{"id":1570,"date":"2017-07-25T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2017\/07\/25\/katherine-boos-15-rules-for-narrative-nonfiction-now-this-is-a-must-read\/"},"modified":"2024-10-17T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T17:12:11","slug":"katherine-boos-15-rules-for-narrative-nonfiction-now-this-is-a-must-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2017\/07\/25\/katherine-boos-15-rules-for-narrative-nonfiction-now-this-is-a-must-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Katherine Boo’s 15 rules for narrative nonfiction \u2014 now this is a “must-read”"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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When I first came across Katherine Boo\u2019s work in journalism school, I was immediately taken with her ability to expose injustice while weaving gorgeous narratives. I carved up her stories in The Washington Post and The New Yorker with a black pen, hoping I could figure out their magic.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cI\u2019ve come to believe quite strongly that the American reading public is more hungry and sophisticated than we give it credit for. What is this convention in journalism that every reader has to get every line? They don\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Next I devoured Boo\u2019s book, \u201cBehind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity,\u201d which extended her probing and compassionate portrayal of poverty to India. Before becoming a journalist, I had spent nearly two years working with grass-roots groups in Mumbai slums just like Annawadi, the one she spent three years chronicling for the book. I\u2019d been so upset by journalistic portrayals of these neighborhoods that I wrote an entire master\u2019s thesis about the subject. Now, finally, here was an account that took slum residents seriously as protagonists in their own lives, without dismissing the inequality and corruption that stymied them.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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When I learned that Boo was speaking at the Mayborn Conference in Grapevine, Texas, this year, I secretly hoped she\u2019d give a crash course in her craft. But I\u2019ve heard enough journalism keynotes to know that speakers are more likely to rehash their career paths or pontificate on subjects they\u2019ve written about. So I was pleasantly surprised on Friday when Boo announced that she planned to give us our money\u2019s worth by sharing 15 rules that guide her during the reporting and writing process.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cAt our worst, we can be cynical processing machines,\u201d turning human suffering into entertainment, Boo said of narrative journalists. The antidote, she explained, is to not to fall in love with the craft too much, but rather to \u201cview it with a gimlet eye.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Here are her 15 rules for writing responsibly, with some slight paraphrasing:<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Katherine Boo at the Mayborn Conference. Junebug Clark\/Mayborn School of Journalism at UNT<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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1. It\u2019s not enough to tell the stories of victims. I also need to investigate perps.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo doesn\u2019t stop at spinning yarns about the triumphs and travails of the poor. It\u2019s equally important for her to hold powerful people accountable for wrongdoing. \u201cI need to name their names,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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2. I let what I hate give me wing.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo has been dealing with a degenerative illness since childhood. \u201cGetting mad gets me off my butt,\u201d she said. A lot of her work has been motivated by her irritation at reading about \u201cpassive, monosyllabic poor people that kept getting rescued by selfless white heroes.\u201d It doesn\u2019t matter what pisses you off, she says, as long as you pay attention to that feeling. \u201cWriting against\u201d is a good compass \u201cuntil you know what you\u2019re writing for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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3. I\u2019m not the sum of my best or most difficult circumstances, and neither are the people I report on.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cJust as important as conditions are the ideas in people\u2019s heads. There\u2019s a pernicious tendency to suppress this truth when it comes to documenting low-income people,\u201d Boo said. She tries to show her subjects \u201cas they think, decide and act,\u201d rather than only depicting their body language or how they are acted upon. That helps the reader engage from a place of respect, not pity.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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4. When I\u2019m first settling into a place, I tell myself that strong presumptions will make me miss what\u2019s happening.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cIt\u2019s OK to go into a place a little uncertain, a little clueless,\u201d Boo said, as long as you\u2019re less clueless when you come out.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cMy presence isn\u2019t doing them a favor,\u201d she said of her subjects. \u201cThey\u2019re doing me a favor. They\u2019re enriching my life, and if I stop seeing that, it\u2019s going to show in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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5. Memory sucks.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo says she reports out everything she can, from the events of a crime to the contents of a suitcase. She\u2019s found that people sometimes deny their own experiences during the fact-checking process, until she plays back video showing them their own words. After a day of reporting, she also immediately writes an email to her husband capturing the emotion of that time, even if it means staying up until 5 a.m. She knows that something will be lost if she sleeps on it.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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6. I ask myself: \u201cWhat would really get lost if this story never ran?\u201d<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo engages in an inner dialogue that keeps her going until she finds a bigger meaning for the story: \u201cAt least I\u2019ll show the dysfunction of Oklahoma\u2019s public transit system\u201d or \u201cAt least I can finger the guy who stole money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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7. Don\u2019t be a whiner.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cWean yourself off of the tit of your own ego,\u201d Boo urged. She says nonfiction writers shouldn\u2019t get wrapped up in how much sacrifice the work entails. \u201cMy presence isn\u2019t doing them a favor,\u201d she said of her subjects. \u201cThey\u2019re doing me a favor. They\u2019re enriching my life, and if I stop seeing that, it\u2019s going to show in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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8. I don\u2019t try to find simple characters.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cIf you\u2019re searching for a super-virtuous character, you\u2019re denying \u2026 the infinite variety of the human condition,\u201d Boo said. \u201cWhen I select people to write about, I\u2019m looking for individuals who don\u2019t necessarily fit existing blueprints and whose choices and actions reveal the most about the societies they inhabit.\u201d Boo also doesn\u2019t believe in making herself a character in the story so that readers will have someone to identify with, as many of her editors have encouraged. \u201cIf you have this image of me constantly present, that distracts you from what\u2019s going on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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9. I try never to forget that my \u201csubjects\u201d are really my co-investigators.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cThey are experiencing more viscerally than we ever will the barriers in their lives,\u201d Boo said. When she was reporting in Annawadi, she let children there use her camera to record whatever they wanted. Many of them decided to film a lake of sewage that bordered the slum, which helped Boo realize that the lake itself could be a character that revealed the area\u2019s public health dangers.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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10. Though I seek out the public record maniacally, I don\u2019t assume that it\u2019s accurate.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Government documents and other public records often reflect the interests and perspectives of those in power, Boo noted. So she makes sure to supplement these sources with \u201chang-out journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cYou know better than anyone where the essential courage of the enterprise resides\u2014with the people who risk retaliation, share their stories and help journalists build piece by piece a crucial alternative public record of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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11. To calibrate my compass as a writer, I share my work widely and not only with journalists.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Instead of just talking to other reporters, Boo recommends getting feedback from a variety of readers. Her 12-year-old nephew told her he couldn\u2019t smell the slums when he read a draft of her book. Others reported when they started to get bored. Boo said that, when she was younger, her instinct when hearing criticism was to \u201cself-justify.\u201d But she realized, \u201cI often can\u2019t see the problems until I get off my high horse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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12. I often tell myself that editors and publishers don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to sell.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo writes mainly about poverty and has frequently been told that readers aren\u2019t interested. \u201cI\u2019ve come to believe quite strongly that the American reading public is more hungry and sophisticated than we give it credit for. What is this convention in journalism that every reader has to get every line? They don\u2019t.\u201d Instead of dumbing stories down, she says we should trust the momentum of the narrative to carry readers even through parts they don\u2019t understand. (Besides winning the National Book Award, \u201cBehind the Beautiful Forevers\u201d became a New York Times bestseller.) When you wonder whether anybody cares about the story you\u2019re pursuing, Boo says to tell yourself. \u201c\u2018They\u2019ll listen if I find it,\u2019 and make yourself go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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13. Even if I\u2019m telling urgent stories, I can still experiment with form and make it a creative process.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cIf your subject, like mine, is one people don\u2019t necessarily want to read about, you have to do that,\u201d Boo said. She encourages journalists to \u201cread above your station.\u201d Her own work has been inspired by the novelists Roberto Bola\u00f1o and George Eliot, among others.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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14. When after a lot of effort I can\u2019t pin something down, I force myself to put that uncertainty on the page.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Boo says she fact-checks \u201clike a madwoman,\u201d because those who have less power already have to work harder than anyone else to be believed. If she gets a small detail wrong, she knows that will be used to discredit the story as a whole and harm her subjects. Boo has taken to videotaping many of her interviews to provide evidence in case the story comes under fire. When she can\u2019t find confirmation for something, she makes that explicit. \u201cGetting it right matters way more than whether you can make people care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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15. If my work is successful, I don\u2019t go and get high on my own supply.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cYou know better than anyone where the essential courage of the enterprise resides\u2014with the people who risk retaliation, share their stories and help journalists build piece by piece a crucial alternative public record of our time,\u201d Boo said.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Bonus rule: Mind the gap.<\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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It wasn\u2019t one of her official guidelines, but during Q&A, Boo gave advice on finding story ideas. She suggested journalists follow the London Tube\u2019s injunction and \u201cmind the gap\u201d: What is the thing that everyone has the theory on, but no one has done the reporting? Additionally, rather than \u201cfollow the money\u201d or \u201cfollow the lies,\u201d she says \u201cfollow the policy.\u201d Policies are changing rapidly, and the impacts on poor communities are often obscured. Instead of just gravitating to the aberrant, which is our journalistic instinct, Boo suggests also thinking about ways we are interconnected.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Mayborn Conference for storytellers, the Pulitzer winner warns against falling in love with the craft too much, and says that \u201cgetting it right matters way more than whether you can make people care\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"topics":[],"authors":[9],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays-on-craft","authors-katia-savchuk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKatherine Boo's 15 rules for narrative nonfiction \u2014 now this is a "must-read" - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2017\/07\/25\/katherine-boos-15-rules-for-narrative-nonfiction-now-this-is-a-must-read\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Katherine Boo's 15 rules for narrative nonfiction \u2014 now this is a "must-read" - 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