Tag: Roy Peter Clark

Novelist Joseph Conrad once described his task this way: “by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see.” When Gene Roberts, a great American newspaper editor, broke in as a cub reporter in North Carolina, he read his stories aloud to a blind editor who would chastise young Roberts for not making him see.

When details of character and setting appeal to the senses, they create an experience for the reader that leads to understanding. When we say “I see,” we most often mean “I understand.” Inexperienced writers may choose the obvious detail, the man puffing on the cigarette, the young woman chewing on what’s left of her fingernails. Those details fail to tell – unless the man is dying of lung cancer or the woman is anorexic.

At the St. Petersburg Times, editors and writing coaches warn reporters not to return to the office without the name of the dog.” That reporting task does not require the writer to use the detail in the story, but it reminds the reporter to keep her eyes and ears opened.

Excerpt from: Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark