Navigating the Road from Journalist to Novelist
By Kathryn Craft | March 9, 2023 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Over many years of attending writers’ conferences, I’ve heard agents share the opinion that a background in journalism is not necessarily a strength in a query letter. As a dance journalist whose intended debut novel was set in the dance world, I questioned this opinion. I thought of my background as a strength.
For two decades I’d been honing my professional writing game while accumulating bylines. I worked well with editors and copyeditors. Tracking down resources? Producing on a deadline? Writing tight? No problem. I’d developed an eye for relevant detail and I understood the value of exploring a story from all angles.
Besides, a legion of writers from Dickens and E.B. White to Stieg Larsson and Geraldine Brooks had parlayed their mad journalism skills into successful fiction careers. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, said in a 2022 interview at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. that she leaned on her experience as a journalist to help her meet the responsibility of conveying, through her historical fiction, “how the decisions that are made in foreign policy [here in Washington, D.C.] play out in the ordinary lives of people all over the world.” Where’s the problem in that?
It wasn’t until many years later, after evaluating novel manuscripts as a developmental editor, that commonalities among certain manuscripts made me see a background in journalism as a trip wire. It’s not that an agent or editor will turn away a former journalist, but that knowledge can forewarn them of predictable pitfalls.
Let’s look at a few.
Too much psychic distance
The problem: The story is reported from afar, as if looking down on the characters. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the way perspective can drive story. In fiction, objectivity is not the point. Fiction readers want to understand the protagonist’s decidedly subjective take on the unfolding story as he negotiates obstacles and suffers setbacks while seeking a deeply desired goal. They want to feel the unwanted consequences of failure like a hot breath on their necks.
The fix: Take the camera out of the Goodyear blimp and install it in your protagonist’s mind, where we’ll gain access to the thoughts, feelings, sensations, beliefs, and experiences that drive his perspective.
Author goals at play
The problem: The former journalist wants to tell you about the characters, how their world works, and what brought them to this moment. When what the fiction reader wants is to experience how the characters’ choices, chosen setting, and story situation are driving the narrative.
The fix: Give your POV character a goal for each of their scenes, and let their choices in pursuit of it inform the relevance of what characteristics and setting details need to be brought forward. Character goals are always more compelling than author goals. The author telling you to buy what they’re selling can be met with “you can’t make me”; the character driven by desire, motivation, and desperation to avoid negative consequences to achieve his goal will be as hard to resist as a riptide.
Disordered paragraphing
The problem: Journalists learn the inverted triangle method of structuring a story. This places the most newsworthy information at the top of the story so that people who only read the first couple lines will have some sense of the news. Paragraphs are built this way too, so that skimmers who read only the first sentence of each paragraph will have gained some sense of the story’s most important information, if not all of its supporting detail.
The fix: Fiction writers should not encourage skimming. Your writing should draw in the reader so that they can’t help but feast on each subsequent line. For that reason, replace the idea of “information delivery” with “invitation to story.” Your first sentence will establish the topic, but each subsequent sentence will pull you deeper into the thoughts or actions, to the point that the reader arrives at the exact conclusion or emotional place the author desired.
Dialogue as quotes
The problem: When a newspaper article features material inside quotation marks, it’s usually to designate information or perspective that the reader can safely assume was delivered either in a speech, a press conference, or in response to an unseen journalist’s questions. In fiction, dialogue should only read like an interview if it is a dramatic one, as in an interrogation under duress. In fiction, those quotations marks are more likely to spotlight conversation between at least two characters, with emphasis on how something is communicated through accompanying tone, body language, and unspoken thought.
The fix: Dialogue in fiction can be a quick exchange of information, it’s true. More interesting, though, is to create a conversation that reveals characters at cross purposes. Think less about the words and more about the energy being exchanged underneath those words. The subtext in a great passage of dialogue might take pages if not chapters to set up—longer than any article would allow—all so that at one point late in the novel, when your protagonist ushers the simple words, “I can,” she will convey import resulting from a lifetime of accumulating character growth.
Adherence to the facts
The problem: A writer trained to report the facts can be stubbornly resistant to modifying a place, timeline, or even an event transplanted into a new timeline for the betterment of a story. Their defense is always, “I can’t change that part. It happened that way.”
The fix: A perceptual shift. This is fiction—what the reader wants, above all, is a great story. If they wanted straight-up facts they would have looked in the nonfiction section. Should you be using a historic event as a jumping off point and desire that your plot adhere to verifiable realities, make sure that true event can work to pressure your protagonist into her arc of change. It may take more inventiveness than you first realize to fit a real event into the psychological through-line of your character’s story. That event, or aspects of a historic person’s life story, may need to be tweaked. This is why fiction disclaimers often say that incidents in the book “are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.”
Shutting out the reader
The problem: Like a rolled newspaper tossed onto a doormat, a journalist is delivering an article. It can be scanned because it demands nothing of the reader; everything is spelled out. This isn’t the emotional experience a fiction reader is looking for.
The fix: A fiction reader seeks to be a co-creator of story. She wants unanswered questions to hang in the air while she seeks answers in the unfolding narrative. She wants the reader to fill time gaps with presumed actions, only to later wonder if, during that gap, something might have happened that will be revealed later. The reader wants the author to trust that she has accumulated a vast storehouse of images in her mind that she can use to ascertain meaning in a phrase such as “the sunlight slanting across her sickbed smelled of wildflowers and youth.”
Professional expectation
The problem: Journalists making the move to fiction may have been employed by a daily newspaper or monthly magazine that allowed them to get paid for their work ever since their first byline. And due to tight deadlines, the work they turned in was often a first draft, perhaps tightened once to fit available space. Journalists who write book-length nonfiction are paid an advance based on a proposal, delivered before they ever start writing. It can therefore be shocking for a journalist switching to fiction to find herself needing a dozen drafts, sometimes over as many years, to find the best way to build their story—and during that entire time they are working on spec, unsure if they’ll ever earn a dime. This can sometimes create…how should I put this…a certain attitude that can make them difficult to work with.
The fix: Recognize that you are learning an art form that is new to you. To learn the craft I needed, I joined my first writing organization after already being paid for my writing for 17 years; it’s necessarily humbling. And it won’t hurt to do what eventually every fiction writer who isn’t currently under contract must: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. With professional writing experience on your side you have many reasons to believe you will succeed, so let that confidence fuel your efforts. Sidestep these pitfalls by learning the story craft that will allow you to compete. Hold yourself to a professional standard of effort so you will finish—an 85,000-word novel is a lot longer than a 1500-word article, but 1500 words per day will get you there. Write a novel for the challenge and the satisfaction of it, while supporting yourself some other way. Network with other fiction writers who can provide honest feedback on your work. Learn the publishing business so you’re ready to make a great impression straight out of the gate—even if that gate is many years off.
Come to think of it, why would a journalist who’s already getting paid for what they do well make this kind of switch, when there’s no guarantee of income? Maybe they’ve wearied of writing about forces outside of their control, like wars and climate change, and want their turn to be the god of story. Or maybe reporting about diminishing budgets for all the programs that enhance a culture has gotten mind-numbingly repetitive. Maybe they recognize that overwhelmed readers can become inured to such news. Another mass shooting? Nothing new here, that’s simply the price we pay for our American freedoms.
Or maybe, like me, they catch on to the way that stories work on a whole different level. A story can sneak in the back door of a reader’s consciousness like the literary ninja it is and change you. Feeling the import of a story in a fresh way can infuse both reader and writer with hope and the promise of agency in a way that reportage alone cannot.
Whatever brought them to this new shore, one thing is certain: journalists who wade into the mysterious waters of fiction writing can build on what they already know while continuing to challenge themselves in every way they love to be challenged. It worked for me.
There’s no need to hide your journalism background and its associated pluses while querying. Just address your weakness by using the search function on the sidebar of this page to learn more about the fixes you need—and then employ them to prove you’ve completed a successful transition.
Trip wire, gone.
Whether or not you were a journalist, did you struggle with any of these issues when starting to write fiction? Do you have any challenges to add that I didn’t list?
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
[coffee]
Thank you for this. I have always considered my background in journalism an asset for all the reasons you mentioned, plus a few more. I have become increasingly aware of its drawbacks, but have had a hard time pinpointing the problems, let alone fixing them. This helps.
This is a checklist that will get you well on your way, Heidi. Enjoy!
True confessions — I’m an old journalist writing in the fiction trenches. Your piece was a great reminder that the who, what, where, and why is a lot more complicated in the fictional world. Thank you, Kathryn.
Great post! A reminder to take what Literary Agents say at writing conferences with a gain of salt.
Or at least, to look behind a quick answer for deeper reasoning. Our assumptions often get us in trouble.
Succinctly and relevantly put, Lorraine. More complex for sure!
My reply was misfiled—check below, and thanks for reading, Lorraine!
Wonderful post, Kathryn. Though I do not have a journalist background, one can read this post as a general checklist for approaching fiction writing and achieving success. I like to think I am living the joys and suffering of my characters and I believe that’s a path away from reporting.
Thanks Beth. And yes, if you can’t feel what your characters are feeling, there’s no way the reader will be able to.
Excellent summary, Kathryn — with journalistic thoroughness and fictional energy too.
I think a related difference is embracing suspense, in its different forms. Journalism begins when the story is already over (or that stage of it is, at the time of writing), and often starts an article by revealing the outcome and then retracing how it got there while keeping that inevitable end in mind.
Fiction is involving the reader with the characters and forces in play, with that in-the-moment uncertainty. The last thing fiction readers want is to know too much of who lives or gets together or what’s going to get them there, they want to wonder and guess all the way through. Spoilers are a problem.
Ken that’s a great point, complicated by the fact that most articles as well as most fiction are written in the past tense. In journalism, that’s because the event is over and ready for reporting. In fiction, you are suggesting that the story events are over, but offering the chance to (re)live them through the character, moment-by-important-moment.
Great post, Kathryn. These same problems trip me up as a former scientist. Thank you for the fixes too :)
Oh, interesting point about scientific thinking! Thanks for that, Vijaya.
You nailed it, Kathryn, especially with regard to the distancing effect of objective reporting. I see that over and over in manuscripts. Voice-driven storytelling is the opposite. POV is personal.
I would add only that a lead is good in reporting the news but the fiction equivalent, a hook, is a weak benefit. If you only need the reader to go a few paragraphs further, well, the lead will do that. A hook has the same disadvantage. It only takes us so far. In a novel there’s much, much further to go and who-where-when-why is not going to propel us the full distance or very far at all.
Good post. Next, the trip wires of screenwriting?
Thanks, Don. Re: the distancing effect of objective reporting, when you see that, do you think: “Ah, journalist?”
Trip wires of screenwriting—good idea!
As for hook, I have many examples of the hand-over-hand, sentence-after-sentence style of drawing that hooks and then continues to draw the reader in, well beyond those opening paragraphs. So while I get what you’re saying, I also think the “weakness” of a hook depends on what was used, how it sets up the novel, and why the author used it (say, shock value vs. opening at a relevant moment of tension).
You nailed it.
Thanks for reading, Leanna!
Thanks, Kathryn, for another clear, useful post. It can serve any fiction writer, former journalist or otherwise. I would add only that those of us who write feature journalism employ much of what’s in the fiction writer’s tool bag. We aren’t constrained by the conventions of news journalism that you speak of. Many of the most successful New Journalism writers started as fiction writers (Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, et al), or started from the other direction like Tom Wolfe. The end result is a blurring of the lines, but as you make clear, this is not or shouldn’t be true of news reporting.
Good point, Barry. As someone who wrote arts features, I too had employed the anecdotal opening that hooks, attempt to contextualize people through body language, etc. But the one about quotes was still very much in play!
Fun story: I was once interviewing the first uber-famous male American ballet dancer, Edward Villella. I was so excited for the opportunity that I went even though I could hardly breathe, as I had thrown out my back just before leaving the house. (Pain always brings a memory into sharp focus, lol.) It was the first time that I’d done a group interview—three other journalists were there as well, but I was the only one who had brought a tape recorder, which I had sitting on my lap in plain view. During the interview, Villella leaned forward and replied to all questions, no matter who asked them, as if right into the recorder! I guess we all want our quotes to go down in history. But quotes they were, not dialogue, and led into with “When asked if…,” keeping the individual journalist out of it. So I stand by that one!
Epilogue: When the various stories were printed the next day, it was interesting to see the huge difference between my transcription and the misquotes from the authors taking notes. They captured the spirit of what Villella said, but through the filter of their own vocabulary and perception.
Good point, Barry. I think of someone like Erik Larsen and his approach to historical nonfiction. By exploring lesser-known aspects of a historic event, he keeps the reader in suspense. His characterization of real people and fact-based speculation on what can’t be documented reads like the best of fiction.
Great example Christine, thx!
Yes, and oh, yes! Kathryn, you’ve nailed it. It took me years to learn these lessons while moving from a journalism career to fiction writing. I will share your insights with others to save them time.
Thanks for the affirmation from one in the trenches, Joni. It was my great hope to help recovering journalists save time by clearing away confusion that is all too understandable.
The most important part of the advice was the idea of leaving the story open to the reader to co-create. Journalism is deductive writing. Fiction is inductive, giving readers a way to put their imaginations to work. Also, a big shout-out to “just the facts.” I write historical fiction, do the research, then shape what I learned as the story requires it. Believability, not realism, is our goal as novelists.
Loved your comment, Ron. Thanks so much for extending the conversation.
Thanks, Kathryn, for sharing this — and it’s so well written! (I kept admiring your word choices and transitions and trajectory). I’m a trained journalist, but to be honest, as a novelist now I had not consciously recognized any particular drawbacks of that background as applied to effective storytelling. You opened my eyes–and I see how right you are on these points.
Hi Thomas, thanks so much for your kind words. Now that your eyes are open to these points, I hope you’ll never be able to “unsee” them!
This is a great area for exploration, Kathryn. Reporting, feature-writing, and fiction all require distinct sets of skills. I’ve done all those things and the one I can’t get away with is straight reporting. Good thing that’s not what we’re trying to do here. I just wanted to point out that the woods are full of ex-journalists writing novels because that’s what most of us really wanted to do in the first place. Raise your hand if you were told as a teenager, “Writing books is no way to make a living. You should go into journalism and get some training.”
“I just wanted to point out that the woods are full of ex-journalists writing novels because that’s what most of us really wanted to do in the first place. Raise your hand if you were told as a teenager, ‘Writing books is no way to make a living. You should go into journalism and get some training.’”
A most excellent point, Michael! Thanks for adding this perspective.
This is fascinating. Katherine. I often thought of my previous career as a private investigator as giving me skills similar to those as a journalist, and I too considered that a strength. In many ways, it was. But as you point out, some of those strengths become weaknesses if you think your job is to impart information, not provide an immersive reading experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience, David. Vijaya implied the same about her career in the sciences. But I believe in both of your cases, your backgrounds are considerable strengths. I have spoken many times at high school career days, where a kid will undoubtedly ask, “If I want to be a novelist, what should I major in? I always answer the same way: “Something you are interested in.” That’s better than journalism, in my POV. At the daily where I worked, one of my arts section editors had been a political science major and the other had been a philosophy major! Exploring our interests deeply can develop an interesting perspective, that will in turn allow our individual voice to emerge.
A journalist endeavoring to transition to fiction may want to consider as a guide the two volume set ‘Wordcraft’, and ‘Storycraft’, by Jack Hart. Mr. Hart, former managing editor of the Portland ‘Oregonian’, writing coach, and Pulitzer committee member, shepherded numerous narrative feature articles to Pulitzer awards. Hart’s series concentrates on immersive narrative non-fiction featuring examples from the writings of authors as diverse as Ted Conover, Laura Hillebrand, John McPhee, and Eric Larson, (among others) to exemplify, as Norman Sims points out in ‘The Literary Journalists’, that “like anthropologists and sociologists, literary journalists view cultural understanding as an end. But unlike such academics, they are free to let dramatic action speak for itself.” I suggest that the technique of immersive narrative non-fiction successfully bridges the gap between hard reporting and fiction. Mr. Hart lights the path.
Hi Jay, thanks for sharing those resources. You’ve mentioned many great writers here, and I revere the work of many creative nonfiction writers. Certainly, their work lies closer to fiction than straight reportage. But they are still building story on fact, instead of taking the leap to what feels true. Since these books do not appear targeted to those transitioning from journalism to fiction, I suggest that anyone interested in help in that endeavor thoroughly vet them to make sure they will meet their needs.
Hi, Kathryn. Thanks for your response. As the transition from hard news to anything but is a rigorous journey at best and a frustrating slog at worst (which some commenters here have indicated it is) I suggest that teaching a hard news reporter how to do literary journalism can help to bridge the creative gap between reporting fact and authoring fiction. In somewhat subtle ways, these books do just that. What they are not is a paint by numbers how-to.
Great thought-provoking article, Kathryn! Love the points with problems and fixes. I started out a as a daily news reporter for Gannett News Service then did feature magazine profiles (loved the longer deadlines on these!).
When I started out with fiction, it was hard to break away from that linear format for me. Even flashbacks, no matter how short, felt as it I’d stopped the story and it had no movement. I had to learn how to use brief flashbacks TO move the story forward by revealing character, plot, or raise new questions. This was a fun challenge!
THEN I went from writing tight-stories with a news background to overly writing my first novels in early drafts. It took years to hone that in to write a tight draft from the start and be selective in language, characterization, world building, and plot reveal to keep that movement.
Phew! It sounds exhausting but thrilling all at once to read that rollercoaster ride I just described. Much like a writer’s experience can be over time as we fill our writer’s toolbox–and a unique ride for each book.
Learning curve as roller coaster ride—I love that, Donna! So true for all of us, I’m sure. Thanks for sharing this. I think the challenge is, ultimately, what draws us all to fiction. At least that’s true for those of us lifelong learners who keep returning to the page. You included!
This resonated so much with me — especially the points about too much psychic distance and the (stubborn) desire to adhere to “the facts.” I am living proof that for former journalists, the struggle is real! ;-) Thank you, Kathryn, for the excellent ideas on how to navigate the bumps in the road!
I appreciate you sharing your experience, Kate. That stubborn adherence to facts points to the fact that sometimes, “too much” research can be bad for a fiction writer, as the former journalist within is tempted to let facts stand in where imagination could have taken flight.
Kathryn, thanks for this rich article and for inspiring so many juicy comments. Once again, WU, despite its focus on fiction, is helping me with my research-based narrative nonfiction WIP. Such a fine and generous community!
Wonderful, Anna, and I couldn’t agree more about the WU community. While I haven’t read them, you might want to check out the resources Jay Esse mentioned above.
A former journalist myself, your points resonated with me, Kathryn. I had a hard time switching the nonfiction style to fiction. A critique group I belonged to kept pointing out that I was “telling the story” and needed to show it, and my brain couldn’t grasp the problem until one of the members who was a published author took me under her wing. We met outside the normal meeting times and she took me through one of my scenes to show me how to “show the story.” Aha! Sometimes I still fall back into the telling mode and catch myself up on that in rewrites.
Great to hear from you Maryann! Thanks for sharing your experience, Maryann. The change in perspective can be a huge challenge, but as you say, once you are aware of these pitfalls, you can start to catch them more quickly.
Excellent and helpful piece. Thank you! Especially your point about too much psychic distance. I’ve worked hard to improve that aspect of my fiction writing. Well done, Kathryn!
That can be a hard one to break, but you can do it, Sarah! I clicked through to your bio to see if you’d been a journalist and saw that you worked on Mason’s Road! I had a creative nonfiction piece in one of the earliest editions edited by Elizabeth Hilts, “Standoff at Ronnie’s Place,” and came up to read it at an event at Fairfield in 2011. Any chance you were there then? That would be crazy.
Hi Kathryn! I replied at length to your email. If you don’t see it, check your spam folder. I have the world’s oldest domain name on my email. :-)
Excellent post with excellent analysis and excellent advice! Wow. I never considered myself a journalist, but I do have that background from family and some school-time experience, and I can co-sign all of this.
I would say, also, that we could mirror this post and hand it out to many modern-day “reporters,” who seem to be more focused on juicy story than on helpfully conveying reality.
Thanks for reading, Kristan! I hope this will be a help to you. And great point about the mirroring. Features are one thing, but when reporters get overly invested in a juicy hook, facts can slide sideways.
Love this! As a nearly lifelong journalist myself, I never gave much thought to the way those skills enhance or detract from novel writing. Thanks!
Hi Mary, thanks for reading! A (jaded) literary agent commented on one of the Twitter posts for this piece that journalism and fiction are two completely different types of writing (true) and that people can rarely do both well (!?). I beg to differ. If you learned one—and figure out how to recognize the differences—you can learn the other as well.