Writing is like dating

We already have — and use — all the tools we need to focus the stories we tell.

Earlier this week, I spoke to a group of students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism about pitching — the concise and compelling messages journalists send to editors or publishers to convince them to hire us to write the article we’re proposing. (Book proposals work similarly, though they are longer and much more detailed.) I started the conversation by asking the students a question whose answer all writers should know before they start writing: What is my story about?

We cannot convince anyone of anything if we don’t know what we’re after and for sure we cannot convince an editor or publisher to hire us if the story we’re offering to write is too broad, if it lacks specificity, if it sounds like something that could go in so many different directions that the audience might get lost and give up along the way — and that’s assuming that the writer doesn’t get lost and give up first, which is very likely to happen.

I asked the students, “If a friend comes up to you and say, ‘I know the perfect person for you?’, what would you tell your friend?” Of course we’ll want more information, right? We’ll want specifics and will likely not be satisfied by adjectives alone to define this “perfect person” (purposely in quotation marks because there’s no such thing as a perfect person, but I digress). If the friend says the person is funny, you’ll likely want to know, what kind of funny? If the friend says the person is good looking, you’ll for sure ask for a detailed physical description.

As I often say, adjectives are subjective. In personal interactions, we intuitively know that, which is why we probe for more — about the potential love interest, or the roommate we might be sharing an apartment with, or the neighborhood we’re considering moving to, or the company we may be working for next. And if we can do that in our personal lives, it means that we can and should apply it to our writing practice or any type of story we tell in a professional setting.

Here is a helpful example and exercise: If I tell you I want to work on a story about the state of nursing home care in New York, does that strike you as compelling and focused enough to get you to pay me to write this story? I’ll bet it doesn’t because it isn’t. That might change if I tell you that I want to work on a story about the impact of budget cuts on staffing levels in nursing homes, and that I plan to do so through the lens of nursing homes serving low-income communities in New York. (If you have examples from your own practice, please, drop them in the comments or send me a note.)

How do we get to this level of granularity? We ask the “what about it” question again and again and again and again, just as many of us would do if we were presented with the possibility of meeting the “perfect person.”

Writing is like dating. We probe for specifics, peel layers, ask questions and also ask the same question in different ways to see if we might get a different answer. We should go after the most focused perspective/perception we can get to before we invest our time and energy into a project/person. Adventures are fun, yes, but if you’re a writer, make sure you add some predictability to your adventure if you’re trying to convince an editor to pay you for your work.

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Book update: I have finished the manuscript to my memoir! It took asking a lot of what-about-it questions and much, much more. I’m now giving it one final read before sending it to my literary agent and a small, select group of friends who have volunteered to read it and give me feedback.

Oh, and while my dating game may be a bit rusty, my pitching skills are still sharp. I’m working on a perspective piece, my first for a magazine I’ve long read and admired. More on that soon.

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A lot of you have reached out asking how you can help since I announced my resignation from my full-time job as editorial director at Futuro Media. One great way to help is to invite your friends and connections to subscribe to By Fernanda Santos and join our community. In return, I’ll offer you some perks. For more on that, check out this earlier post:

With love and purpose, always.

Fernanda.