Q&A with Sebastian Junger
So now that we’ve solved the mystery of what Harlan Corben does with his earnings, we’re ready to move on to another writer and another crime. Sebastian Junger has a new book about the Boston Strangler, and he talked to Heather Marie Graham about it for today’s Media Bistro. Here’s an excerpt:
mediabistro: The style of your writing in A Death in Belmont is part history lesson, part magazine feature, part novel. Was there a conscious decision on your part to write it like that?
Junger: Yes and no. A good paragraph is a good paragraph. You have to go back and forth. Too much drama is shallow, and too much history can be boring. Powerful journalistic writing simply uses facts in the same dramatic way that novelists use fiction. Dramatic structure is dramatic structure, and whether you build it out of verified facts or things that you think of, it’s the same. The plot can follow the rise and fall of dramatic action in nonfiction, too
If you want people to read your journalism, you have to give some thought to how you’re going to assemble all these facts. But, you can assemble them artfully and compellingly, and that’s the job of someone who wants the public to read his work.
Want to hear more? Junger’s speaking on an MB Panel on Wednesday night in New York.
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