Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)

by Jack R. Hart

One of the things that puzzled me most when I started coaching narrative was that journalists, professionals who wrote every day on deadline, often had the toughest time thinking like storytellers. Why should that be? I knew many of them well, and I can vouch for the fact that they had no trouble spinning yarns around campfires or over beers. When a toddler asked for a bedtime story, I doubt any of them perched on the edge of the bed, picked up the morning’s newspaper, and read aloud, in stentorian tones, that “two River City men were killed Wednesday when their car plunged off a Highway 23 embankment and hit a tree, state police said.”