Customer Reviews

Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

James B. Stewart appears to be in love with himself. But weed out the self-glorifying comments. Harvest the tips, ideas and fruit and you'll find a helpful a step-by-step plan for writing an interesting feature story.

The six page introduction has between 90 and 100 references to himself. He explains why he is qualified to write this book and walks the reader through the events in his life that led him to become a writer. He was the editor of the Wall Street front page.

Nearly every illustration in the book is from his work. The 60 page appendix is three stories that he wrote. His most frequent statement thoughout the book is, "In my opinion" or a variation of that. I can see my high school English teacher cringing and shouting, "Who else's opinion would it be?"

But skim the book with a highlighter. Marking the sections that are instructional, the step-by-step writing processes. Of the 300 actual book pages (excluding the appendix), you'll be left with about half the book. Read them carefully. If you're looking for a good instructional feature writing book, what's left is worth the effort.

Stewart begins the writing process with curiosity. He then shows how to turn that curiosity into idea hunting. He teaches how to gather information, form a lead, and decide on and follow a structure. According to Stewart, the type of question the story is answering tells the author what lead, structure and ending to use. Possible types of questions: What's going on? What are others are doing? What is a certain person really like? How could that have happened? How should I feel? What should my reaction be? What caused such-and-such? What happened? Each of those questions suggests a different story type and requires a different kind of structure and response. Once an author knows the question, the story writing process is basically determined and the author knows how to proceed. This practical guide for feature writing is a very practical guide for the author asking "How?".

I would have rather read a book already edited into just the practical information and a variety of examples (skipping the self glorification). But I haven't found one yet.

James B. Stewart appears to be in love with himself. But weed out the self-glorifying comments. Harvest the tips, ideas and fruit and you'll find a helpful a step-by-step plan for writing an interesting feature story.

The six page introduction has between 90 and 100 references to himself. He explains why he is qualified to write this book and walks the reader through the events in his life that led him to become a writer. He was the editor of the Wall Street front page.

Nearly every illustration in the book is from his work. The 60 page appendix is three stories that he wrote. His most frequent statement thoughout the book is, "In my opinion" or a variation of that. I can see my high school English teacher cringing and shouting, "Who else's opinion would it be?"

But skim the book with a highlighter. Marking the sections that are instructional, the step-by-step writing processes. Of the 300 actual book pages (excluding the appendix), you'll be left with about half the book. Read them carefully. If you're looking for a good instructional feature writing book, what's left is worth the effort.

Stewart begins the writing process with curiosity. He then shows how to turn that curiosity into idea hunting. He teaches how to gather information, form a lead, and decide on and follow a structure. According to Stewart, the type of question the story is answering tells the author what lead, structure and ending to use. Possible types of questions: What's going on? What are others are doing? What is a certain person really like? How could that have happened? How should I feel? What should my reaction be? What caused such-and-such? What happened? Each of those questions suggests a different story type and requires a different kind of structure and response. Once an author knows the question, the story writing process is basically determined and the author knows how to proceed. This practical guide for feature writing is a very practical guide for the author asking "How?".

I would have rather read a book already edited into just the practical information and a variety of examples (skipping the self glorification). But I haven't found one yet.

Anyone newspaper or magazine writer who has thought about the craft will be fascinated and, I hope, ultimately convinced by Stewart's arguments. This is not a book for beginners -- no advice on grammar -- but it is perfect for those who have been in the business awhile and miss the days when they got feedback from teachers and actually talked about issues deeper than deadlines and story lengths. There is deep thought here -- but it's not just philosophy; Stewart shows you how to make concrete improvements in your own writing.

First, this is an exceedingly enjoyable and engaging book. Reading it makes you feel like you know the author personally, and like him. His comments on the Wall Street Journal, where he used to be Page-1 editor, are especially fascinating. One wonders what his former colleagues think. But most of all, this book is extraordinarily helpful to anyone who wants to write narrative nonfiction---more so than I thought a book could be. Particularly useful is the discussion of how to structure stories to create tension and build suspense, to captivate and persuade. The illustrations using Stewart's own stories prove his methods work. And, of course, the stories are fun to read.

I've not seen a better book that explains the craft of newspaper/magazine feature writing. Stewart's previous books were wonderful and he well deserved his Pulitzer Prize. Now he's distilled that knowledge for others. This is the book I use in the classes I teach on magazine/newspaper feature writing.

FOLLOW THE STORY is a joy to read. Any experienced nonfiction writer of features or narrative books will appreciate Stewart's personal stories because we are reassured that our ups-and-downs have been shared by a Pulitzer Prize recipient and Wall Street Journal editor.

I re-read FOLLOW THE STORY while I was writing NIGHTMARE IN WICHITA: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler. Stewart's book helped keep me going in the right direction.

In addition to James B. Stewart's FOLLOW THE STORY, I recommend Jon Franklin's WRITING FOR STORY and Tom Wolfe's THE NEW JOURNALISM. For top examples of the advice given in these books read Stewart's DEN OF THIEVES, Franklin's SHOCK-TRAUMA, and Wolfe's THE RIGHT STUFF.

Thank you, James B. Stewart. Well done.

Robert Beattie
Wichita, Kansas

I found Mr. Stewart's book to be very pleasant to read. I am not a journalist nor a non-fiction novelist by profession but i found many of his expressed techniques to be readily adaptable to any kind of report writing.

I was a little disappointed in how he primarily used his own work as examples. It would have been nice to see examples from other sources. In fact there were times when i thought i was reading a long report on why i should read other works by Mr. Stewart. Nonetheless, reading "Follow the Story" is time well spent.

I'm not one to read a book like this straight through; it is rather one I read snippets of from time to time. I find it most helpful as far as good tips to follow when writing/editing my own non-fiction articles. Although I agree with some other reviewers, that the author would have done well to give examples from the writing of other writers besides himself, I feel that the examples he gave were clear and at times exactly what I needed to hear in order to improve my own work.

I am astonished at the superficiality of this book. I am a fan of Stewart's, yet he continually finds himself unable to say what he seems to be trying to say. Several "as mentioned in the last chapter" passages refer to items unmentioned. Still, he's a smooth writer. Maybe next time his agent and his publisher suggest a book (his own confession), he'll give it the same consideration he's given WSJ pieces brought to him as editor.

At last. This is a book I can show to my creative nonfiction writing students and say: "Go ahead. Think like a writer.... here's a guide."