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Writing Creative Nonfiction with Christopher Johnston, Journalist & Playwright · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: When you hear the term creative writing, what comes to mind?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you're like most people, you probably think of fiction-based writing such as novels, screenplays, and short stories.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: But did you know that the concept of creative writing also applies to a wide array of nonfiction formats as well?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm really excited to have a guest on this episode who is here to help us improve our creative writing skills, particularly with nonfiction.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: His name is Christopher Johnston, and he has published more than 3,500 articles in publications including American Theater, Christian Science Monitor, History Magazine, and Scientific America.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: His book, titled Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice, was published in May 2018.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher also wrote The Way I Saw It, which is the memoirs of the late Mark Wise, co-founder of Wise Advertising, and that book was published in 2013.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher is currently writing a biography of industrialist Frederick C.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Crawford, founding chairman of TRW Incorporated.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: He teaches playwriting and creative nonfiction workshop courses at Cleveland State University and writing workshops in a number of places as well.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I met Christopher through our mutual friend Joe Ricci, who you may have heard a few episodes ago talking about screenwriting as well as Hallmark movies.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to give a special shout out to my friend Joe for introducing us.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate that.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is the first time on this podcast that I have had a true honest-to-goodness journalist.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really exciting to hear about Christopher's background and his journey as a journalist.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: He also shares some phenomenal tips for opening and closing an article, how to build suspense and how to adapt your work in one format to another format.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher is also a playwright, so he shares about his experience in that realm as well.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: This was a really, really fun conversation.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: I learned a ton, and I know that you will be inspired by his creative approach to writing just as I was.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So here's my conversation with Christopher Johnston.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: Chris, thanks so much for taking time to be on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: We have not talked before today, so I'm really glad you've taken time out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: We can have a fun conversation about all the cool writing stuff that you're doing.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Kent.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: I also want to give a big shout out to Joe Ricci who connected us.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, Joe, if you're listening to this, thanks so much.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: We definitely appreciate that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: I would love to start out with a little bit of background about you as a journalist.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: I have actually never had a journalist on the podcast.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I and I suppose people, I'm sure I've had guests who've done journalism in different ways, but I've never really had a true, true, uh a true, authentic, real life journalist here on the show.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: So give us a little bit of your backstory and how you got into journalism and uh where that's led you today.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I started as an English major.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love to write.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was the thing that I did best.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just knew when I was in college, I got my bachelor's and master's at the John Carroll University here in Cleveland.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew I wanted to write, but I didn't know what that meant.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And really at that time, they didn't teach you that as much.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't teach the profession, but just taught you about writing and appreciating literature and so forth.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: So um one summer when I was in grad school, I worked for an architectural firm in their marketing communications department just because I, you know, was looking for a job.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when I graduated, they came back to me and said, We have a woman who's going on maternity leave.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Would you like to fill in?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I figured, what the heck, I might as well for three months.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it turned out she decided to stay home, so they offered me the job full-time, and uh it was a tremendous learning experience.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I learned how to write, you know, everything from annual reports to proposals, speeches, video scripts, um, newsletters, brochures, resumes.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really just a great opportunity to learn different, uh diverse range of writing, which paid off later.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then they about four years in, they said uh, you know, we were bought by a larger firm out of San Mateo, California.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have to lay you off in a few months, which also turned out to be good because I started to freelance, I started to pitch ideas about architecture, which I knew by then, and uh placed some articles in local magazines and business magazines.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I got a few clips under my belt by the time I was laid off, which was February of 87.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I also had several friends who were journalists, uh, wrote for magazines, newspapers.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, at the time there was nothing online yet.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um I worked with them and they mentored me and they kind of taught me about journalism.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: They taught me what editors are looking for and so forth, which was all very valuable.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just started pitching and uh kind of built my way up as a writer.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: People got to know me.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had plenty of clips to show in a variety of publications, and uh that gave me a great foundation to move forward.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided I had thought about looking for a full-time job, and I just really loved freelancing.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love the idea of being able to write about anything, everything, just as a living university, just an opportunity for me to learn about life and have experiences with people and uh, you know, everything from jumping out of an airplane to observing brain surgery, you know, a full range of things.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that was more interesting to me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: The jobs offers that I had were typically sitting behind a desk somewhere writing ads or you know, something that just wasn't as appealing to me.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I did I use journalism moving forward.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I've never done anything else.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've freelanced the entire time since 87.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's I've published you know thousands of articles and written a couple books and edited some books.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've continued to do some corporate work because I had that background and it's a nice um kind of a revenue source, an income source that pays pretty well and also opens up opportunities to meet business people and people in different fields.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really how it took off.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I just committed myself to learning.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I when I first started, I subscribed to 15 or 20 magazines and I read them every month cover to cover just to see, you know, what does Atlantic Monthly do?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: What does New Yorker do?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: What does Sports Illustrated do?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just to give a feel, Harper's, you know, all the great, great um publications that are out there.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, and I had subscriptions to all of them for several years.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's I always recommend that to writers when I teach because it's a great way to see what are these guys really looking for?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: How do you open an essay?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: How do you close an essay?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: How do you build suspense?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all those things that you need to know.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that really taught me and continued to have my journalist friends mentor me as I got older.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then um I became involved in professional organizations.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm currently and have been a member of American Society of Journalists and Authors for many years, which is uh kind of a just gave me a national network that I didn't have early on of people.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also was moderating at their annual um annual convention, annual conference.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I would moderate a panel and bring in people from the New York Times or, you know, whatever it might be, and um also got to learn from them and develop my network, which is important when you're freelancing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's kind of how it grew.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, there's a lot of directions I could go with this.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so I'm really, really fascinated by every aspect of your journey and what you mentioned.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's been a long and winding road, but I've really enjoyed the opportunity.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I need a music producer, they can cue you know the Beatles along the winding road.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: Although I probably have to pay some kind of royalty for that.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure you would.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, somebody else, somebody out there from the music people will hear that probably.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: I do want to go down the sideboard here for a second, if we can.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm curious, you mentioned how to open and close a piece.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I assume you know this would this would apply to book chapters, articles, essays, probably blog posts, really anything.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose that's a self-contained kind of one-shot unit.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have any thoughts on for all the writers out there listening who are working on different types of nonfiction writing?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: What are some thoughts that you might have or tips that you can give us on how to effectively open and close a piece?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned building suspense also.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: Really curious about your thoughts on that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a number of things.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really, what I teach when I teach nonfiction, creative nonfiction, I always tell writers you you should write what you want to write, but you should also read what you want to write.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that you know if you want to write books, then that is a slightly different format.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of overlap, but uh you need to look at how chapters are written in nonfiction.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, some of the there's so many great writers to look at, so many great examples, or even just reading uh um magazines like I did.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: So identify the publications that you want to write for and read those, and that'll give you some guidance in terms of um how they structure an article, how they do those things, build, suspense, open, and so forth.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: With openings, I typically I like to start with putting the person that I'm writing about.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it doesn't if it's a profile or even if it's a a good feature story, you want to have a lot of people in it to make it a human story.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I try to find that key person that I'm gonna build the story around, kind of the spine.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for example, uh I did a piece for Christian Science Monitor about some of the human trafficking efforts in the greater Cleveland area.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a really phenomenal woman here, Renee Jones, who's um been working on this since 2002.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to say she was so far ahead of the curve there was no curve.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's way before most people were helping recover um survivors of trafficking, for example.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what she does.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I started the article with her, and she goes out on um, she goes on community outreach programs.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: They go into like strip clubs or truck stops, um, places where there might be some activity.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went with her.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I went, the photographer came with me.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of unusual, but um we went to this strip club in downtown Cleveland, and we watched her, you know, she has this trademark gift bag that they give to these women that they're they think are vulnerable to trafficking or may already be being trafficked.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wrote about that's my opening paragraph.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I put her in action.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you want to show the person in action, what do they do?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I did another story about a neurosurgeon, a pediatric neurosurgeon in Cleveland, and the first I, you know, observed a 12-hour procedure.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um that was the open.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't write about the whole procedure, but I my opening paragraphs were about this little baby that they were gonna do brain surgery on.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the other thing I advise don't be afraid to immerse yourself.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um that I learned a great lesson that day because I watched this whole procedure for 12 hours.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they they said to me after, wow, Chris, you stayed for the whole thing.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Most most journalists leave after 20 minutes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fascinated.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, how many opportunities will I get to watch brain surgery?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So because of that, they gave me carte blanche to come back anytime I wanted to, and I went on to watch another 25-30 procedures, all different things, um, brain surgery, spinal surgery, everything.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I always advise writers it's just gonna give you so much more content that you can write exciting, active um paragraphs with to describe what's going on, to describe that person, how they work with the other people, um, how they do how they perform with their tools, you know, whatever it might be.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's really where a great, great open can come from.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then the same thing with a close, you really have to pay attention.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you're writing a significant piece, you know, a lot depends.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you're writing a 1200-word, a thousand-word, 1200-word piece, it's very difficult to do some of this.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're writing a longer piece, two, three, four thousand, five thousand words or more, put the time into it to get that information, to observe, because you never know what's going to happen.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you'll find exciting different things that you're not expecting.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like this brain surgeon, uh, I got this great anecdote with him because we had been in surgery all day.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: This was another time I went with him, and it was now it's like one o'clock in the morning, and we got into the elevator, and the maintenance guy rules in his big toolbox, which was this giant thing on wheels.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm standing in the elevator and I turn around, and Dr.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Collin, this this pediatric neurosurgeon, is talking to this guy, looking at the tools he uses and asking him about them, and just it gave me this great vignette of him because he's he was really open to talking to anybody, whether you were a CEO or a maintenance guy or a parent or whoever, he was very good with people.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And just because I happen to be with him, I saw this and it made a nice paragraph in my in my profile.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you really have to, if you want to write significant pieces, this is true for a book, especially.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: You have to invest the time.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I know some journalists they worry about, well, I'm not being paid for all that time.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's gonna show in your writing.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you have to make the commitment to immersing yourself, especially if you're gonna write a book, anything long, long form.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it pays off.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I've gotten grants because of the work I do.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I think I've I've never felt that I wasn't reimbursed.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was down the road, but it's I've never felt like I've lost money on something that I put time in and wrote a good piece.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds like curiosity is a vital component of what you're doing as a journalist.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because you're you're exploring all these things that on the surface would have nothing to do with each other human trafficking and brain surgery.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: But but yet everything is really connected, isn't it?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: And what you learn from one piece or one experience, you can then apply that learning to the next thing that may be on a totally different topic.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: But you have grown as a person, as a writer, as a human being.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: So then that that just expands your base of knowledge and your capacity to be empathetic and curious about other people as well.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: But you said that's generally true.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: That is very, very true.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: You nailed it.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I everything you work on feeds everything else you do.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I I first of all, first and foremost, I feel fortunate to have these experiences and get to get to know some of these people who remain friends or uh colleagues for many years.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um Dr.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Cohen is not Johns Hopkins uh down in Baltimore, but I still communicate with him.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they lead you to others.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: You learn so much about people, you meet, you know, in that case, I got to know all these guys in their neurosurgery department, and um it's just a wonderful experience, but it does you grow as a person.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you the other thing after standing in an OR for 12 hours, you feel pretty comfortable doing anything.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it just you never want to be afraid of anything, and so to have those experiences just makes you more uh amenable to to taking that risk and and observing something that maybe you weren't expecting or didn't think you could do.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I never get sick at I I was never bothered by blood or anything.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I think they worry about that when you first go in there, but then you build that trust level with them, and that's why they said to me, You can please come in anytime.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: They knew I wasn't gonna pass out and I wasn't gonna vomit, and you know, which happens sometimes with journalists but um or other observers.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's you're building trust with that community.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I can go back to those guys and ask them for you know future stories.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all about building your network and and just building your chops to uh be comfortable writing different things.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um the other thing I was gonna say, I I won't take up too much time, but um you asked me about suspense, and I would just say one of the things, you know, great nonfiction is very similar to great fiction, except it's all true and based on facts.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So look at how suspense novels are written or good suspenseful fiction, and you can see, you know, it's it's about pacing, um, it's about when you reveal certain things, timing, and those are all things that you can apply to nonfiction too, because you're really in control of of the story.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody wants to wants to dive into some of these topics, such as how you know learning how to build suspense, um, growing their writing craft skills, do you have any particular resources that you would recommend for people?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: If they have no idea where to start, are there some particular authors that you like that teach this kind of thing, particular craft books, courses, anything at all?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I'm not thinking of any craft books off the top of my head, but um I would say, well, I know some of my favorite writers are uh fiction, non-fiction, are like David Alberstom, um, Ted Conover, who's a great immersion.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote uh New Jack.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he worked for a year or so as a um corrections officer at Sing Sing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's a lot of great, great um it's called Frozen in Time.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's about a um a US during World War II, one of the aircraft crashed.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I got that book.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great book.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you just learn from reading it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's more valuable than um, I know you could take workshops, you can read how two books, and those are all valuable, but I think actually seeing it done, um, seeing how a great writer does it is the best way to learn.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a real value in having an analytical mind where you can read a piece that you feel like is really well done, and you have you have the capacity to break it down and to understand how they're telling the story.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: How did they do this intro?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: How did they wrap it up?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: How do they wrap up the story?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: So really it's more kind of uh you kind of learn on the job, so to speak.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just take one course and do all this hobbies.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that you can't afford to study with those guys.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: They they don't teach or they would charge too much, but you could certainly learn from how they're working and how they finish their books and how they write the book, and or the or the article could be an article, whatever it is you that you want to write.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's just yeah, I mean, you it's they're not hiding anything that's it's all right there.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just little things.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I picked up, okay, how do you use a quotation properly?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I if you read a great article, if it's a longer article, they might have longer quotes.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: But typically in a shorter article, they're gonna have shorter quotes.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna quote somebody for three paragraphs, they're gonna have you know one quick quote.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now they might set it up with something the person said, but that's not in quotation marks.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you learn, oh, okay, how how do I apply that?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's very straightforward, and you just look at how it's done.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then so much of it will come from writing, working with editors, getting feedback, uh, showing your piece to another, even a friend or family member who likes to read.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's other ways you can learn, but I think for me, one of the most valuable was looking at, okay, how is it actually done?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and that was tremendous for me.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I, you know, experimented.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I tried different things just to make it, just to you know, mix it up a little bit and try something new and um and the editor either likes it or they don't, but you still tried it at least, and that's that's another good way to learn.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: If someone wants to get started with writing for magazines, large publications, those kinds of things.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: If you were starting today, how would you go about doing that?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: If you had no really, really any prior connections, you know, know these editors.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have a lot of street cred.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: There's some specific ways that beginning authors could use to start building up those credentials and writing for larger places.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think typically they're looking for your ability to write.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that's chicken and egg, but if you haven't written for a publication, but you write a blog, for example, or you've written something else, maybe you work for a company that requires you to do some writing.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever you can show, whatever writing you have done, you can at least start with that so you get a couple of clips or a couple of links.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because that most things are online now.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I would say just they're looking for great ideas that fit their publication.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that gets back to reading that publication that you really want to write for.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you put together a pitch letter, which pitches are query letters, pitches are an art unto themselves.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are numerous.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can Google how to pitch an article, you can look at um look at how they their submission guidelines typically have what they're asking for.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say the key thing is get in and get out really fast.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Editors are so inundated right now that they don't want three-page pitches, they won't even read them.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to keep it to two, three, four paragraphs, one page at the most, and you really want to have something that grabs their attention, starting with a headline.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: That headline might never be printed, but um you want to have something that grabs their attention and then get into the story, uh a factoid, a statistic.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh some when you spoke to someone, you should probably do a couple of phone interviews.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: You could keep them short because you don't want to take that person's time if you don't have an assignment.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, get a great quote from somebody, or you might find that in a newspaper article that you read in the New York Times or something.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, you want to get in there quickly, grab their attention, tell them why this is of interest to readers today, why it's timely, tell them why you're the right person to write it, and and don't just say two things.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just say, I want to write about Florida.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, they don't want a topic, they want a story.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to give them a specific story.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the other thing is don't just say, I want to do a profile of President Obama.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: You have to prove that you can actually get access to him or whoever it might be, a rock star, a celebrity, a famous scientist.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you have access first before you commit to doing that, because the last thing you want to do is have the editor ask you, and then you say, Well, no, I haven't talked to him yet.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: They'll just lose trust immediately and you won't get the assignment.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so those are things to keep in mind.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's an art form that takes a long time to really perfect.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can show why it's a great story and why you're the right person to write it, then they're probably gonna at least give you a shot.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is you should probably start with shorter pieces.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh magazines have those upfront, you know, 300-word piece about the new jazz club in in Greenwich Village or um, you know, whatever it is, whoever you're writing for, or uh a short profile of somebody who just became mayor of your city or, you know, whatever it is, but try to start with shorter pieces until you get established.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they probably won't take you seriously if you pit some big involved uh 5,000-word profile and you've never written anything.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm glad that you mentioned trying to connect with high-level people.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: That was actually going to be my next question.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: Let's say you're working on a piece and you want to connect with some type of celebrity or well-known political figure, uh, some type of company leader, business leader, or something.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: And this is actually very very relevant to me because uh in my business I do ghostwriting for for business leaders and uh I have a new client, and part of what they want to do with their book is include some interviews with really high-level thinkers as it relates to their book topic.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm trying to figure out okay, you know, uh I know I know people, but uh I don't know a lot of those people who are like the super, super high figures.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: So, in your experience, if if you're not if you're not connected with somebody, if you're not connected with somebody that you want to talk to, are there some ways to make that happen?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh hopefully in a way that's I don't know why I love the Godfather.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: My mind, my mind always goes to, you know, hopefully we can do it in a way that's legal and ethical.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's always ways to make people talk, but right, right.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: You don't want to do that as a journalist, sure.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the the first thing again is to establish credibility.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have a contract uh or an assignment, if you're writing an article for the Atlantic Monthly Magazine or uh Wired magazine, and you want to talk to the chief technology officer of a company, they're gonna take you more seriously.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you have to reach out through their media relations person, for example.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if it's a celebrity, you probably want to go through their agency, whoever you can find out who their uh agent is or who represents them, their publicity person or whoever.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: But again, if you it's very rare that you're gonna get that connection if if you don't have something specific, like you have a contract with Penguin Books uh to write this or ghostwrite this piece for your your client, they're gonna take that more seriously than if you just call randomly.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the best starting point.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's really a matter of finding the right uh person that's connected to them.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not always easy, and sometimes it's it's very uh not even possible to write, you know, it's just difficult.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think there's different, like there's I think Huntington Library in Los Angeles has an archive, and uh um, I think they have um a person who can give you those like contacts for agents and for for Hollywood stars, for example.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I the only reason I know that is because I a friend of mine from ASJA does these.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she writes about celebrities and Hollywood stars and actually a couple people that I know.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I I would ask them first, they could probably guide me.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have those contacts, then you can usually, you know, find that.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you typically Google it, you know, who represents um someone or um who's Eric Clapton's agent, or you know, whoever it is you're trying to reach.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's that's not always easy, but it's a great starting point.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: I had never even thought about just Googling that and finding out who someone prep was.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's genius.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing is if you find a book about that person, you can usually find like their biography, or even a good profile, you can find in the acknowledgments, you know, who the agent was for that book, or you know, if they wrote their own their autobiography, or so there, you know, there's different ways, but um nine times out of ten, you can usually Google to find some connection.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're not the direct connection, they can usually lead you to who is, but again, they'll take you much more seriously if you actually have an assignment or a contract.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that makes total sense because those people are very busy and they don't want to be talking to every judge.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: They get fans who call and what just want to talk to them, you know, and they can't, they just can't do that.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um if you can establish your profession professional credentials, then they'll take you a lot more seriously.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: My final question um today has to do with your work as a playwright, which is really, really fascinating to me.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: I know you have uh adapted your work, you know, from one medium to another.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Can you talk about your work as a playwright and how you adapt something that's in one form to something that's very, very different, such as a stage play?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I've been playwriting since the late 80s, and I love theater.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's always been a passion.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, our parents took us to plays, we just fell in love with theater.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: But uh a lot of the stuff I write is just creative, original, imaginative pieces.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I think because I'm a journalist, there's a really nice hybrid form of docydrama.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've written several of those that have been produced.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll let me talk about the most recent because I think it's the best example.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was working on human trafficking, which came out of my book.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um the book is more about the sexual assault initiative and how communities are dealing with rape and sexual assault, sexual violence.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: But through that I got introduced to the people working in human trafficking, sex trafficking specifically, uh, not so much labor trafficking.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I started writing about that.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote a couple articles and I started to meet all these people like Renee Jones and the human trafficking task force in Cleveland and so forth.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and after about four years, I realized I have this stack of great interviews, and uh it started to take shape in my mind as a docidrama.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I went back to them and I said, you know, would you mind if I use some of these interviews from our inner our articles?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I said to Renee, I would love to do more in-depth articles with some of the survivors that I've spoken to because she has a number of them who uh come to her center for recovery services and uh counseling and so forth therapy.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so it all worked out, and so I took another, probably took me another year to pull that together, and I started to talk to a theater uh playwrights local, which is here in Cleveland, and they work only with Cleveland playwrights, and we put it all together and it turned into a really great piece because the the interviews were so powerful, especially with the survivors.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I built it around five women, and they were just really incredible, made great characters for the play because we had actors uh actually perform it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I um I used real names for everyone except the women.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: We wanted to give them some anonymity, so I made up names for them.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: But the the prosecutor, the the investigators, uh Renee, they were all real names.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and their their characters were really um, they kind of studied them.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't try to imitate them necessarily or impersonate, but they did try to capture who they were, and they all did a great job.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing we did was um every night, which was unusual, but every night, every performance, we had a talk back with one of those experts that I had interviewed, and they were great.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: People, 30, 40 people would stay every night um just to have this talk back with these guys, and they were all wonderful, they all helped tremendously, and they all wanted to, because for them it was a different way to reach an audience to raise awareness about trafficking, which has so many myths, and people all think it's a Liam Neeson movie or uh you know Julia Roberts movie, and it's not, it's very different the way it actually manifests in a community or a city.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we we turned it into this whole public awareness um event that kind of enhanced what I had done as far as writing articles about trafficking, uh, and we reached a completely different audience.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: All the experts said they had never seen anything like it because they really felt they were reaching different people.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it just uh we came away with feeling very successful about it, and um, I'm now working on a similar piece about uh domestic violence that I've done a number of the interviews, but I'm still still developing that and hope to do a similar docudrama sometime down the road.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's fascinating.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, and those are heavy topics.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: So does that is that difficult to translate at all into something like a stage play where where people might typically associate that with something that is more a little more lighthearted and kind of fun and so forth?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, there is, you know, there's a lot of tragedy in in theater and a lot of drama, serious drama.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was one of the more difficult ones because there usually you can find some humor.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the I did a similar piece about the Vietnam veterans that I interviewed that I mentioned, and uh had a lot of humor, just it still had those very intense parts with trafficking, with uh the horrible things the women experience.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was very difficult, but we did find a few moments of humor.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I tried to keep it balanced and go, we went back and forth.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: There'd be a scene with the women kind of in a therapy, group therapy session.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was sort of the the um metaphor that I set up.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they would say something funny, but also we would rotate out and have one of the prosecutors talking or the detective, and it was all still pretty serious, but I think what really engaged people was we took them into a world that they just didn't know.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really what a great article does, what a great profile does, what a great play does.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of transports the audience to someplace they don't know uh or don't know well or have never experienced.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's that's what we did, and that was the the power of it, as opposed to being a light-hearted kind of musical or something that people would go to for entertainment, but this I think they went to learn um and to to see into that world that they just didn't know anything about.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: Chris, this has been a blast.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: I have learned a ton and I really appreciate the good tips.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: I took a bunch of notes as I as I often do on this podcast, because you know, before I hit record on this conversation, this this show is just my excuse to talk to cool people who are doing great work and that I get to kind of explore my curiosity and learn from.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate you taking time to do this.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I appreciate you asking me.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very helpful for me too.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I just one last note, I one of the things that always stayed with me is I used to watch the Dick Cabot show when I was in college many, many years ago.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he had Isaac Besheva singer on, who was at that time in his 80s, had won the Nobel Prize and um or a Pulitzer Prize.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he said to him, Well, you're you're in your 80s now.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Have you mastered writing?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh do you still need to learn anything?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Oh yes, I learn every day.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know, writing is an art, and it's a science, it's um it's very, very complex.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so the more people we talk to like this, this is a great interview, thank you for doing these.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's it's beneficial for writers to learn however they can and and know that they're gonna keep learning through the rest of their lives.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: How can people find out more about your writing, your books, and all of your work?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, probably the best thing is to go to my website, which I'm still I'm constantly updating, but it's um Christopher Johnston, J-O-H-N-S-T-O-N writer.com.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Christopher Johnstonwriter.com.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh I am on uh Twitter at C Chris Wright S-E-E Chris Wright.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's those are probably the two best places.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also on LinkedIn, Christopher Johnston, if people want to connect, that's fine too.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much again for doing this.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: This has uh been an absolute blast, and I hope to do it again.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it, Kent.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Christopher.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: My main takeaway from our conversation is to figure out what you want to create and then find models to follow.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Then you can reverse engineer what they're doing and learn from it.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: For example, he talked about how to look at what writers do when they have articles in large publications or very well-known magazines.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: So look at how they begin the article, look at how they structure it, and look at how they bring it to a close.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you can do the same thing for any type of writing.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: As Christopher said, and and by the way, this this might be the most important thing that he said in the whole conversation.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: As he said, they're not hiding anything.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: All of their work is right there for everybody to see.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the cool thing about writing is that there's nothing to hide.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: You can take any writer's work and you can reverse engineer it and you can break down the structure, and it's all right there in black and white for us to see.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're willing to do the work, if you're willing to analyze it, then you can learn a lot from it.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is exactly what I've done with client books.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: When I was working on a memoir last year, for example, I took another popular book in the same genre as that book was, and I basically deconstructed how that popular author organized the chapters in her book, and I analyzed her writing style, and I tried to mimic that for my client's book, of course, running that through the filter of my client's voice.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I just tell you, I learned a lot by doing that.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um this popular, of course, I'm not gonna say who it was, but the popular author's book that I was using sort of um to help me look at a style of writing, um, so to speak, and to just to kind of give me some ideas of how to write in this genre.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um this was not a book that I normally would have picked up.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: This was a book that is definitely I'm not even the target market for this book, I'll just put it that way.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a book I would have ever read on my own.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: But the funny thing was is that when I got into this book, you know, again, trying to learn some structure and some voice and an approach for my client book.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: When I got into this popular book, I found that I really actually enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it wasn't written for people like me.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: So when you just kind of approach this a little bit like math, uh, and don't cringe up if if you're not a math person, when you approach it like math in the sense that this is a problem to be solved and it's something that you can solve, then writing becomes kind of like a puzzle where you can take other people's work, whether it's screenplays, um, you know, stage plays, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, whatever it is, articles.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: You can take that work and you can deconstruct it, you can kind of reverse engineer it, and you can figure out how they actually created what they what they have created, and then you can apply those lessons to your own writing, whether it's writing that you're doing for clients or whether it's for your own writing as well.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that is a massive, massive takeaway.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, that might be one of the most important takeaways that anybody has has suggested for a long time on this podcast.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: And man, we've got awesome guests every single week, and I'm just really impressed every single time I have an interview with the things that I get to learn from these awesome guests.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, it's kind of like getting a master's degree in writing and business and sometimes psychology and creativity.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a big reason why I do this podcast is because I get to sit at the feet of these amazing writers and creative minds and business minds, and then we can apply those lessons to our own work.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: So again, I don't want to overhammer this, but this is a really, really important lesson that if there's something you want to learn, find somebody who's done what you want to do.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's you know a book or an article or a screenplay, then just break it down, analyze it, deconstruct it, and figure out what they did right, and then apply that lesson to your own writing.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to reinvent the wheel.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Learn from the best and then apply what you've learned to your own work.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to give a massive thank you to this really, really fun and very special guest, Christopher Johnston.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: I had an absolute blast talking with him and I learned a ton.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to encourage you to check out his website, which is ChristopherJohnstonWriter.com.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: There will be a link to that in the show notes.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I also encourage you to hit him up on Twitter, and you can find him at C ChrisWright on Twitter.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: So make sure and do that, especially if you enjoyed this conversation.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Let him know, because I know he would appreciate that, and uh he would love for you to check out his work as well.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have one more thing to ask you.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: I would be extremely grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review of the show in iTunes.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: Those reviews are extremely helpful for reaching new listeners, and I read and appreciate every single review.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: And also, if you know of anybody who would enjoy these episodes, please consider sharing them with those people.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that they would enjoy it, and it just kind of helps spread the love.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we writers tend to be a little bit isolated sometimes.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is why I created the Daily Writer community.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's why people in your life appreciate it when you share good resources with them.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this podcast is one of those resources that you can definitely share.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com, and I will see you tomorrow.