From Journalist to Novelist
I’m often asked how my real-life experience as a journalist influenced my career as a writer. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my work as a reporter and anchor became incredibly valuable as I began writing novels.
After being in TV news for six years, I learned to work quickly and efficiently. After all, everything is about deadlines. There’s a deadline for the noon show, the 6 o’clock show, the ten o’clock, and so on. And not only do reporters have to complete assignments, the finished stories have to be accurate, compelling, and brief. Most of the time, my own stories were never longer than a minute and twenty seconds. That’s not much time to get in the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How!
I loved that, as a journalist, every day was different and new—my stories ranged from house fires and Army helicopter training to elections and even a lost Emu. After the first several months, I became quite adept at thinking on my feet, shifting gears to cover breaking news, and being comfortable interviewing everyone from the governor and jail wardens to teachers and peanut farmers. I often wrote my scripts in the news van (going over bumps in the road), arriving back at the TV station with just an hour to edit video and voice the story.
When I decided to leave the news business, it was bittersweet. I loved my job, but I had a small child at home and had been working the 2 am to 10 am shift for several years. I was ready to try something new that gave me more time with my family.
It was then that I decided to write novels, drawing on my experience as a journalist when it came time to brainstorm ideas, create fun and interesting characters, and describe far-flung settings. I channeled my experience researching people and places, steps crucial in making a story authentic and believable.
But despite my experience as a journalist, I’ll admit, my first attempts at novel writing were not pretty. In my eagerness to hold a completed novel in my hand, I didn’t take the time to plot the steps of my story; I just sat down and wrote. As a result, my novels meandered and went in a million different directions. When I tried to rein everything back in, I might as well have been trying to catch raindrops in a sieve.
There are many authors, including many of my good friends, who can sit down at a keyboard and create whatever comes to mind, building chapter after chapter as they type, but it’s not a method that works for me. After my first couple of tries, I had to completely re-think my approach. Like going on a trip, I needed a road map, down to my final destination, or in the case of a novel, a satisfying ending.
I began to outline, paying attention to story structure, and getting to know my characters before I started page one of a manuscript. I’d never had this luxury in the news business, but I found that it was absolutely necessary for a novel. Now that I make time to plan, the actual writing part is much more fun. The added bonus is this: the revising is a lot less painful.
I’ve found now that writing a novel straight through, quickly, from start to finish, works best for me. Like in the news business, it’s crucial to get down the “bones” of the story—then go back and revise and polish. And though my first two manuscripts were terrible (each was approximately 80,000 words), completion is important, even if a novel will never see the light of day. There’s a huge sense of accomplishment when you can type ‘The End.’ Otherwise, you run the risk of just gathering a pile of ten or fifteen-thousand-word false starts and the foreboding feeling that being a published author will always be outside your grasp.
My time in the news business was also invaluable when it came time to work with editors. I soon (after lamenting over 10-page editorial letters outlining suggested or necessary changes) understood that their constructive feedback was not aimed at me—but squarely on making the novel stronger and expanding my abilities as a writer. Fortunately, in the news business, I’d had a tough-as-nails assistant news director who, every Monday morning, would mark the entire week’s story scripts with a red pen. If she wasn’t happy, she wouldn’t hesitate to say so. If that wasn’t great preparation for taking constructive criticism, I don’t know what is!
In the end, as an author, a foundation of strong writing is crucial—sentence structure, grammar, dialogue, structure—but the real test is in your own tenacity. It’s not glamorous, but being a writer has everything to do with dedication—being in the chair, day after day, even when you don’t want to sit at your desk or you feel less than motivated. There’s no trick or shortcut. And there’s no one (but you) to push you to write the next chapter, and the next. And no one will stand over your shoulder, encouraging you to improve your craft.
Being a writer is about being self-motivated, believing in your abilities and the stories you want to share with the world. It’s about revising and polishing even when it seems you’ve read the manuscript one hundred times. There’s no substitute for the hard work.
So, did my real-life experience as a journalist influence my career as a writer? Definitely. Every day, I feel blessed and lucky to be an author. And I will keep doing the hard work, because I wouldn’t trade the life of a writer for the world.
—
After six years behind the anchor desk at two CBS affiliates, Laura McNeill moved near the Alabama Gulf Coast to write full time. Her accolades in broadcasting include awards from the Associated Press, including Best News Anchor and Best Specialized Reporter.
Laura is passionate about books, coffee, travel, family, and yoga. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University and is pursuing her Ph.D. in instructional leadership from the University of Alabama.
A native of Upstate New York, Laura now lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her two growing boys. Sister Dear is her second domestic suspense novel.
BUY SISTER DEAR HERE
Find more about Laura on her website http://lauramcneill.com/
Category: On Writing
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
