A new appreciation for the craft

January 3, 2013

Jeff Pearlman did this interview with SI‘s senior baseball writer Tom Verducci and Rob Neyer added his thoughts based on a single passage, which I reproduce here because I think it’s going to change my professional life:

Imagine Johnny All-Star tells you his father used to throw bottle caps to him to hit in their basement to improve his hand-eye coordination. Great story. But now you’ve got to ask him to describe the basement, to tell you what drinks the caps came from (Yoo-Hoo? Root beer? Ginger Ale?), to tell you if he ever nailed his father in the eye with one of those caps—all the things that turn a generic story into a specific time and place for the reader. The time to think about those details is not when you’re sitting down to write, but as you’re listening and reporting. There are great reporters who are not great writers. I can’t think of any great writer that’s not a great reporter.

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