I remember an ancient episode of the 1950s TV version of “Superman.” Not only did the Man of Steel save the day, but when he returned to the newsroom as Clark Kent, he typed his deadline story at super speed, … Read more

Writer John McPhee has said the lead is a “flashlight” that shines down into the darkness of the story, giving us a glimpse of what is yet to come.

In journalism, and in many other forms of writing, the first … Read more

Whenever I get comfortable with one model of the writing process, I run into a problem that a particular model cannot solve. If I were a scientist, that dilemma might lead to a new paradigm. Instead, I use my revising … Read more

I am just back from the Mayborn conference in Texas, where I delivered a manifesto of sorts and drew a strict line between the standards of fiction and nonfiction. My so-called “Vow of Chastity” lists 10 points of … Read more

Our recent writing chats have covered a wide variety of topics. This week, we decided to take a different approach and have an open-ended chat.

During the chat, I answered a variety of questions concerning these topics:

• The writing process.
… Read more

Some writers are born funny. Others become funny. And still others have funny thrust upon them. Then there are others, like my long-time colleague Don Fry, who want to be funny so bad that they would sell their first-born. … Read more

There is no editor or writing coach in America who has done more to encourage good storytelling than Jack Hart.

After a distinguished career as a journalism professor at the University of Oregon, Jack reverted to the newsroom of … Read more

For many years at Poynter, we have studied the writing process — the steps we believe that all writers at some point will have to master.

That does not mean we are trying to crank out robotic writers of the … Read more

We have all had the experience of finding ourselves as the outsider in a conversation among insiders. At first we encounter a word or phrase — perhaps of a technical nature — that we do not understand. Before you know … Read more