Thread by @mattvella

1. I got a lot of emails and DMs about the story clock for @MilesMJohnson's @FTMag cover story I posted last week, so I thought I’d post a few narrative nonfic resources in case anybody finds it useful (a thread)

2. First off, there’s no formula, no Secret Right Way to do narrative nonfiction/literary journalism, at least as far as I know. You have to be as interested in the telling as the substance and have a sense of why the idea works as a magazine story

3. News stories are composed of who, what, where, when, why and they convey information. Narratives are composed of characters, plot, scenes, chronology, motive and they convey experience. (For something pretentious, here’s those two frames poorly applied to the Odyssey)

4. Three obvious first reads are Aristotle’s Poetics (@PrincetonUPress put out a new edition last year which I haven’t read but looks interesting), Robert McKee’s classic and, for a deep cut, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe https://t.co/4J1cUMQ12Wbooks.google.co.uk/books/about/St…
books.google.co.uk/books/about/WR…

5. There were antecedents, but the popularising of story shapes probably begins with Kurt Vonnegut’s (failed) 1946 master’s thesis, which he later turned into a series of lectures that hugely influenced Hollywood. Some cringe in here, but fun watching: https://t.co/KBkv4a7Bnf

6. Thus a thousand diagrams and methods and sub-methods and screenplay seminars were launched. They get ridiculous fast, but there are two (following tweets) I find useful in helping organise a complex story with a lot of characters and plot

7. The story clock is one. Not sure if @PlotDevicesCo is still going, but they did these fun analyses of films & television on their blog. (My fave are Indiana Jones and The Fugitive https://t.co/xGYvPbVQ7F)(If you find their ideas useful, support them!) https://t.co/0psVxxhkjcplotdevices.co/blogs/blog/rai…
plotdevices.co/blogs/blog/the…

8. The film/journalism comparison breaks down pretty quickly & is wrong for a lot of pieces, which is why the way Jack Hart spells it out in his great book is more useful. The diagram here is for a fab @estherbintliff story https://t.co/gOneOnDpqGpress.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

9. The most-most useful thing is to read. Read everything @susanorlean, @DavidGrann, @pamelacolloff, @skiphol, @praddenkeefe, @JaneMayerNYer, @JenSeniorNY (leaving out too many) write & the greats Didion, Talese, Trillin, McKelway…& re-read looking for how pieces are constructed

10. That's more or less where we start the structure conversation for @ftmag pieces. Always curious what resources great editors like @seywarddarby @evanasmith @daniellesacks @brianbokeefe @Mstreshinsky point writers to...

@FTMag @seywarddarby @evanasmith @daniellesacks @brianbokeefe @Mstreshinsky ALSO: Editors and writers, please send me grabs of your story diagrams, the more convoluted the better