfiction writers discover great ideas
Posted by Brendan Borrell on December 13th, 2011
In June 2010, Michael Finkel needed a new idea. The Bozeman-based author of True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa and writer for GQ, National Geographic, and Men’s Journal wasn’t satisfied with the stack of print-outs in the two-inch deep brownie pan on his desk. And none of the hundreds of ideas in a Word document [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Borrell, Elements-of-Craft, Finding Ideas, Guest Contributor 4 Comments »Naming the dog: The art of narrative structure
Posted by Christie Aschwanden on September 14th, 2011
The Open Notebook is doing something new. Since we launched last fall, we have focused on deconstructing the process that goes into individual stories that possess the quality of awesomeness. We love doing these story-behind-the-story interviews and have plenty more in the hopper. But, thanks to a very generous grant from the National Association of [...]
Posted in Elements of Craft Tags: Aschwanden, Elements-of-Craft, Guest Contributor, Longform, Narrative, Structure 5 Comments »