Jackie Danicki

It sounds so obvious, but I’ve lost count of the number of writers I’ve heard complain that it’s hard for them to do X or Y, and wonder aloud how to do X or Y without effort. Where they got the idea that writing isn’t hard work, or that it’s supposed to come easily, I don’t know. Everyone laughed when Francis Flaherty, during a Q&A session after his reading in New York last night, put it as bluntly as this:

Writing ain’t easy.

Frank, as everyone calls him, has been an editor at the New York Times for 16 years, and spent five years on his daily train commute between NYC and Long Island writing this wonderful book. If you’ve put the majority of your attention as a writer (and reader) on style and grammar, why not turn your attention to what makes a story great? I was especially interested in this as someone who is perhaps unreasonably frustrated with the number of scribes who take pride in having Garner’s rules memorized…and then spit out work that is boring, without tension, or just plain bad (but it’s grammatically correct!).

Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, there are specific ways to engage readers and make them as much a part of the story as what is written on the page. In The Elements of Story, Frank writes beautifully on just how to do that, including plenty of examples. It has all the benefits of reading a textbook, with the right amount of interactivity to keep the endeavor out of boredom’s way.

Wednesday night at Jackson-McNally bookstore in Soho, Frank whipped out what I referred to as his “old school Power Point” - a single page of a flip chart - and led us through the components of chapter 22 of his book. It was a new spin on the traditional reading and hugely enlightening. I was happy that there was a full house, with many people left standing after all the chairs were filled, to spend time learning from this wise man. But the best part may have been seeing his proud wife videotape proceedings from the back of the room. Thanks for a memorable night, Frank!

Filed under: Life