5 Things Novelists Can Learn From Journalists
I’ve written for major news publications, served as on-air correspondent for CNN, and published three nonfiction books including one that spent two weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover. But as my career as a journalist was kicking off, I also wrote two novels—romantic crime fiction—and I attribute much of the success with those novels to my journalism background.
(5 Different Forms of Journalism.)
As a journalist, my job was to talk to lots and lots of people. Sometimes the conversations were light-hearted and brief. Sometimes they were intense and emotionally grueling. But the sheer volume of the people I spoke to gave me massive amounts of raw material I used to build vivid characters and, I hope, pithy, realistic, and sometimes funny dialogue.
In short, there are things that I learned to do as a journalist—ways of speaking and listening—that made me a better novelist. And I’m going to share my top five with you.
Talk to a lot of different kinds of people.
Many novelists are introverts, and I get it. But your writing is influenced by the inputs around you—what you are reading, the TV shows you are watching. Even, ugh, social media. And the human experience, mediated by other humans and deformed by technology can start to become derivative and, ultimately stale or even sort of phony.
Sure, it will feel familiar but what is familiar about it is that you’ve read or heard it before. For me, what separates good writing from its more impoverished brother is that good writing feels fresh. It makes you understand something in a new way. And here’s who will help your writing maintain that quality—people. I regret to inform you that you have to break out of your shell and force yourself to get more information about the world.
Here’s an incomplete list of the people you should try to have face-to-face conversations with as often as possible: Rich people. Poor people. People with power. People with none. Women, men, kids. Immigrants. CEOs. Immigrant CEOs. Prosecutors. Old people. Defense lawyers. Social workers. Nurses. Doctors. Your dental hygienist. The guy who grooms your dog.
Ask them lots of questions about their lives. People are so much more varied, and their backstories are so much more intense than almost anything you could make up, unless you are writing science fiction.
True story: My dental hygienist, who I thought was one of the most patient, gentle, cheerful women I’ve ever met, arranged for her brother to bludgeon her husband to death. Then she cleverly evaded prosecution for five years, but was eventually charged, tried, and convicted. I could not have made that up. I’m certainly glad I talked to her while I had the chance.
Check out Peg Tyre’s Strangers in the Night here:
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Ask open-ended questions.
Not “Did you immigrate from Guatemala?” but “Can you tell me what you remember about your journey from Guatemala?” Not, “Your uncle shot at the intruder, right?” but, “Take me back to that moment when your uncle shot at the intruder. Set the scene for me. What led up to it?” Not, “What is it like to be running this company?” but “What about you would surprise the people who work for you?”
If you find someone who can tell a story, keep the flow going. Novelists, like journalists, need to find guides who can take them through experiences and help them fuel their own imaginations. Pretty good storytellers are everywhere. But really good storytellers are solid gold. Once you find one, encourage them.
Be careful not to interrupt with other questions or cut them short. Instead, offer big nods and smiles and even a hand at the heart if the story gets very sad. You need to silently signal your engagement and your compassion to keep any worthwhile human interaction going. Figure out how to actively listen without interrupting.
Listen very, very carefully to people when they talk.
Human beings reveal themselves in ways that are much more unique, dramatic, and weird than any dialogue I could ever have made up. Of course, there are some master dialogue writers in contemporary fiction and if you want to become one, I suggest you use tools that journalists use.
Peg’s Pro Tip: Record a conversation as it’s happening on your phone, then feed the file into a transcribing software (otter.ai for example), then read over the transcript of your conversation. I guarantee you will be horrified at how idiotic you sound. Eh. Forget it. You have to get over that.
Because as you cast your eye over the roughly written transcript of the words your subject uttered, the way people phrase things, the senses they use to describe events, and the metaphors they use, especially if English is not their first language, you will be amazed. The nuggets will jump off the page at you and deliver a little jolt. And here’s what you have: the kernel of a character, or a snatch of some amazing dialogue you can weave into your narrative.
Watch body language.
There is a lot more to communication than talking. And to make vivid characters, you have to describe their physical ticks, their little habits, to your reader. Watch how people talk—what they do with their eyes, their hands. Keep track of your own energetic response to stories—your body will sometimes respond to something before your mind does. It all counts.
Show your appreciation.
I’m showing you how talking to lots and lots of people, day after day, inspired me and fed my creativity. But to be sure, this was not a transactional or extractive process. I wasn’t mining them. I was well aware that I was being given something valuable—even when I was talking to mass murderers or maybe especially when I was talking to mass murderers.
I never lost sight of the fact that there was a small miracle taking place—one that has been occurring and reoccurring since the beginning of time. One person sharing their experiences, honestly and thoroughly, with another.
And I always felt, and showed, my appreciation. It’s a common experience, and yet, when you have a great interaction with someone, also authentic and fresh. And you see that it is not so common after all. When you do it right, you know you’ve been given a gift.