Slant: The Key to Nonfiction

September 2, 2008

 

Mary Rosenblum 10:0:  Hi, folks. Welcome, Mcnellism. You're new here, aren't you?

Mcnellism: I am, thank you. I'm mid-third lesson, but have had a busy summer so I haven't gotten into the chat and forums until this week.

Mary Rosenblum: Nice to meet you. And if you're on Assignment Three, this is a good topic for you today. Slant, like characterization, is one of those topics we can discuss endlessly. Because just as characterization is the key to fiction Slant is the key to nonfiction.  Let's start by looking at the basic distinction between the fiction and nonfiction marketplace since many nonfiction writers start out with fiction first and then try nonfiction. In fiction, it is HOW you write a story that matters. It is the author's distinct voice and manner of storytelling that make the story compelling. But in the nonfiction marketplace (excluding personal narrative) good writing is a given.

Joann: I started with non-fiction and have just completed the course. What now?

Mary Rosenblum 10:05 am: Well, Joann, are you going to go on with another course? Otherwise, it's just a matter of writing and submitting your work. It's actually quite easy to break into the nonfiction marketplace.  It is a HUGE marketplace and editors need to fill every issue. They NEED new writers.  But where most new NF writers run into problems is understanding what an editor needs.

Dinie: Heck, I can't get a good slant written yet.

Mary Rosenblum:  Well, dinie, that's what we're going to look at today. An editor doesn't want good writing. An editor EXPECTS good writing. What a NF editor wants is a piece that suits THIS magazine.

Joann: My main interest is in travel writing.
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Mary Rosenblum: So let's look at travel writing as an example, Joann.  You visit Greece. So now you have great pictures and lots of info that you've recorded in your notes about places to eat, things to do, etc. You write an awesome piece about your vacation there.  Will it sell?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Why not?  Well, let's look at three different magazines.  One magazine is all 'how to', focusing on specific places to stay and restaurants.  Their articles tend to focus on one city and they're more about food and comfort than sightseeing, although they mention places of interest.   Your piece is all about your experiences, including lots of sightseeing tips. The editor doesn't want those sightseeing tips, and your piece doesn't include the upscale hotels and restaurants that the magazine readers want.  So your piece gets rejected.  Another magazine focuses on cheap places to stay, local food you can buy and targets younger people.  The third magazine is all about what to see with minimal mention of places to stay and places to eat.  If your proposed article covers topics other than what those specific magazines want, the editor will simply say 'no thanks'. A NF editor expects his/her writers to know what the magazine needs and offer that. They will not teach you how to suit their slant. So it is YOUR job as writer to decipher that readership and write for it.   And that is how you make a living.

 You take your notes on your trip to Greece  and you write one piece for that upscale mag, giving specific details about the fancy hotels and the upscale restaurants.   You write a second piece about the hostels and the local markets where the backpacking youth readers can feed themselves.   You write a third place on all the great hikes you can take.   You write a fourth piece on traveling with a family and young children...what to do with them.   And then you can repeat this with every city in Greece that you visited. By the time you're done, you may have sold six or seven pieces of varying length. When you are trying to crack a market I recommend that you read an entire year's worth of issues.

Sure it's money.   But if you become a regular writer for that mag, you'll get lots of assignments.   Editors plant magazine issues a year ahead and assign most pieces to their regular freelancers.   They call those freelancers for quick fillers. You'll get a call ...'I need a piece about such and such by next week'.   Mostly, the pro freelancers are going to have several mags they write for regularly and often and then sell work other places as well.

Dinie: spend a day a week at the library to eliminate the cost of buying so many mags.

Mary Rosenblum: That's one good way to do it, dinie.  Most libraries carry a wide range of the large circulation mags and that is where you're going to make a decent wage.  When you're breaking in, you can target the smaller mags, the ones that don't pay a lot.  The established pros won't bother with them much...not enough income. So the editors tend to be hungry. You won't make much money that way, but you WILL make clips.

IShouldBeWriting: Didn't I see a trading forum here at LR Post a Note?

Dinie: Yeah the sample swap forum.

Mary Rosenblum: And yes, the sample swap. That's why it's there.
The more you work at mastering slant, the better you'll get at it.  So what do you look at when you're analyzing a magazine for slant?  You look at the readership. Who are they? What is their age group? Their income level?  How do you figure that out?  

IShouldBeWriting: Read the ads?

Mary Rosenblum:  Yep, Should be. Exactly.   Now you look at the articles themselves.  : As Mcnellism said earlier, what are the themes?   So it's a garden mag.   Are the articles mostly about basic how to, for beginners?   Are they more about specific cultivars?   Are they more about landscaping, less about horticulture?  Those are your themes.  

 And finally, look at the style.   I had an older student who had traveled extensively to some very remote places.  His experiences were perfect for mags on extreme hiking and off the road journeys.  BUT....all those mags used a high-energy, punchy writing style.   He wrote in a contemplative, meandering style that was wholly unsuited to those magazines.  I could not get him to change the style of his writing and he never sold a single piece to those mags.  The content was right, but the style was totally wrong.

Mcnellism: Do many magazines accept writers working together? In case that situation arises. Maybe one of them has the experience and the other the style the magazine is looking for...or do editors tend to shy away from that?

Mary Rosenblum: I doubt the editor cares how many people are involved as long as cutting checks isn't a problem for the mag, Mcnell.   You could ghost write for an elderly friend, say, and split the checks.  Whatever works for you and that person.

JuliaB: How is it possible to change our writing style? Do we wait for our mood to change? (ha)

Mary Rosenblum: Julie, writing style is something YOU control.   While every writer has a personal voice and manner of writing that is YOU, you can change how you write, and should change it.  If I write a Sword and Sorcery fantasy, I'm going to use a different style than I'll use for a YA adventure or a hard SF story. Your style should be flexible. I'm talking about your conscious creation of a particuliar style here...it can have a lot of energy, be punchy and fast paced.  It can be contemplative with a lot of asides to the readers.

Rae: But won't you be better in one style than another?

Mary Rosenblum:   Well, certainly you will be at first, Rae.   But an accomplished pianist can play Beethoven and jazz.   They’re not stuck with one particular style of music.

IShouldBeWriting: Is there a difference between style and voice?

Mary Rosenblum: Semantics, should.  They're often used to mean the same thing.  And they can be confusing if you're also talking about character voice.  The writing vocabulary is a bit sloppy.  An excellent exercise as a NF writer is to select a couple of very different magazines and copy the style. See if you can write something (it can be wholly made up) that sounds like the pieces in the magazine. Well

Joann: The magazine articles I have read are, for the most part, boring. I rarely finish one after about the third paragraph.

Mary Rosenblum:, Joann, the NF market may not be for you, if you don't enjoy writing what the magazine editor wants. You might find personal narrative or even fiction to work better for you. Realize that I'm not including personal narrative in my discussion of slant. Personal narrative, like fiction, is a form where the writer does matter.   enjoy Bill Harley's personal narratives, whether I find them in Green Prints or on NPR.  It's because of his personal style and voice, no matter what the topic. That's why most magazines want the entire manuscript of a personal narrative piece. It uses the same techniques as fiction and is considered the same way a fiction piece is considered, as opposed to your informative NF pieces.

Joann: I just find it difficult to read about what someone else eats or what kind of bed they sleep in.

Mary Rosenblum: Joann, since you're interested in travel writing, try travel narratives.  I posted a travel narrative contest in last week's Newsletter. Did you see it?

Joann: That is what I have been doing. I just haven't found the right market.

JuliaB: Back to Slant. Don't editors want a new perspective on an old subject?
 
Mary Rosenblum: They absolutely do, Joann, and this is a great way to break into a large circulation magazine as a new writer.   BUT...it still has to suit that magazine's readers.  Editors are catering to the folk who pay their subscriptions every year!

Joann: I just sent an entry into the Real Simple essay contest as suggested by Carolyn Matthews.

Mary Rosenblum: Good for you, Joann. One of the main reasons to read a year's worth of a magazine is to look for 'holes' that the editor has missed.  What can you offer that's new? Different? A new take on the issues readers seem to be interested in?   Even if you don't have clips, if you come up with an article that makes the editor sit up and take notice, and your query is professional in quality, you'll get a 'yes, send'.  A couple of years ago, a LR student made his first ...very first...NF sale to Newsweek.   That's starting at the top!   He offered something that Newsweek wanted.

Joann: I just received my first rejection from Wild West. I sent them an article about the early history of the Texas Longhorn. They said they liked the article but had no use for it at this time.

Mary Rosenblum: One of the weaknesses most novices run into, Joann, is that they offer good articles that are entirely based on research, with no original source material.  For the most part, if an editor wants a piece, say, on the history of Williamsburg, they'll just assign it to a regular.  Anyone can find that information with a little time and effort.   But if someone offers a piece on the history of Williamsburg, featuring an interview with the great-granddaughter of the original founder....that's different.

JuliaB: How long should you wait for an editor to hold onto and article he THINKS he might run in the future, before you ask for it back?

Mary Rosenblum: Well, Julia, if was planning on a career in NF I wouldn't ask for it back.  I'd wait.   I want that editor to feel that I'm flexible, that if he messes up, I'll be tolerant. And a little guilt (eww, I messed up here) goes a long way.  Good NF is nearly always highly specific to that mag.  just write three other pieces with that same information and sell 'em elsewhere meantime.  As long as the slant is different, you can sell as many articles as you want.

Joann: The article had interviews, documented resources, humor and all of the things many people do not know about Longhorns. I guess it is a TEXAS sort of thing!

Mary Rosenblum: Sounds like you did all the right things, Joann. But he might have had a very similar piece in inventory or ran the same type of article last year.  That happens a lot.

Gail: When studying a magazine, will it benefit me to note the "seasonal content" and query similar pieces with a varied slant the following year?

Mary Rosenblum: Abolutely, Gail.  And propose those seasonal pieces WAY early.   Magazines have about a six month lead time...that is, today they're considering pieces for the issue that comes out six months from now.

Joann: I was just glad he responded in a positive manner in a very short time. The guidelines said response in 2 to 3 months. I got a response within two weeks.

Mary Rosenblum: Ah, Joann, that tells me that he liked the work but already had something in inventory or had already run this sort of piece.   He knew immediately he couldn't use it, but liked your work enough to want you to sub again.
[] 10:42 am: That was it, I have nothing else for him. Well, that happens. But  that same piece may be perfect for another mag. Generally, freelancers work a particular type of magzine where they can collect a lot of information to fuel many articles.  My freelancer buddy was a food writer for awhile, then he was a travel writer. Now he's a science writer.

[geezer] 10:43 am: I submitted to a magazine that has a November issue. How far ahead of time do they have to decide what stories go into it would you say?

Mary Rosenblum:    This November? That issue is probably in production already, Geeze, unless it's very small press or an ezine.   Ezines, of course, are quite different.  But the big circulation glossies go to the printer pretty early.

[Laina] 10:45 am: Mary, when you vary one article for multiple submissions, can you explain how you do that?
Mary Rosenblum:   Sure, Laina.  Let's take gardening.  I go to the Portland Rose Show and talk to the very serious 'show circuit' rose gardeners.   So now I have original source material.  I'll write an article for Fine Gardening magazine on the new cultivars coming up.   That's slant one, aimed at the advanced gardeners who maybe do the shows.   I'll write an article on how to deal with blackspot in the rainy NW without using chemicals.  That goes to a Northwest regional mag read by all levels of gardeners.  Now I'll write a third piece  and this will be all about 'planting well' and it's aimed at the novice gardener who doesn't know anything about anything.  So now you have three articles for three different magazines, all from one visit to the Rose Show.
[Laina] 10:49 am: Okay, thanks, I see what you mean.
Mary Rosenblum: And actually, I'd probably come up with at least three more possible articles.   maybe even a personal narrative about those slightly mad rose show exhibitors!  Once you understand slant, you'll get much more attention from editors.   mean they'll for sure take your piece.   They might have already assigned the same piece.

Dinie: So, Mary, you are sayng to keep writing, keep submitting and do your homework?

Mary Rosenblum :  Yes, I am, Dinie.  And remember:  If you send an editor three or four queries that totally miss the magazine's slant, that editor will stop even reading your queries.  Take the time to read one issue at least so that you at least have a clue what that editor might need.   The more persistent you are, and the closer you are to giving the editor something useful, the more likely you are to get an assignment.   Generally, if you send the editor several good queries and you are hitting close to the bulls eye, sooner or later, the editor will tell you 'I don't want this, but you could send me that' and they'll try you out.   As I said earlier, NF editors NEED good new writers.   My science writer buddy turns down filler assignments all the time...he just gets too many.  So the editor has to turn elsewhere. They like having a big stable of writers to call on.  

So, to sum it up, read the magazine and decide: Who the readers are (age and income), what themes the editor wants, and what the writing style is.   As I say over and over, it is not hard to break into the NF marketplace....as long as you get the right slant.   Editors WANT your work!  Go grab a magazine or two and start analyzing!  It's good practice