What are the challenges in teaching magazine writing to students more experienced with newspaper style stories and reporting?
A. One of the challenges is the idea of the idea. In a newspaper it’s sort of the news of the day, whereas in a magazine you have to write something that can stand up on its own. Eighty percent of your job is finding that great story. If you have a good idea from the beginning and you really concentrate on your reporting then your writing will probably be the easiest of the three parts. The problem is that the writing gets all the attention. But that’s one thing I’ll emphasize – the writing. I can remember so clearly writing my first story for Esquire, and my editor telling me he was going to have to beat the newspaper out of me. And that’s true, because of things like deadlines every newspaper writer has crutches – story templates, you know – that they rely on. In magazines you shouldn’t do that. Stories should be different every time out. It’s just a different mindset going into it, you have to be able to switch it up. Q. How do you go about getting the depth of detail seen in some o
