Hungry for Words - Keep Your Writing Fresh through Observation

Kathleen Flinn

Transcript

1. Hungry for Words™ “Details & Feeding the Beast” Kathleen Flinn
2. kat@kathleenflinn.com twitter: @katflinn Upcoming Hungry for Words™ Events: • Non-Fiction Book Proposal six-week course Richard Hugo House, Seattle, November-December 2017 • Performance for Writers, Seattle, Nov. 12, 2017 • Hungry for Words Beach Retreat Anna Maria Island, December 2017 and April 2017 • Hungry for Words Food Writing & Photography Symposium Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, November 2018
3. “Innovative thinking comes from extended concentration. When you’re multitasking, you’re constantly switching and backtracking trying to more than one thing at once – and fail to truly pay attention to any one thing. – Earl Miller, neuroscientist, MIT The Myth of Multitasking
4. Details & Feeding the Beast — Taffy: Five Senses — Snapshot: Filling in a Scene — Move the Action – “Storyboard” — Questions Lead to Stories — Journalist’s Tools: Eavesdropping, Ticklers & Obscure sources
5. Readings: Ruth Reichl & Anthony Bourdain
6. All Five Senses: Sight * Sound * Smell * Touch * Taste
7. Let’s Start with Details Pick one of these.. — Your Favorite Candy — The Food You Want When You’re Sick — Your Ultimate Birthday Cake
8. The difference of detail “My dream birthday cake would be coconut with white frosting. Maybe three tiers.” “When I envision my dream birthday cake, it’s three tiers of different flavors: one coconut, one pineapple, one bean vanilla spiked with rum. I imagine it frosted with thick buttercream, then topped with freshly toasted coconut flakes and edible flowers. George Clooney would of course be on hand to cut the cake as a mariachi band played in the background atop a 42-foot yacht just off the isle of Capri in Italy. As I blew out the candles, I’d make a mental note of how the white frosting playing off the deep azure waters of the Mediterranean…
9. Snapshot … Fill in Details of a Scene
10. Imagine a story or a post not as a blank page but as a string. Add bead after bead, detail after detail, like a kindergartener making a simple necklace.
11. Storyboarding… Make Your Scenes Move
12. Feeding the Beast
13. If you’re bored, so are your readers The first step: Avoid overused compositional crutches: — The Weather Report post — The farmer’s market post — The “dump” post — The on target SEO-based recipe to which you have otherwise no connection to in your real, actual life.
14. “Anybody who can talk can also write.” “If something is worth hearing or listening to, it's very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.” - Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, 2011
15. So What to Write About? The Power of Questions
16. Interview Yourself — “What do I struggle with day in and day out…?” — “What thing do I miss most in my life… — “Why do I tend to present the illusion that…?” — “You would never know this by looking at me…” — “Why am I the happiest when…” — “What’s in my purse right now that I’m embarrassed about?” — “What question do I hate getting asked the most…?”
17. What makes you vulnerable? No one loves a perfect hero/heroine “The most read post – by far – that I’ve ever published was titled ‘I am a failure.’ ” - Monica Bhide, A Life of Spice “The most mail I’ve ever received from a story was about coming home and finding my dog dead on the floor. At first, I thought it was too personal and didn’t want to share it.” - Joe Yonan, The Washington Post
18. Make a list of your dilemmas What petty arguments/issues are you dealing with? Dilemmas lie at the heart of most stories. Every Jane Austen novel has a pesky dilemma at its heart. A heroine has a problem and has to solve it. Odds are you don’t think this is worth of writing about, but your everyday problems are probably shared by a great many people. “I want a new stove. I covet one. But I can’t justify it.” “I feel conflicted about my Keurig.”
19. What lurks in my pantry? Ask yourself questions about what you find. Where did you get that 17-year-old paprika? Or what memories come back when you look at the truffle oil you bought in Italy you never used? You can learn a lot about yourself from digging through your freezer. What’s the story on that pack of steaks you bought eight years ago for the rained out barbecue? Do you even talk to those friends? Or the baby food you meticulously prepared and froze – for the child entering 8th grade?
20. Ask real people actual questions “I ask people very simple questions about what they eat or they cook for their family, and they end up revealing extraordinary truths about themselves.” - Anthony Bourdain “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can be successful online without actually engaging people offline. Do both. Be bold. It will pay back extraordinary dividends. - Morgan Spurlock
21. Tricks/Tactics used by journalists
22. Train yourself to pay attention Look at something, close your eyes. Can you see it? — When listening to the news, or a neighbor’s story about a new flavor at Starbucks, whatever, make note of when you stop and think, “Huh. That’s odd/interesting/curious…” — We spend a lot of life going through the motions. Be purposeful. Take different routes when driving or when walking through the supermarket. Sit in places you normally walk through without thinking about it. — Put down your phone. Observe human behavior.
23. Eavesdrop Sure, it’s not polite. But it can give you great insight. — Linger over coffee and write down conversations word-for- word (a journalism school training trick) to help you master the sound of real-life conversations. — Supermarkets, especially the produce section, are great places to listen to people talk about food and cooking, and to hear what they don’t know or can’t recognize.
24. The “beat” tickler file/notebook Write it down. Collect information. — Journalists keep an actual file in which they clip stories on their “beat.” — Keep a notebook at all times. Use Evernote or One Note or something similar. Just make sure you have it all the time. — Go through your file, notebook or Evernote on a regular basis to mine for story ideas, including those that you’ve forgotten. Find connections between things that seems unconnected. (Example: Robots in the Field)
25. Read stuff you don’t normally read Widen your worldview — Trade Journals: Great for story ideas, ahead-of-consumer trends. Examples: Beef Magazine, Progressive Cattleman — Government info/Library resources: Sign up for updates from the government, such as the USDA — Industry insider info – Allrecipes’ Measuring Cup, Global Food Forums, Supermarket News — Books that dive deep into subjects, such as culinary history, the meat industry, corn, cod, salt, etc.
26. “I was driving along a highway and I saw a tomato fall off a truck. But what struck me was that it didn’t splatter. I wondered, how is it possible that a tomato can hit the road at 70 mph and stay intact?” - Barry Estabrook, on why he wrote Tomatoland, winner of the IACP Cookbook Award
27. “I saw a woman at a grocery store and I thought, ‘I wonder why she’s buying so many boxes. So I followed her to see what else she might buy. I ended up talking to her, and it changed my entire perspective on home cooking.” -This chance encounter led to the bestseller Kitchen Counter Cooking School, winner of the 2012 Non- Fiction from the American Society of Journalists & Authors and now a major bestseller in Japan From My Own Life…
28. Summary: Be Curious – and Listen — Interview yourself; be vulnerable — Keep a notebook and/or tickler file — Listen when people wonder out loud. — Read publications you normally wouldn’t — Change your POV. — Eavesdrop — Clean out your cupboards
29. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” - Michaelangelo
30. kat@kathleenflinn.com twitter: @katflinn Upcoming Hungry for Words™ Events: • Non-Fiction Book Proposal six-week course Richard Hugo House, Seattle, November-December 2017 • Performance for Writers, Seattle, Nov. 12, 2017 • Hungry for Words Beach Retreat Anna Maria Island, December 2017 and April 2017 • Hungry for Words Food Writing & Photography Symposium Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, November 2018