Wow. What a weekend. My notebook is full of useful tips, and my brain is full of new ideas and inspiration!
“The Power of Storytelling Journalism”, an intensive conference with lectures and talks from some of the best narrative journalists in the world: Tom French and Mark Kramer. These two were the biggest names, but I also learnt a lot from some of the Norwegian journalists, and the photographer/visual storyteller Melanie Burford. All of these were absolutely lovely people, too! As I said my notebook is full, and although I’d love to share all my new knowledge with you, I don’t think I’m in any way capable of passing it on as well as the speakers at the conference. I have however picked out a few of the things I wrote down, on the first few pages, and I’ll try to explain as well as I can.
A focus in Tom French’s talk was that no matter the story, it should make the reader wonder ‘what happens next?’ The question of what happens next is the engine that drives the story, whether it be factual or fictional. French even made the connection to Maslow’s hierarchy of basic human needs (things such as food, shelter, sex) but saying that he forgot to add one thing: the need to know what happens next.
‘The day you stop caring about what happens next is when you’re ready to die.’ – Tom French
In order to write such a story, you need a brilliant idea. A good idea, no matter how well you execute it, can be no better than that – good, maybe just average. But a brilliant idea, even if you can’t manage to execute it as brilliantly, will still be good, and maybe even great.
A good idea has to be specific – you can’t simply cover a topic. Look for a situation that makes you wonder what will happen next. And, you also need characters unfolding with the story. What is important about the characters in your stories, is that they have to be flawed. Nobody will empathise with a perfect person – most readers despise those who seem to have everything in order. So you need to find someone who is imperfect, and willing to share this.
‘Imperfection is where character is revealed.’ – Mark Kramer
Lastly, something has to happen. Action is what is interesting.
It was also nice to spend some time in my beautiful hometown Bergen.
And I think that’s where I’ll stop for now. I could go on for quite a while to try and explain all the stuff I’ve learnt, but I think the chances are you’ll be bored rather than inspired. To get the rush of new ideas and motivation, like I felt it, you simply had to be there. Next weekend I’m off to Robert McKee’s Story seminar, and will hopefully feel even better prepared to take on a writing challenge or two over the summer.
Until then x
The Adventuring Pen 