I’ve been mesmerized by “The Help,” Kathryn Stockett’s book about the complicated relationship between black maids and the white families they worked for in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s.
I’ll save my analysis of the entire book for another day. Right now, I want to share the advice Stockett has for working as a freelance writer.
According to the author bio in the book, Stockett spent 16 years working in the magazine publishing industry, and it shows. Woven into the story line of “The Help” are all kinds of subtle suggestions and helpful advice for writers.
Some of it comes in the form of conversations and letters between Skeeter Phelan, one of the book’s main characters and a young woman who’s just come home from college and no longer fits in with her married friends, and Elaine Stein, a New York book editor to whom she first applies for a job, then proposes a novel idea for a book.
One of the tidbits that Stein shares with Skeeter is great advice for writers of all experience levels:
…go to your local newspaper and get an entry-level job. You included in your letter that you “immensely enjoy writing.” When you’re not making mimeographs or fixing your boss’s coffee, look around, investigate, and write. Don’t waste your time on the obvious things. Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else.
Next time you’re working up pitches to send magazines or websites you haven’t written for before, think about that – is the idea too obvious? Does it bother you? Is it something that bugs you but nobody else? In the book, Skeeter came up with something – will you?
Brilliant and timely. I had a similar thought this week — really if I don’t care about something or have a true sense of intrigue, why would I want to write about it? This reminds me that THE HELP is one book I started and it got lost in shuffle. Need to pick it up again!
Good observations Liz. I find that if I track a subject or specialty for a while, I can get excited about something – good or bad – and carry that enthusiasm over into pitches, whether written or if I’m on the phone with an editor. And enthusiasm doesn’t always equal long or complicated. Sometimes all it takes is a sentence or two: if it’s sincere, an editor will get it.
Michelle
Love the book and like your observation particularly. How cool to notice the writing advice this character offer. I’m often attentive to style and tone and looking for how a writer accomplishes something I like, but this obvious dollop zipped right past me. Also appreciate being reminded that enthusiasm can be contained in a sentence or two.
Just in case you don’t have a means for tracking how readers get here, I followed the link you posted on your introduction at LinkEds & Writers because I liked the set up and tone of your introduction.
Thanks for letting me know how you found WordCount. Glad you liked the post.
Michelle
Michelle, with your post about “The Help” and its fictional characters talking about writing, you took me down my memory lane, back to two summers of my college years in the 1960s when I was the acting Society Editor (the regular editor wanted those summers off) for the Washington (Iowa) Evening Journal.
I quickly saw the opportunity, early in the first summer, to write human interest stories in addition to my wedding write-ups, “Local News” items and meeting accounts. They were some of the best writing assignments I ever had, and I gave them to myself. The editor published them all within a week of my turning them in, and usually only a day or two after my submissions.
Your story brings back old memories for me too. I applied for a job as the society page editor at the Torrance, Calif., Daily Breeze straight out of journalism grad school. I didn’t get it because I failed the pica pole test – I was supposed to size a photo, and measure how much space it would take up on the page, and how editorial copy would wrap around it given the ads that were already on the page, or something like that. I was so nervous I miscalculated. I went to work at a trade magazine publisher instead, which is how I got started as a business reporter. It took me seven years, but I eventually landed a staff reporter job at a (much larger) daily newspaper.
Michelle
I loved The Help, and love that advice too. I often use that criteria (what’s bothering me?) to decide what to write about, both with my fiction and non-fiction. Writing like that helps me get to the bottom of things as well. It might start out as a bit of a rant, but I know I can’t sell a rant, so I’ll look a little deeper, get a little more analytical and maybe even end up with a thoughtful, insightful piece of writing.