Writing Tools

I hope you get a chance to read my essay "Father Tim: Irish Catholicism and American Journalism."  Unlike most of my work for this Web site, this essay is not about writing, reporting, editing or language. Instead, it is a reflection upon religion and culture, as expressed in the passing of an important figure in politics and journalism.

The responses to the essay -- online and in private -- have been most encouraging. I tell you that because when I began to write "Father Tim" I was not sure what I wanted to say. The word essay comes from a French word meaning "to try or attempt." In other words, I often revert to the essay when I am trying to figure out something that is happening to me or to the world. I don't wait until an idea arrives fully formed. Instead, I sit down, get my hands moving, and see where they lead me.

One question I often get about "Writing Tools" goes like this: "Before you sit down to write, do you think about which tools you are going to use?" The best answer is "No." I turn to a tool when I need it.  I use the tools, they don't use me. What happens more often is that when I reflect upon a finished piece of my own writing, I recognize the use of strategies I don't recall putting into action.

So here are some of the things I learned about my writing from working on "Father Tim."

1. Good writing ideas are often born out of frustration. I am a skeptic, not a cynic, so I imagine that most of the wonderful things said about Russert have a basis in truth. But even the Catholic Church appoints a "devil's advocate" to prosecute claims of sainthood. It occurred to me that there was greater complexity about the man than was apparent in the coverage.

2. Please speak ill of the dead. Writers are often called upon to deliver eulogies for friends and family members, and I am no exception. I've learned in the process the importance of violating common advice that one should not speak ill of the dead. I've found that when I speak honestly of the generally acknowledged flaws of a "loved one," it grants me the authority and credibility to offer genuine praise. I'm not kidding about this. I said about my late father-in-law: "When it came to fatherhood, he was more meat cleaver than Ward Cleaver." That honest humor cleared the air and gave me the chance to describe his hidden strengths. There's something important that we should know about Russert that we don't know because of the loving inhibitions of his friends and colleagues.

3. Build a scaffold. Tear it down. This trick I learned from writing coach Donald Murray. To build an argument, you may have to erect a structure that you then disassemble. In the case of "Father Tim," my earliest drafts contained much more about my personal experiences growing up in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood and going to an Irish-Catholic school. Because I am not Irish, I wanted to establish my "street credibility" as someone who understand the culture in which Russert lived and died. But in the end, those passages seemed too self-referential. I needed them to get to Russert, but when I found what I wanted to say, it was easy to take it down.

4. Conceptual scoops are cool. News scoops are still cool, but in an age of so much fragmented information, conceptual scoops are cooler. In short, a conceptual scoop is a new way of looking at an event or a topic that lends greater insight along with a language to describe it. Think soccer mom. Or NASCAR dad. Think post-partisan president.

The most interesting idea, for me, in "Father Tim" was the idea that his Irish Catholic upbringing had shaped him to believe that accountability was a crucial virtue. I could even argue that Russert had one trick as a journalist: Researching the words and the records of public figures and holding them accountable for what they said and did.

5. Zag when they zig. This is old Philly Inquirer wisdom. When all the feelings, all the ideas, all the conversation, all the reporting is headed in one direction, look another way. If you live in Florida long enough and watch enough sunsets on the Gulf of Mexico, you learn an important trick. When the sun sets and all the tourists get up to leave, stop and look to the east behind you. If you are lucky, great clusters of cumulus clouds will reflect light from the sun below the horizon, often setting off explosions of color. When the tourists zig, I zag.