J357 Magazine Feature Writing – Spring ‘08      Schedule
Douglas Cumming, Ph.D.
Reid 101 – 458-8208

Home – 462-2968
cummingd@wlu.edu
Office Hours: Mon & Wed, 1-3 p.m.

Assisting: John F. Muncie
Reid 203 - 458-8240
munciej@wlu.edu
Class: C,D periods, MWF
Reid 302

The principles and techniques of developing and polishing long-form journalistic articles for print media. Extensive writing and reporting are required.
Prerequisite: J201 for J majors; sophomore standing or higher for others

This class will get your head working like a magazine writer’s. You will learn about the history, scope, and market of magazine writing, especially the longer feature article. In the process, you will acquire habits and skills you need to freelance for magazines or to do outstanding features on the staff of any newspaper. You will do many short writing assignments, class exercises, critiques of other writers’ work (including that of other students in the class), and a quiz or two. Your main project will be one long article you will propose, develop, report, write and offer for publication. I hope to produce a magazine as this class did in 2006. 

Expectations: You will have to do a lot of work for this class. There will be readings from the three required books, readings from various magazine articles, and some short writing assignments. The three books have some overlap, but they bring different perspectives. I’m assigning these books in pieces, trying to match sections with the writing problem we’re dealing with in class. You will also be reading magazine articles, assigned as we go, not listed here. You must do all of the assigned readings before class. You will also keep a journal to be shared with me and with the class. Attending class, and being on time, is absolutely expected. On some days we will have visitors, whose generosity deserves the respect of a full class. Besides, you’ll get a lot out of hearing from these folks. Deadlines on writing assignments are real. If it looks like something will prevent you from making a deadline or getting to class on time, let me know beforehand. If I don’t okay this, your grade will suffer. The writing and reading will be the hard part, but the most time-consuming work will likely be your reporting – interviewing, setting up times and places to do your reporting, spending time with a subject. This can be the most frustrating part of feature writing, but also the most memorable. It also makes the writing easier, and better. One hour of “writer’s block” is a symptom of the 10 hours you didn’t spend out in the world gathering more raw material. Ten hours you spend out in the world not getting useful material is a symptom of one hour you didn’t spend thinking through the story idea at the beginning. Don’t wait too long to invest your reporting time in your main story.

I expect you to be yourself. It is important for you to be open and questioning, critical and curious, enthusiastic and creative – about your own work and the work of your fellow students. I expect you to let me know how the class is working for you. If you don’t understand or don’t like something about the way the class is going, speak up. You are expected to participate in class discussions. One conversation at time, please. Take notes, always. Ask questions.

 Your assignments include:

·        Story ideas – Starting with 25 ideas. You will be refining, adding to, developing these ideas into budget lines. Within the first week, you need your long list of ideas pared down to three publishable ideas. Out of these will come one publishable long piece by the end of the term.

·        A notebook – Keep a journal that you’re willing to share each week, or at least share portions of. Should include observed details and overheard quotes/dialog; personal log of reflections, ideas and memories; story ideas, including upcoming events/daybook and contacts; language and chapbook section, on new words, useful quotes from your readings.

·        Readings – Jon Franklin, Lee & Friedlander, Blundell. Many, many magazine articles. Again, do these when they are assigned, before class.

·        Quizzes – On magazine terminology. On the readings.

·        Critiques – These will be the basis for some class discussions.

·        Short writing assignments -- A profile of a community service student, for that student’s hometown paper. A personal experience. A first-person essay. An interview. A query letter. A draft of your main project.

·        Final project: Your main feature story.
 

Grading: I will keep grades in two ways – one easily quantified, the other based on intangibles. The first way is an average of the letter grades I’ll give for class assignments, quizzes, drafts, and your final story. The other is a subjective letter grade based on class participation, attitude, energy, focus, improvement, and (ignoring the role of dumb luck) success with getting your stories published. Your final grade will be a combination of these two.

Required books:

Blundell, William E. The Art and Craft of Feature Writing. New York: Penguin, 1988.

This Wall Street Journal master-writer wrote this for non-WSJ writers, expanding on his in-house booklet for the WSJ staff. It is clear, but dense as fruitcake. Rather than breaking the process into discrete steps, Blundell sees all the parts working together, especially the reporting. His preferred structure is not the narrative yarn, as with Franklin, but the block structure.

Franklin, Jon. Writing for Story, Craft Secrets of Dramatic Non-Fiction by a Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Franklin, a former Baltimore Sun science writer, is convinced that he has found the Holy Grail of storytelling – an architecture that requires certain essential elements of character, conflict, scene building and resolution. It’s a little dogmatic and technical, but learn what he teaches, and you’ll have a much better eye for great stories.

Friedlander, Edward Jay and John Lee. Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines: The Pursuit of Excellence, 4^th ed. New York: Longman, 2000.

A practical analysis, by two academics, of about a dozen Pulitzer-Prize-winning feature articles from newspapers and magazines. The articles are run in their entirety, as well as examined in pieces. Some good advice on query letters, research, and interviewing. We’ll also use the book as a supply of feature stories for one or more of us to read and analyze.

 On reserve:
The Mechanics of a Magazine
Magazines that Made History
Nourie & Nourie, American Mass-Market Magazines

 Other recommended works:

Jacobi, Peter. The Magazine Article: How to think it, plan it, write it. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1991.
Williams, Joseph. On Style: Toward Clarity and Grace.
Gabriele Rico, Writing the Natural Way.
William Zinsser, On Writing Well.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2003
Calvin Trillin, Killings.
How I Wrote the Story, Providence Journal-Bulletin.
The John McPhee Reader.
Best Newspaper Writing of 2004 (etc.). Keith Woods, ed. St. Petersburg, Fla.: The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 2004 (or any year).

Possible Guests: Harrison Kinney, W&L ’47, former New Yorker writer; Doug Harwood, W&L ’74, editor of Rockbridge Advocate; Alex Jones, book author and Harvard media expert; Prof. Ed Wasserman; Julie Campbell, editor of W&L Alumni magazine and long-time magazine writer/editor; et al.