Quickies

Tom Wolfe: "It's great to see this many people involved in journalism. I just wish there were more readers."

"It's the emotional part of crimes that we do not report in our newspapers... We report what kind of guns the assailants are carrying. That's not the story. The story is the fear. The fear of the victims and the fear of the assailants."

"In the writing of narrative journalism, there is not enough writing about mommy... I don't think we should ever gloss over mother in non-fiction to explain the destiny of a subject."

"The city has to be a character."

"The future is yours. This country has hardly been explored. This is a bizarre country."

Mark Kramer: Read your mother your notes (because she's the only one who will listen to you). Remember when she perked up. Remember those good parts because you're going to cut and paste them into your document.

Be fussy, but paste too much. Make a junk sculpture. Then select a topic in all this material. Remember you're sculpting someone else's experience.

Adam Hochschild: Report broad. Collect as much detail as possible.

Upon returning, tell someone about what you learned. We're all instinctively very good editors of ourselves as talkers. Edit what you're going to say to fit inside the frame you have.

Jacqui Banaszynski: Who you chose to tell your story through is a make or break point.

When looking for a character, you have to find a character who can carry your entire story.

Accessible personality, authentic, credible. No fatal flaws.

Make sure your characters really reveal what you're trying to say.

Follow your fear to the most uncomfortable place. Most of the discomfort is yours.

Turn your subjects into storytellers through interviewing. Ask the questions that will put a photo image in their minds so they can help you recreate your scene.

Focus around your story; what is it really about. One message.

The closer you get the the action, the better the scene, the better the characters.

Every question must be followed by five more.