The Open Notebook’S Pitch Database Includes Dozens of Successful Pitch Letters for Science Stories
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Selected Readings Prepared for the AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows, May 2012 All contents are copyrighted and may not be used without permission. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION PART ONE: FINDING IDEAS 1. Lost and found: How great non-fiction writers discover great ideas—In this topical feature, TON guest contributor Brendan Borrell interviews numerous science writers about how they find ideas. (The short answer: In the darndest places.) 2. Ask TON: Saving string—Writers and editors provide advice on gathering ideas for feature stories. 3. Ask TON: From idea to story—Four experienced science writers share the questions they ask themselves when weighing whether a story idea is viable. 4. Ask TON: Finding international stories—Six well-traveled science writers share their methods for sussing out international stories. PART TWO: PITCHING 5. Ask TON: How to pitch—In this interview, writers and editors dispense advice on elements of a good pitch letter. 6. Douglas Fox recounts an Antarctic adventure—Doug Fox pitched his Antarctica story to numerous magazines, unsuccessfully, before finding a taker just before leaving on the expedition he had committed to months before. After returning home, that assignment fell through, and Fox pitched it one more time—to Discover, who bought the story. In this interview, Fox describes the lessons he learned in the pitching process; he also shares his pitch letters, both unsuccessful and successful (see links). 7. Pitching errors: How not to pitch—In this topical feature, Smithsonian editor Laura Helmuth conducts a roundtable conversation with six other editors in which they discuss how NOT to pitch. The conversation is a short course on, as Helmuth writes, “how to inadvertently make us say no.” 8. The Open Notebook’s pitch database includes dozens of successful pitch letters for science stories. We present a small sample of these letters, addressed to a variety of publications: Scientific American, This American Life, Miller-McCune, Discover, National Geographic. PART THREE: REPORTING 9. Ask TON: Dumb questions—It’s often said that a good interviewer isn’t afraid to ask “dumb” questions. Three veteran science writers share their favorite “dumb” questions. 1 10. Taking good notes: Tricks and tools— In this topical feature, Science online news editor David Grimm polls a large number of science writers on their strategies for taking good notes. 11. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee weaves a tale of scientific rivalry and Nobel celebration—In this interview, Science staff writer Yudhijit Bhattacharjee discusses the challenges of reconstructing and weaving together two narratives, without having been present as either unfolded. 12. Ask TON: Anonymous sources—Writers often wonder whether it’s acceptable to use anonymous sources, and if so, whether that weakens the story for the reader. A group of editors share their thinking. PART FOUR: WRITING 13. Ask TON: Using quotes—It’s easy to pad out a story with a few juicy quotes—too easy, in fact. Four experienced science journalists share their thoughts on the judicious use of quotes in science stories. 14. Naming the dog: The art of narrative structure—After reporting is done, writers are faced with a mountain of notes that need to be wrangled into a coherent story. But what structure best fits the material? In this topical feature, TON guest contributor Christie Aschwanden delves into the ways that different writers approach structure and also offers examples of common ways that writers can follow to structure a story. 15. How Rebecca Skloot built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks—In this interview, Skloot and TON guest contributor David Dobbs discuss narrative structure, reporting via photography, and the writer as a character. 16. Deborah Blum traces a poisonous history—In this interview, TON guest contributor Jyoti Madhusoodanan talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Deborah Blum about her methods for researching historical narrative and braiding together multiple narrative threads. PART FIVE: REVISING 17. Ask TON: Are edits suggestions or demands?—Writers often get back a draft of their stories with a lot of red on the pages. Especially when working with a new editor, it’s often difficult to determine whether and when it’s OK to question editors. Veteran science writers and editors tell how to work with your editor as a teammate, in which both are engaged in a process that results in a stronger story. 2 18. Robin Marantz Henig explores the biology of anxiety—In this interview, New York Times Magazine contributing writer Marantz Henig talks about reworking stories several times prior to submitting it, then a few more times based on edits. 19. Roberta Kwok tracks an asteroid as it hurtles toward Earth—This interview includes a discussion of how Kwok’s Nature editors helped shape two key sections of the story during the editing process; the supplemental materials that accompany the interview also include a comparison of the draft versus published versions of one of these sections. 20. Michelle Nijhuis searches for hopeful signs amid a bat plague—This interview is not in itself focused on editing and revision; however, in the supplementary materials that accompany the story, Nijhuis provides a full first draft of her story, with tracked edits by Smithsonian science editor Laura Helmuth. 3 INTRODUCTION Science journalism is changing, but the ability to recognize and sharpen important ideas, ask incisive questions about complex subjects, and tell accurate, compelling stories will always be essential. The best science journalists do far more than translate the latest scientific discoveries into lay language; they provide nuanced context and critical analysis. Such expert synthesis and critical analysis takes thoughtfulness and skill. The Open Notebook (TON) is a non-profit organization (funded in part by a grant from the National Association of Science Writers) that provides unique tools and resources to help science journalists at all experience levels hone their craft. What We Do In our Story-Behind-the-Story interviews, we ask journalists to deconstruct their working process for specific stories. (Many interviews include supplementary features such as pitch letters, notes, draft excerpts, and edits.) Our topical features focus on specific elements of the craft of science journalism—for example, finding an effective narrative structure; taking good notes; finding and sharpening story ideas; or pitching stories well. The Open Notebook’s Ask TON series invites science writers to submit craft-related questions, which we then pose to experienced writers and editors, allowing journalists of all experience levels to tap into the expertise of their peers. The TON Pitch Database contains dozens of successful feature queries to a wide range of publications. TON’s Natural Habitat series invites writers to share their working spaces and the accoutrements that help them do their best work. Who we are The co-founders of The Open Notebook are: Jeanne Erdmann, a freelance medical science journalist based near St. Louis, Missouri, whose work has appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nature, the HHMI Bulletin, Science News, ScientificAmerican.com, Chemistry & Biology, and Cure. Siri Carpenter, an award-winning science journalist in Madison, Wisconsin. She has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, O, the Oprah Magazine, Science, Science Careers, Scientific American Mind, Prevention, and many others. About this document This electronic publication contains a sampling of materials that have been featured at The Open Notebook. We have assembled these materials specifically for AAAS Mass Media Fellows, with an eye toward the questions that young science writers commonly encounter as they embark on a new career. 4 PART 1: FINDING IDEAS Lost and found: How great nonfiction writers discover great ideas (by TON guest contributor Brendan Borrell) In June 2010, Michael Finkel needed a new idea. The Bozeman-based author of True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa and writer for GQ, National Geographic, and Men’s Journal wasn’t satisfied with the stack of print-outs in the two-inch deep brownie pan on his desk. And none of the hundreds of ideas in a Word document on his computer struck his fancy. So, he opened up his web browser and typed a query into Google: “Amazing human feats.” That nebulous search brought him to a YouTube video of a blind man careening down a trail on a mountain bike, and by the end of the day he had a killer one-paragraph pitch for Men’s Journal: The Incredible (Yet True) Way That (A Few) Blind People Can “See”: Echolocation. [editors' note: Find Finkel's pitch at The Open Notebook's pitch database.] There are whole books on interviewing, and whole books on structure, but finding ideas remains one of the most mysterious and frustrating parts of journalism. “Nobody teaches you how to come up with ideas,” Finkel says. “It’s alchemy.” As a freelancer, I find that there are few things worse than running out of ideas and becoming paralyzed in front of the computer, wondering what I am supposed to write about next. It’s not writer’s block, exactly. If I had the idea, I could start the research, and if I could start the research, then I could start the writing. It’s that old catch-22: I don’t want to invest time researching a topic that may not turn into a sellable story, but if I’m not researching that topic, I’ll never find that story. If ideas are essentially information without context then the skill of the feature writer is to recognize their significance, pluck them out of the data stream, and put them to good use. Sometimes the tidbit you stumble upon leads you down an investigative rabbit hole. Other times, you may already have an intriguing story topic, but you’ve never been able to crack it because you’re missing that nugget that turns an academic idea into a riveting narrative.