Thread by @AlexSteffen

A particular challenge of climate writing in this moment is that the very same speed of change that's rendered many previous ideas about impacts, solutions & responses obsolete has also rendered some well-cherished climate storytelling approaches unsound, or even untrue.

Thread

https://twitter.com/AlexSteffen/status/1024651801834844160

Most of us who consume climate media don't necessarily think of it as something that is crafted.

It is, though: individual writers assemble climate stories out of the material they have at hand, using tools of the writing craft they've developed over their work lives.

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One of the most essential tools of craft is pattern.

We write stories that fit patterns—often a small selection of patterns we're particularly good at—because crafting daringly original narrative is hard and time-consuming and often fails.

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Into those patterns we slot motifs and moves—small notes we know the audience will get; flourishes that get us past the boring bits.

A lot of the time, those motifs are cliched images, those moves are well-worn tropes.

But when storytelling under a deadline, you use what works.

Climate writing is mostly done to a handful of patterns, and packed with a group of well-worn motifs and moves. Read with an eye to spotting them and you'll be able to pick them out in no time.

Craft is visible to those understand craft.

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However—and here's where it gets tricky—craft is also political.

If we believe stories have meaning and impact, then we have to also concede that how we craft those stories involves choices about the meaning and impact we're creating.

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On political stories—and climate writing is nothing if not a set of political stories—our craft decisions are political.

Every climate story is inherently political, even if it is not partisan, even if the writer has no intention of picking sides or showing favor.

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Much climate writing, as practiced, rests on a set of long-established craft choices whose political meaning has shifted since they were first adopted (and some that were bad choices from the start).

Much of the craft of climate writing is out of date.

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(I won't list those outdated components of craft here, since about 1/2 of my Twitter feed is direct or indirect commentary on the rusty emptiness of much of our societies' climate storytelling.)

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This is a source of real conflict in the field right now, because to some, demands that writers acknowledge the political content of these long-standing craft moves sounds like demands that they become climate activists... or worse, that obediently serve activists' agendas.

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We've seen this play out many times recently, and now with the @nytmag climate piece.

A repeating process:
a) new climate story with conventional craft choices;
b) critique of the political meaning of those choices;
a) defense of journalistic freedom;
b) angry rebuttals of fact.

It's very dysfunctional, and unnecessary.

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But this is a dysfunction that only those of us who write about climate can fix.

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And we can only fix it by acknowledging that the craft choices we've been using to tell climate stories are broken. They're not able to get at the core truths of the stories we're trying to tell, and they're not good fits for the moment in which we're telling our stories.

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Trust me on this. I've been doing this for almost three decades. I've seen a lot of this history first hand. I've published more words about climate and the planet than all but a handful of people.

Trust me: We need new narratives, we need fresh eyes, we need raw approaches.

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That need—for new narratives, fresh eyes, raw approaches—also means we have two other needs: brave publishers/producers and sophisticated audiences.

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We need brave publishers because professional writers can only—at least over the long term—write what they can sell. If original climate writing doesn't bring in money, it can't be sustained.

Too often, publishers want new, audience-grabbing takes on the same old crap.

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But we need audiences, too. We need people who buy, read, engage with and promote new climate writing. We need advocates for better.

It's a commercial necessity, but it's also a creative necessity.

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Climate writing is hard, emotionally punishing work.

Many, many talented people can't take the secondary trauma reporting on planetary catastrophe inflicts.

Every climate writer you read who's any good has fought fierce battles within themselves to keep going.

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This burden is one of the reasons why being a climate writer and finding yourself under attack by the people you're writing for is so maddening.

(I say this as someone who has often found himself under attack, and decided more than once to quit altogether because of it.)

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We need audiences who are willing to be active supporters and encouragers of new climate writing—and who are willing to act as its public fans and defenders.

(Critique is important, but it fails at its task where it results not in better work, but less work or safer work.)

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