Follow the Story: How to Write Successful Nonfiction
Forget everything you thought you knew about journalism. James B.  Stewart shuns pyramid style and all its accoutrements for a more creative type of nonfiction, nonfiction that tells a compelling story. Stewart's ideas about nonfiction stem directly from his experience as a writer and editor ofThe Wall Street Journal's lengthy page-1 feature stories, which explore subjects, as Stewart says, "in depth, with style, and often ... with wit." "Good writing," Stewart says inFollow the Story, "is rooted not in knowledge, but in curiosity." Curiosity too, says Stewart, "is what make readers read the stories that result." Using examples from his own writing (for theJournal,The New Yorker, andSmartMoney, and also from his booksBlood SportandDen of Thieves), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Stewart shows how to turn your curiosity into ideas, story proposals, and then the stories themselves. Each part of the writing process-- cultivating sources, gathering information, writing the lead and the transition, structuring your piece, and then concluding it--is discussed with authority and demonstrated masterfully. Stewart also includes chapters on how to use (but not overuse) description, dialogue, anecdotes, humor, and pathos to strengthen your work.--Jane Steinberg