Tips on writing: Timeless lessons

One night when I was in college, I was working in the library on a paper that my journalism professor had assigned. He asked us to write a news story on the college trustees’ decision to make several program cuts and raise tuition for the fifth year in a row.

I was struggling with the paper. I had the details to the story down pat. I listed out the cutbacks planned for student support services. This included several tutoring programs. And, I went into detail on the budget numbers. Unfortunately, the story had no life or soul. I offered little context on what the changes meant. I wrote like I was writing out my grocery list. I checked all the boxes, but it was sleep-inducing text. I remember getting so frustrated. I toyed with the idea of quitting school. If I couldn’t write one little news story, how was I ever going to make it in the real world?

Look beyond the forest for the trees

Fortunately, for me I ran into my professor on my way back to my dorm. It’s a small world. I wanted sympathy, but instead he put a mirror up to my face. He answered my questions with his own questions. And to top it off, he laughed at me. He literally laughed. He ended up doing me a huge favor though. He told me to go back and read “the Gravedigger story.”

I looked at him like he had three heads. He told me to go back and read the story New York Herald Tribune columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote on November 26, 1963 on the burial of President John F. Kennedy. The country and world were in shock after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas. Most reporters wrote about the funeral procession from the Capitol back to the White House, then to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and finally to Arlington National Cemetery. Meanwhile, Breslin, in his story, “It’s An Honor,” talked with the cemetery worker who dug JFK’s grave.

He followed grave digger Clifton Pollard from the kitchen of his three-bedroom apartment to his job at the cemetery. Pollard wasn’t supposed to work that Sunday, but he expected the call from the cemetery foreman and told Breslin that it was “an honor for me to be here.”

When Pollard got behind the wheel of a reverse hoe to pull up the first scoop of dirt for Kennedy’s grave, cemetery superintendent John Metzler and him stopped to look at the soil. “That’s nice soil,” Metzler told Breslin. The story was simple and to the point. Yet, it said so much more about Kennedy and the devastation that Americans were feeling. Breslin found a way to tell a big story by describing something small that says more than the bigger thing ever could.

Where great storytelling begins

My professor’s advice were the words I needed. I went back to the drawing board. I found two students. One was a freshman and the other a grad student. They both spoke about how they would be affected by the tuition increases. The freshman suggested that even a 2% or 3% increase in tuition would force him to transfer. In addition, he talked about how one of the programs planned for the chopping block, tutoring services, had been a big help his first semester. It meant the difference between an A and a B in his Organic Chemistry class. It was one of the best stories I ever wrote as a college student.

I couldn’t help but think about Breslin’s story last week after reading a Poynter Institute piece titled 50 Timeless Lessons on Good Journalism. The piece contained so many bits of writing advice that have touched me over the years and still touch me today.

Here’s a few of the lessons:

–Always get the name of the dog. (In short, get the details. They come first, paving the way for great writing.)

–Make every word count.

–Fear not the long sentence. (Take that AI. You too WordPress.)

–Be curious.

–If a thing can be said, it can be said simply.

–If your mother says she loves you, check it out. (Mom, if you’re reading this, you do love me, right?)

–When you repeat a word, make sure it’s worth repeating.

–Endings matter.

Which lessons can you most relate to or like best?